There are few subjects on which a book could be written more interesting to thoughtful men than the experiences and confessions of a recovered lunatic. If such an one could remember with distinctness, and relate with perspicuity, the various phases of intellectual aberration and of emotional perversion through which he had passed, he might produce a work capable of competing for public favor with the confessions of an English Opium Ester. And if he had accelerated his own progress towards convalescence by energetic attempts to regain self-control, he might rival the lesson of self-victory taught in that astonishing production.

The last number of the Psychological Journal contains an article on the Asylum Journal, dictated by so much liberality of spirit and such entire absence of the petty rivalries which too often influence journalists, that we cannot satisfy our conscience without tendering our thanks to the learned Editor, and assuring him of our appreciation of that generosity which sees a fellow-laborer in the great field of mental science where a less unselfish person would only have recognised an antagonist He says, with perfect truth, that the Association, of which this Journal is the organ, disclaimed from the first any intention of establishing a periodical in rivalry or opposition to his own, and we can assure him that the desire to avoid the appearance of such opposition has even actuated our choice of the form and mode of publication. The establishment of this Journal is but the development of one of the original objects of the Association, expressed in its earliest regulations, namely, the publication of papers written by the members on subjects connected with insanity. The execution of this primary object of the Association was commenced in the year 1843, but was soon discontinued! probably for want of some one to take a lead in its developement.

Among the most miserable asylums for the insane, the asylums for boroughs were until lately conspicuous. Inconvenient buildings, unfavorably situated, and regarded as only inferior appendages to hospitals for the sick, were assigned to the insane poor both of boroughs and some of our largest towns, and presented examples of every evil that could be accumulated on mental affliction. In some instances, as at Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester, new asylums have now been erected, better situated, superintended by medical men devoting their whole time to them, and ranking among the most improved asylums in the country. A few of the old examples, however, yet remain.

At the Baiter sessions of the year 1846, fifteen justices of this county were appointed a committee, to superintend the erecting or providing of an asylum for the pauper lunatics, in terms of the Act 8th and 9th Victoria, Cap. 126. And at a meeting held on the 80th of August, 1847, the committee directed their clerk to advertise for a site for the asylum, according to the rules of the Commissioners in Lunacy. They finally selected the ground on which the asylum has been erected—eighty-six acres of the Brentwood Hall estate, the same having been purchased for the sum of £8000. After obtaining the sanction of the Court of Quarter Sessions, the committee proceeded to take farther steps in the execution of their commission, and at a meeting held on the 25th October, 1848, they resolved to select a certain number of architects, not exceeding ten, who should be invited to send in plans for the asylum, and that the sum of £100 should be awarded to the second best plan, and £50 to the third best. The committee having availed themselves of the advice and assistance of the county surveyor, and also of a medical gentleman connected with asylums, and having taken their opinion on the comparative merits of the respective plans, resolved on accepting the plan of Mr. H. E. Kendall, Junr., of 83 Brunswick: Square, London, as the best offered to them; which, after having been altered and amended to the satisfaction of the Commissioners, was submitted to the January session, 1850, for the approbation of the Court.

The personal of some interesting remarks in the last number of the Asylum Journal, by Dr. Manley, on prolonged fasting and the refusal of food by insane patients, in which he advocates the introduction of food through the fauces “by means of any ordinary funnel,” rather than by the stomach pomp, leads me to offer the following observations upon this subject, as well for the purpose of describing the instrument I have for many years been in the habit of using in this asylum, as of urging upon those engaged in the treatment of the insane the great importance in certain cases of introducing into the stomach larger quantities of nutriment and stimulants than are usually taken when this is left to the voluntary efforts of the patient, or administered by any of the usual processes of feeding.

In the October number of the Asylum Journal, an account was given of an inquest that had been held at the Asylum for the county of Norwich, on a patient who had died, having at the time of hit decease, an ununited and undetected fracture of the ribs. For many reasons it was a case of great interest. First, the liability of such injuries to be inflicted before the patient is sent to the asylum, of which no information is given. Secondly, the probability of the injury remaining undetected at the time of admission or for a lengthened period afterwards. Thirdly, the probability of the injury being laid to the charge of ill-treatment in the asylum. Fourthly, the crimination and recrimination produced amongst the officers of the asylum by such imputations on imperfect evidence. Fifthly, the great difficulty that will always exist in fixing the time at which an injury wag inflicted by appearances observed at a long subsequent period.