One of the regulations of old Bedlam has long since been disused. The harmless lunatics were allowed to roam about the country with a tin badge--the star of St. Bethlehem--on the right arm. Tenderness towards those to whom the Almighty has denied reason is a sentiment not confined to the East. Wherever these poor creatures went they received alms and kindly entreatment. The ensign on the right arm announced to the world their lamentable condition and their need of help, and the appeal was always mercifully responded to. Aubrey thus describes their appearance and condition:-- "Till the breaking out of the Civil Wars Tom o' Bedlams did travel about the country. They had been poor distracted men, but had been put into Bedlam, where recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to go a-begging, _i. e._ they had on their left arm an armilla of tin, about four inches long; they could not get it off. They wore about their necks a great horn of an ox in a string of baudry, which, when they came to an house for alms, they did wind, and they did put the drink given them into this horn, whereto they did put the stopple. Since the wars I do not remember to have seen any one of them." The custom, however, continued long after the termination of the Civil War. It is not now the humane practice to label our fools, so that society may at once recognise them and entertain them with kindness. They still go at large in our public ways. Facilities are even given them for effecting an entrance into the learned professions. Frequently they are docketed with titles of respect, and decked with the robes of office. But however gratifying this plan may be to their personal vanity it is not unattended with cruelty. Having about them no external mark of their sad condition, they are often, through carelessness and misapprehension--not through hardness of heart--chastised with undue severity. "Poor Tom, thy horn is dry," says Edgar, in "Lear." Never may the horn of mercy be dry to such poor wretches! It is needless to say that Easter holiday-makers are no longer permitted in swarms, on the payment of two-pence each, to race through the St. Bethlehem galleries, insulting with their ribaldry the most pitiable of God's afflicted creatures. A useful lesson, however, is taught to the few strangers who still, as merely curious observers, obtain admission for a few minutes within the walls of the asylum--a lesson conveyed, not by the sufferings of the patients, so much as by the gentle discipline, the numerous means of innocent amusement, and the air of quiet contentment, which are the characteristics of a well-managed hospital for the insane.