From the sum you propose to receive from the patients, intended to occupy the new building, I conclude you are providing for patients of the middle ranks of life, a class hardly less to be commiserated, when thus afflicted, than the very poorest, since the expense and difficulty of private management, may bring to ruin a respectable family, as well as expose it to great personal dangers. There would, I think, be considerable objection to the accumulation of 40 patients of this class, in three contiguous rooms, as proposed in the hints for pauper lunatics. You purpose building for 50 patients, and as you probably intend to accommodate both sexes, the number of each sex may be very suitable for the accommodation of three contiguous rooms, which, of course, need not be so large as those in the Wakefield Asylum. It would be difficult to offer a detailed plan, without knowing more than we do of your local circumstances, and the classes of patients you purpose to admit. I doubt, however, whether you can do better than to adopt the general form of the Wakefield Asylum, and as you are providing for only a small number, it deserves consideration whether all the rooms might not be advantageously placed on the ground floor. This plan affords great facilities to easy inspection, and safe communication with airing grounds, and the roof might project so far over the building, as to form an excellent collonnade for the patients; which seems peculiarly desirable under an American Sun. With these views, I send a sketch drawn by the Architect whose plan is to be adopted at Wakefield; and though it may not be, in many respects, adapted to your particular wants, yet I hope it will not be altogether useless. Should it be thought too expensive, I think the rooms, 1, 2, and 3, might be dispensed with, and rooms marked "attendants, sick and bath," might be appropriated to the patients during the day. The attendants room is not a requisite, though it has been thought that it would be more agreeable to patients of superior rank, not to have the society of a servant. This, however, chiefly applies to the convalescents, and these might occupy the room marked 'sick', whilst the middle class, and the attendants, would be in the centre, marked "attendants." A sick and bath room might probably be obtained in the galleries: if you are inclined for the sake of appearance, to make the centre building two stories high, you might bring the wings nearer to the centre, and accommodate most of the convalescent patients with bed rooms in the upper story. In this case, perhaps it would be desirable to give the wings a radiating form. You will however be best able to modify the sketch to your particular wants, if the general idea should meet your approbation.