It seems to me not a little surprising that in Scotland, which is signalized for its general intelligence, love of order, and I may add really beneficent laws, the country should be so far behind in everything connected with vital statistics. I have already noticed that it possesses no coroner’s inquest. This is a positive disgrace. Deaths are continually occurring from violence, but of which not the slightest notice is taken by procurators fiscal, magistrates, or police; indeed, these functionaries seldom interfere except when a positive complaint is lodged. Some time ago, the medical gentleman who attends my family, mentioned to me incidentally that that morning he had been called to look at, and if possible recover, a lady who had been found hanging in her bed-room. His efforts were ineffectual; the lady was stone dead; and it was announced by her relatives that she had died suddenly. In the usual course of things, she was buried. Now, in this case, not the slightest inquiry was made by any public officer, and whether it was a death from suicide or from murder nobody can tell. The procurator fiscal, whose duty it is to take cognizance of such deaths, is, of course, not to blame, for he has not the faculty of omniscience. The preventive and detective functions of the officer of health would be the more efficient from the exercise of any such functions being incidental to ordinary functions of acknowledged every day importance, which must lead his visits and inspection to be regarded as _primâ facie_ services of beneficence and kindness to all who surround the deceased. The comparative inefficiency of officers whose functions are principally judiciary is well exemplified in some remarks made by Mr. Hill Burton, Advocate, in a communication on the subject of interments in Scotland.