Under the head of mechanical restraint, the Commissioners now report that it has still further diminished, and has in some houses been absolutely abolished. However, in fifty entries made in the books of thirty-six private asylums, abuses and defects are animadverted upon in fifteen instances in regard to restraint, in twenty instances in regard to bedding and clothing, nine in regard to diet, seven in regard to cleanliness, and four in regard to management and treatment. They observe that the number of lunatics in workhouses has diminished in a very marked degree. In this Report the Commissioners take the opportunity of animadverting, also, upon the defective state of the law in regard to the property of lunatics; the good effect of the Act 8 and 9 Vict., c. 100, being lessened by this and other causes. Turning to the year 1854, nearly ten years after the Act of 1845 had been in fruitful operation, we find the Commissioners attaching importance to the alterations recently made in the law of lunacy by the three important statutes, 16 and 17 Vict., c. 70 (the "Lunacy Regulation Act" of 1853) which refers to Chancery lunatics; 16 and 17 Vict., c. 90 (an amendment of the Act under which the Board was constituted); and 16 and 17 Vict., c. 97 (the "Lunatic Asylums Act," 1853). These Acts, with 8 and 9 Vict., c. 100, and 15 and 16 Vict., c. 48, and the Acts relative to criminal lunatics, constituted at that period the code of law of lunacy. The following counties still remained unprovided for:--Sussex, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Northumberland, Durham, Cambridge, Cardigan, Carmarthen, Glamorgan, Pembroke. New private asylums were no longer licensed for paupers, in consequence of the accommodation provided for them in county asylums. Complaints having been made of the treatment of patients at Hanwell, an inquiry had been instituted, which, in the opinion of the Commissioners, justified them. They appeared to have been due to the want of efficient supervision of male patients. This Report of the Commissioners gives a series of interesting replies to a circular letter addressed to the superintendents and medical proprietors of nearly all the asylums in England and Wales, on non-restraint, upon which they observe, "as the general result which may be fairly deduced from a careful examination and review of the whole body of information thus collected, we feel ourselves fully warranted in stating that the disuse of instrumental restraint, as unnecessary and injurious to the patient, is practically the rule in nearly all the public institutions in the kingdom, and generally also in the best-conducted private asylums, even those where the restraint system, as an abstract principle admitting of no deviation or exception, has not in terms been adopted.