Dr. Conolly, in his lately-published volume on "The Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraint," looks upon the banishment of the strait-waistcoat with a just pride, for to him we owe the abolition of the last mechanical means of coercing temporary violence; but we cannot participate in his fear that the selfishness and ignorance of human nature will ever be able to restore the gloomy reign which has at last been brought to a close. We can no more go back to the days of hobbles and handcuffs, chains and stripes, than we can go back to the days of the rack and thumbscrew. We may have, it is true, lamentable exposures, such as took place at Bethlehem in 1851, but the depth of the public outcry, and the promptness with which the irregularities were remedied, is of itself an evidence that general opinion will prove the corrective of occasional abuses. Nor can we, from a fancied apprehension of the return to obsolete practices, join in the fanaticism which forbids the use of the strait-jacket as a means of coercion under all circumstances. There can be no doubt that the treatment which requires its frequent use is a bad one; but to deny that there are cases which call for its restraints would be to deny the evidence of our senses. Mr. Wilkes, the late medical officer to the Stafford County Lunatic Asylum, and now Commissioner in Lunacy, in answer to a series of questions issued by the Commissioners on Lunacy upon the subject, makes the following remarks:-- "With every disposition to advocate the disuse of restraint to the utmost extent, I am compelled to admit that the result of my experience in this asylum, up to the present time, leads me to the conclusion that cases may occur in which its temporary employment may be both necessary and justifiable. Besides the occasional use of some means of confining the hands when feeding patients by means of the stomach-pump, a more prolonged use of restraint was necessary in two cases which occurred some years since. One of these was a man of so determined a suicidal disposition, that on more than one occasion he nearly effected his purpose by trying to beat his head and face against the walls, to throw himself from tables and chairs, and thrust spoons and other articles down his throat. When first admitted, he was not suspected of having any suicidal tendency, and for some weeks did not show any; as a matter of precaution he slept in a padded room, and one night he so battered his head with a tin vessel that he was found nearly dead from loss of blood, and his life was subsequently in much danger from extensive sloughing of the scalp. In this case it was absolutely necessary to confine the hands to keep any dressings on the head, and after the wounds had healed, and the confinement of the hands had been discontinued, he wore a thickly-padded cap for many months.