It is only, we believe, in the metropolitan county asylums, which should be model establishments, that the grey prison dress is retained. In the majority of county asylums the smock-frock of the district is used, and the patient moves about undistinguished from the rest of the population by any repulsive badge. In France and Belgium they manage better still. Dr. Webster, in his notes on foreign lunatic asylums, published in the _Psychological Journal of Medicine_, speaks of the bright head-dresses and vivid shawls used in France, as giving a cheerful appearance to the assembled inmates. Nothing less could be expected from the known disposition of a people of whom it has been said, that if any man among them was thrown naked into the sea, he would rise up clothed from head to foot with a sword, bag-wig, and ruffles to boot. In the present matter they have been wiser in their generation than ourselves; and we can imagine with what surprise they would learn that at Hanwell, the most celebrated English establishment for the treatment of the insane, patients are rewarded for good conduct by allowing them to wear a fancy waistcoat. This fact of itself shows the aversion to the prison garb, and the necessity of discarding it. But the same visiting committee which inspects the county gaol governs the asylum, and we regret to say that they allow the organization of the former to be introduced into the latter. In spite of these drawbacks, the progress made within the last twenty years has been immense. A walk through the wards and workshops of Colney Hatch will prove that the lunatic is at last treated as though he had human sympathy and desires, and was capable of behaving in many respects like a rational being. All large asylums possess an advantage over smaller ones in their greater ability to classify their inmates. The wards and corridors of Colney Hatch and Hanwell are so extensive that they may be likened to different streets inhabited by distinct classes. It is usual to name the compartments according to the mental condition of the patients contained in them. Thus in most asylums we have the refractory ward, the epileptic ward, the paralytic ward, the ward for dirty patients, and the convalescent ward. At Colney Hatch it is considered better to use numbers instead, as the patients soon become acquainted with the denomination of the class to which they belong, and often behave in conformity with it. Thus the lunatic, finding himself in a refractory ward, will sometimes act up to the part assigned to him, when he would otherwise be peaceable. The vice of classification is that it separates the population of an asylum into so many mental castes, which in some measure prevents that easy transition from lunacy to sanity, which it is desirable to maintain. In the choice of difficulties, however, there can be little doubt that these divisions in lunatic establishments, as at present constructed, present