and is under the necessity of being again returned within its walls. Commodious rooms contiguous to the farm-buildings are now in the course of construction at the Somerset County Asylum; and there is every reason to believe that the patients will derive benefit by residing in these apartments, which at once possess a domestic character, and afford every facility to carry on agricultural pursuits." It strikes us forcibly that the commissioners have tended to create the evil they deprecate in not protesting against the erection of gigantic asylums; but it is cheering to find that the idea of supplemental buildings possessing a "domestic character" has taken possession of their minds, and that they are now enforcing it on the minds of others with their well-known zeal and ability. The Devon Asylum, among others, has adopted the plan; and its accomplished physician, Dr. Bucknill, the editor of the _Asylum Journal_, bears important testimony to the great advantages to be derived from it. "I have recommended the erection of an inexpensive building, detached from, but within the grounds of the present asylum, in preference to an extension of the asylum itself. My reasons for this recommendation are, that such a building will afford a useful and important change for patients for whom a change from the wards is desirable. The system of placing patients in detached buildings, resembling in their construction and arrangements an ordinary English house, has been found to afford beneficial results in the so-called cottages which this institution at present possesses. _These cottages are much preferred to the wards by the patients themselves, and permission to reside in them is much coveted._ I am also convinced that such auxiliary buildings can be erected at much less expense than would be incurred by the enlargement and alteration of the asylum itself. I propose that in the new building the patients shall cook and wash for themselves."