first weeks of her craziness, they are converting her into a chronic burthen, seeing that she will probably live on to a good old age in the asylum, and cause them an ultimate expenditure of hundreds of pounds. To the swifter removal after the outbreak of the disorder we must look for a permanent remedy; but in the mean time something must be done to disembarrass the public asylums of the dead-weight of hopeless cases, if we seriously intend to take advantage of the curative appliances we already possess. The commissioners seem inclined to favour the erection of separate asylums for those who are beyond the reach of medical art. To us it seems that the more economical plan would be to apportion certain wards in the various workhouses for the reception of chronic cases, and to draft off the idiots alone to special establishments. By this means our water-logged asylums would speedily right themselves, and again become what they should never have ceased to be--hospitals for the _cure_ of the insane. At present we encourage an elaborate system for the manufacture of life-long lunatics. It is well known that the cures of early cases of insanity throughout England amount to 45 per cent., and at Bethlehem and St. Luke's, where no others are received, the cures have amounted to 62 per cent. and 72 per cent. respectively; whereas at Colney Hatch, Hanwell, and the Surrey County Asylum, the three great receptacles for the weepings of the metropolitan workhouses, the average cures do not exceed 15 per cent. If we take the lowest averages of cures, there is still a difference of 30 per cent. of human creatures who sink down into the cheerless night of chronic dementia and idiotcy, or who dream away the remainder of their lives in hopeless childishness. Another ground of complaint is, that a degree of clerk's work is imposed upon the medical superintendents of large asylums which is quite inconsistent with a proper discharge of their chief duty--the recovery of their patients. Irrespective of the routine-labour of making daily and quarterly and yearly reports, which is very considerable, they have far more to do in their strictly professional capacity than they can possibly accomplish. The three great asylums near the metropolis contain upwards of 3,000 patients, or the population of a good-sized country town; and their moral and physical training is confided to exactly six medical men, or as many as will be found in an hospital of a hundred beds! It is needless to observe how little attention can be paid to each individual, and that the more promising patients must be inevitably swamped in the sea of hopeless lunatics. As long as our asylums remain mere houses of detention, the want of medical superintendence is not so apparent; but immediately these establishments are restored to their proper functions, we predict that the evil will become too glaring to last.