The feelings of the poor for their afflicted relatives are often of the deepest kind, and the utmost distress is entailed upon them by these cruel separations from those they love. In one case, a native of Ipswich, too poor to go by the railway, walked to London and back on foot, a distance of 140 miles, for the sole purpose of visiting his wife, who had been wickedly banished to Peckham House, London. In other cases parents have pleaded so piteously to be conveyed to their children, that the commissioners have suggested that the expenses should be paid out of the parish funds, but the authorities who had contrived the original proceeding in order to save two or three shillings a head, could not of course be induced to furnish money for so sentimental a purpose. The commissioners have resolutely refused their sanction to such disgraceful transactions whenever they have come within their knowledge and jurisdiction--one instance out of many which prove that, however much the borough authorities may denounce them as a centralized power, they have done excellent service in checking local ignorance, selfishness, and inhumanity. If we now turn to consider the condition of private asylums, we shall find much in them to praise as well as to condemn. When men of reputation, acknowledged skill, and character--such as Drs. Conolly, Forbes Winslow, Sutherland, and Munro, of London; Drs. Hitch, Noble, Newington, Fox, in the provinces, have the management of private asylums, the public need be under no apprehension of patients being improperly received, illegally detained, or cruelly and unscientifically treated. The licensed houses in the metropolitan district directly under the control of the Lunacy commissioners, amounting to forty-one in number, represent, without doubt, the fairest specimens of these establishments. Liable as they are at any moment to the inspection of the commissioners, and presided over as many of them are by the most eminent members of the profession, they are generally maintained in a high state of efficiency. They are principally devoted to the care of the higher classes of the community, and afford perhaps the nearest approach yet made to a perfect method of treatment, being conducted in most cases on the principle of a private family. The bolts, bars, high walls, and dismal airing-courts of the public asylum are either unknown, or so hidden as no longer to irritate the susceptible mind of the lunatic. The unwise division of the sexes is not as a rule adopted. Scrupulous attention to dress and all the forms of polite society are enjoined alike for their own sake, and as a method of interesting patients in the daily life of the community. When we partook of the hospitalities of one of these establishments, we could detect nothing in the countenances or the appearance of the guests which was characteristic of their condition: the restless eye, the incoherent conversation, the