Both these countries have vastly greater facilities for accurately determining the number of insane persons living at any one time within their borders, than are possible in the United States. The population is much more homogeneous; it is greatly more dense, there being about 25,000,000 of people on a number of square miles less than are contained in some of our single States. The people are not accustomed to frequent change of residence from one portion of the country to another, and all classes are readily reached and their conditions of health determined. In these countries, so favorably constituted in these respects, there have existed Boards of Commissioners in Lunacy, for many years, whose duties are concerned solely with the insane, and their system of inspection appears to be wellnigh perfect. I therefore propose to introduce some of the statistics furnished by these Boards, from which we may learn in what direction has been the tendency of insanity there. In this procedure I shall divide those which I use from both Boards into periods of ten years each, the first, from 1859 to 1868, inclusive, and the second, from 1869 to 1878, inclusive; giving the numbers of increase and decrease of both _private_ and _pauper_ patients, as they appear in the reports, distributed in asylums, licensed dwellings, and with relatives and friends. From the report of the Commissioners for England: first, as to private patients, the whole number was, in 1859, four thousand nine hundred and eighty (4,980): and there was an _increase_ of this class in registered hospitals, during the first decade, to the number of two hundred and thirty (230); and in licensed houses, to three hundred and twenty-six (326). Of this class of patients residing with relatives and others, there has been an _increase_ of one hundred and fifty-two (152); and in naval and military hospitals, of eighteen (18). Of this class of patients in county and borough asylums, there was a _decrease_ of eight (8). Second, as to pauper patients;[1] there has been an _increase_ of these, in county and borough asylums, amounting to nine thousand eight hundred and forty-four (9,844); and in registered hospitals, of one hundred and ninety-six (196); and in workhouses, of twenty-seven hundred and twenty-one (2,721); and residing with relatives and others, of one thousand and thirty-one (1,031). There has been a _decrease_ of this class residing in licensed houses, of six hundred and ninety-eight (698).