Confinement is always necessary in cases of insanity, and should be enforced as early in the disease as possible. By confinement, it is to be understood that the patient should be removed from home. During his continuance at his own house he can never be kept in a tranquil state. The interruptions of his family, the loss of the accustomed obedience of his servants, and the idea of being under restraint, in a place where he considers himself the master, will be constant sources of irritation to his mind. It is also known, from considerable experience, that of those patients who have remained under the immediate care of their relatives and friends, very few have recovered. Even the visits of their friends, when they are violently disordered, are productive of great inconvenience, as they are always more unquiet and ungovernable for some time afterwards. It is a well-known fact, that they are less disposed to acquire a dislike to those who are strangers, than to those with whom they have been intimately acquainted; they become therefore less dangerous, and are more easily restrained. It ought to be understood that no interruption to this discipline should defeat its salutary operation. On this account more patients recover in a public hospital, than in a private house, appropriated for the reception of lunatics. In the former, the superintendants persist in a plan laid down, and seldom deviate from their established rules: such asylum being a place of charitable relief, they are indifferent about pleasing the friends and relatives of the patient, who cannot there intrude to visit them at their option. In a private receptacle emolument is the first object, and however wisely they may have formed their regulations, they soon feel themselves subordinate to the caprice and authority of those by whom they are paid.