So far as I recollect, in all the cases of insanity that have gone to Retreats from under my care, this mode of management has been spoken of by some, and generally by many, as the only proper mode. The public need to be instructed and reformed on this point. It is a common observation that the insane are apt to look upon their best and most intimate friends as their enemies. Why is this? It is clear, that it is in part to be ascribed to the influence of deception, waking up, as might be expected, feelings of resentment and enmity in the bosom of the insane, which would not otherwise be there. This point I have commented upon in the Chapter on Insanity, and I need not dwell upon it here. The extent to which deception is practised upon the insane cannot be fully appreciated, except by those whose attention has been specially called to this subject. As I have already remarked in regard to children, so also it is with the insane—deception is so common, that people often make use of it almost unconsciously. The whole course of management on the part of their friends, is often characterized throughout by an absence of candor and veracity. The tendency of such a course is invariably to increase insanity, making it more intense and obstinate. And not only so, but it modifies to a greater or less degree its character. Deception prompts the insane man to exercise his ingenuity in forming plans to foil and circumvent his deceivers, whom he supposes very naturally to be his enemies. Of course, new feelings and thoughts are thus excited in his bosom, giving in some measure a new cast to his insanity. I will here relate a case that illustrates these remarks. The friends of an insane gentleman determined to send him to a Retreat by stratagem. For this purpose, he was induced by one of them to go a journey with him. On, their way, his friend proposed to him to visit an Insane Retreat as a matter of curiosity. When they arrived there, he was given to understand that he was to remain as an inmate. Great was his rage at being so grossly deceived. After the first burst of indignation was passed, he saw that it was of no use to say anything or to make any resistance. He was a shrewd man, and therefore, as a matter of policy, he submitted with apparent cheerfulness to his new situation. He did not forget, as the insane sometimes fortunately do, the wrong which his friends had done him, and as he was decoyed there by stratagem, it is no wonder that he at length made his escape by stratagem also. He came out, as might have been expected, with his insanity more thoroughly fixed than it was when he went in, and he added to it a deep hatred of Retreats, and of course of the man who had betrayed him into one.