In a community like this, Public Opinion is the controlling force. That subtle, resistless power is always aiding or frustrating the object for which the community exists. Public Opinion sides with a competent superintendent, and serves him as an assiduous, omnipresent police. Under the coercive system once attempted here, the public opinion of the Asylum applauded a man who smuggled a bottle of whiskey into the building, and invited his friends into his room to drink it. An inmate who should now attempt such a crime would be shunned by the best two thirds of the whole institution. One of their number, suddenly overcome by temptation, who should return to the Asylum drunk, they would all receive as cordially as before; but they would regard with horror or contempt a man who should bring temptation into the building, and place it within reach of those who had fled hither to avoid it. The French have a verb,--_se dépayser_,--to uncountry one's self, to get out of the groove, to drop undesirable companions and forsake haunts that are too alluring, by going away for a while, and, in returning, not resuming the old friends and habits. How necessary this is to some of the slaves of alcohol every one knows. To many of them restoration is impossible without it, and not difficult with it. To all such, what a refuge is a well-conducted asylum like this! Merely being here, out of the coil of old habits, haunts, pleasures, comrades, temptations, which had proved too much for them a thousand times,--merely being away for a time, so that they can calmly survey the scenes they have left and the life they have led,--is itself half the victory.