happiness, she enticed into her apartment a young female patient to whom she appeared to be attached, and having previously platted some threads of her bed-quilt into a cord, she fixed it round the neck of the young woman, and proceeded to strangle her. Fortunately, some person entered the room and unloosed the cord in time to save her. When this unhappy maniac was questioned concerning the motive which induced her to attempt the destruction of a person for whom she had manifested kindness, she very calmly replied, that as the murder of her own child was disbelieved, she wished to exhibit a convincing proof of the ferocity of her nature, that she might instantly be conveyed to Newgate and hanged, which she desired as the greatest blessing. With considerable satisfaction, we may add, that in a few months, notwithstanding her derangement had been of three years’ duration, this woman perfectly recovered, and for a considerable time performed the duties of an important and respectable office.[35] The great increase of the crime of suicide has been referred by many able physicians of the present day to the political excitement to which the minds of the people have been exposed of late years. In despotic countries, suicide and insanity are seldom heard of: the passions are checked by the nature of the government; the imagination is not elevated to an unhealthy standard; every man is compelled to follow the calling in life to which he is born, and for which he has capacity; and on this account the evil and corrupt dispositions of the mind are, to a certain extent, kept in abeyance. In republican governments, the greatest latitude is allowed to the turbulent passions; all mankind are theoretically placed on an equality; the man whose “talk is of bullocks” considers himself as fit to carry on the complicated business of government as he whose education, associations, and experience tend to qualify him for the duties of a legislator.