in the Union, it has seemed formidable enough to require an act of the legislature forbidding the marriage of cousins.--The last we shall mention, among the agencies concerned in vitiating the quality of the brain, is that of excessive or long-continued intemperance; and for many years it has been a most fruitful source of mental deterioration: not, however, in the way which is generally imagined; for, though it may add some effect to a popular harangue to attribute a very large proportion of the existing cases of insanity directly to intemperance, yet, as a matter of fact, very few, probably, can be fairly traced to this cause solely. And yet, at the present time, it is unquestionably responsible for a very large share of the mental infirmities which afflict the race. The germ of the evil requires a second, perhaps a third, generation to bring it to maturity. And then it may appear in the form of mania, or idiocy, or intemperance. As a cause of idiocy, its potency has been placed beyond a doubt. Dr. S.G. Howe, whose thorough investigations entitle his conclusions to great weight, says, that, "directly or indirectly, alcohol is productive of a great proportion of the idiocy which now burdens the Commonwealth." There is this curious feature of its deteriorating influence, that the primary effect is not always persistent, but may be removed by removing the cause. In the Report of the Hospital at Columbus, Ohio, for 1861, the physician, Dr. Hills, says of one of his patients, that his father, in the first part of his married life, was strictly temperate, "and had four children, all yet remaining healthy and sound. From reverses of fortune, he became discouraged and intemperate for some years, having in this period four children, two of whom we had now received into the asylum; a third one was idiotic, and the fourth epileptic. He then reformed in habits, had three more children, all now grown to maturity, and to this period remaining sound and healthy." Another similar case follows. An intemperate parent had four children, two of whom became insane, one was an idiot, and the fourth died young, in "fits." Four children born previous to the period of intemperance, and two after the parent's reformation, are all sound and healthy. Often, it is well known, intemperance in the child is the hereditary sequel of intemperance in the parent. The irresistible craving, without the preliminary gradual indulgence, and in spite of judicious education, generally distinguishes it from intemperance resulting from other causes.