The conductor, accustomed though he was to all phases of humanity, looked with astonishment at the pair, as did the other passengers in their vicinity. A few words from the father, however, sufficed, and the conductor passed on while the young lady turned her face to the window. The writer chanced to be seated just behind the old gentleman, and could not forgo the desire to speak to him. With a sad face and a trembling voice the father said: "My daughter has been attending the seminary in a distant town and was succeeding remarkably. Her natural qualities, together with a great ambition, placed her in the front ranks of the school, but she studied too closely, was not careful of her health, and her poor brain has been turned. I am taking her to a private asylum where we hope she will soon be better." At the next station the old man and his daughter left the cars, but the incident, so suggestive of Shakspeare's Ophelia, awakened strange thoughts in the mind of the writer. It is an absolute fact that while the population of America increased thirty per cent. during the decade between 1870 and 1880 the insanity increase was _over one hundred and thirty-five per cent._ for the same period. Travellers by rail, by boat, or in carriages in any part of the land see large and elaborate buildings, and inquire what they are? Insane asylums! Who builds them? Each state; every county; hundreds of private individuals, and in all cases their capacity is taxed to the utmost. Why? Because men, in business and the professions, women, at home or in society, and children at school overtax their mental and nervous forces by work, worry and care. This brings about nervous disorders, indigestion, and eventually mania. It is not always trouble with the head that causes insanity. It far oftener arises from evils in other parts of the body. The nervous system determines the status of the brain. Any one who has periodic headaches; occasional dizziness; a dimness of vision; a ringing in the ears; a feverish head; frequent nausea or a sinking at the pit of the stomach, should take warning at once. The stomach and head are in direct sympathy, and if one be impaired the other can never be in order. Acute dyspepsia causes more insane suicides than any other known agency, and the man, woman or child whose stomach is deranged is not and cannot be safe from the coming on at any moment of mania in some one of its many terrible forms.