discontinuance, and the substitution of a full Annual Report was introduced and entered on the minutes, with notice by the mover that it would be called up for consideration at the meeting to be held three months after its introduction. At the meeting designated, it was accordingly taken up and extensively discussed in the “Acting Committee,” and a resolution referring it to the next stated meeting of the _Society_, with the recommendation that the measure should be there adopted, was passed by a large majority. Accordingly, after being freely discussed by the Society at that, and also an adjourned meeting, it was adopted in a modified form, by which the _Quarterly_ publication should be discontinued, and an _Annual_ Journal substituted for it, which should contain an Annual Report, and such essays or other matter as might be offered, and be deemed suitable by an Editorial Board, to be elected for the service. Before leaving the subject of the discontinuance of our Quarterly Journal, it is proper to refer to its late editor, our fellow member, Frederick A. Packard, who took charge of it a few years after its commencement, and conducted the publication with marked ability from that time till its close. The Society is indebted to his pen for many valuable articles published in the Journal, and separately. _Lunatics._—An evil of no small magnitude, in the consideration of which the Society has been earnestly engaged, is the practice which prevails of committing lunatics to our County Prison, some of whom have been convicted on criminal charges, and others “picked up in the streets, and committed for want of a better home,” as we are assured by the Prison Agent. An application, in which our Society is co-operating, is about to be made to the Legislature, which it is hoped may result in an arrangement being made which may relieve the prison of this class of its inmates. _Prison Agent._—William J. Mullen, who has for several years been under appointment by the Inspectors of the County Prison, and also by our Society as “Prison Agent,” has been as indefatigable in the discharge of his duties during the past year as heretofore. His particular province is to take cognizance of, and inquire into all cases of alleged oppressive and illegal commitments to the County Prison; and in the course of his investigations he frequently procures conclusive evidence that individuals have been committed on charges which were utterly groundless, or at least frivolous and insufficient. From his interesting Annual Report, embracing the year 1861, just issued, we learn that he investigated 2,700 cases during the year, and with the co-operation of the constituted authorities, succeeded in liberating 1,182 of these from prison. He seems to have devoted his whole life and energies to this service, the duties of which he discharges with great fidelity.