_Insanity._--In a short paragraph in our last Annual Report, we think that we fully met and refuted the charge frequently made by the opponents of the system, that its discipline is liable to produce insanity, and relieved the humane feelings of those who were under a sincere, but mistaken apprehension of this result, by referring to the close and systematic observation which had for many years been directed to this point, in the Eastern State Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, which established the fact, that instead of the mental health of the prisoners having been injured, it had in the aggregate been decidedly improved during their confinement. We propose now, in support of this position, to introduce the testimony of two acute observers of the operation of the same system in France. First, the distinguished Physician, _Dr. Lelut_, known in America as well as in Europe, by his important work on Insanity, &c., in speaking of the results of an examination of the prisons on the Separate System, which he had made by direction of the French Government, states that there were then in France twenty-three such prisons, and that he had examined about half of them,--and goes on to say, “In all these houses, I have confirmed _de visu_, what was previously declared by theory, that the Separate System, independent of all the facilities which it offers, for elementary and professional instruction, for the moral and religious education of the prisoners, for religious exercises--independent of the circumstance that it alone prevents prisoners from associating with each other, and from corrupting each other--_that it causes infinitely fewer cases of death and insanity than any other system of imprisonment_. The actual condition of our cellular houses, their history, which covers already a period of three, four, and five years, the testimony of their directors, of their physicians, of their visitors, do no leave any doubt upon this important point.”