Of this class of convicts, more or less, it is said, that “an experienced observer will readily detect many of them on the day of their reception, and a few weeks’ observation will generally suffice for the discovery of the remainder.” If we bring this remark to bear on the eight cases of last year, we shall be compelled to circumscribe its application considerably. Two of them “were decidedly insane when received.” Of the remaining six, “one a mulatto, had been once or oftener insane before imprisonment;” his mother had also been insane, and he was syphilitic. Two others were not of the class which we are considering, for it is expressly stated that they “had not imbecile minds,” though “both had received a fracture of the skull, and were thus doubly predisposed to insanity.” Of the three that are left, one “was not considered actually defective in mind,” and of course he would not have been put among the class “who are deficient in mental vigor to resist the enervating tendencies of the system.” Nevertheless, his mind “was of such a character, that shortly after his reception, it was predicted that he would go deranged before the expiration of his sentence.” What that “character” was we are not told, nor is it needful for our present purpose to know. Then of the other two it is expressly said, that they were “considered as presenting no striking mental peculiarity on admission, either of strength or weakness.” One of them was three years and one month in prison, before exhibiting any marks of mental derangement, and the other ten months. If we do not misunderstand the report then, not one of the last year’s insane cases answers to the description of that “certain class of convicts, who cannot be placed under the usual isolation, without the greatest risk of insanity supervening.” Perhaps we construe the language of the report in this connection too rigidly, for in another section, the “mental deficiency” of many of these same persons “which an experienced observer will readily detect on the day of their reception, or a few weeks after,” is described as “so slight, as hardly to challenge casual observation or to prevent their following successfully the ordinary pursuits of life.” We think it would be very difficult to modify the discipline of a prison, so as to provide for such minute diversities of mental power among convicts. They will have to take their chance with the other rogues, we fear.