There is also a considerable difference of opinion, not only as to the classes of lunatics which the proposed asylum should receive, but also as to the name both of place and patients. Some would call it the State asylum, and would open it to all criminal offenders of every station and degree, who are exempted from the penalties of the law on the ground of insanity. Of course it would have the character of a general, and not of a pauper asylum, so as to afford superior accommodation for those who could afford to pay. Others would confine the use of such an asylum to the detention and treatment of all lunatics of criminal disposition, whether they have actually committed a crime or not. Some would completely separate criminals who have become insane after conviction, from those who have committed crimes under the influence of insanity--the former, of whom only would be properly called insane convicts. The distinction is obvious, viz., that an insane person cannot become a convict, though a convict may become insane. Others would make no distinction, but would put “all lunatics detained under warrant from the government, on the same footing.” The discussion of the matter has awakened parliamentary inquiry. On the 18th of March last, in the House of Lords, the Earl of Shaftsbury moved an address to the Crown, touching “the expediency of establishing a State asylum for the care and custody of those who are denominated criminal lunatics,” and he adduced several facts, to show the inexpediency of detaining criminal lunatics in the same asylum with other patients. The Earl of Derby thought any movement in this direction would be premature, as a revision of the whole subject was needful, before it could be determined what new legislation would be expedient. Lord Cranworth said, that nothing could be more mischievous than mixing criminal lunatics with other lunatics; and he also contended that the question of lunacy in criminal prosecutions, should not be determined by juries; but that the only point for them to decide, should be the fact--guilty, or not guilty--leaving the question of sanity to be inquired into before another tribunal, the constitution of which he was not then prepared to define. On an assurance from Lord Derby that the subject should receive deliberate consideration, the motion was withdrawn. As it seems unlikely that any provision will be presently made in our State Hospital, either for convicts who become insane, or who manifest insanity after they are received, or for those who were insane when received, but were committed as convicts, or for those who are committed for safe keeping merely, or as lunatics with criminal intentions, or propensities, we will venture to suggest a more minute classification of the register of prisoners, and some specific recognition of these classes in the arrangements of the Eastern Penitentiary.