If legislative enactments, having reference to the care and treatment of the insane in this kingdom, can, of late years, be said to have been grounded upon any one broad principle, it is this, that insane persons, whose maintenance is provided from public funds, shall receive care and treatment in public establishments, directed by salaried officials, and under the inspection and control of public bodies. On this principle it is that the recent Asylum's Act renders it compulsory upon every county and borough, to provide a public asylum for its poor, and invests the Secretary of State with large and summary powers to enforce compliance. It is the operation of this principle which has removed pauper lunatics from almost all licensed houses throughout the country, and has brought the latter, with a few exceptions, to the more legitimate condition of private asylums. The legislature has imposed this broad principle upon the community at large. It has left freedom of action to the Government alone, of which the Government has taken and is taking an advantage, which is by no means edifying.

A recent decision of Mr. Justice Coleridge, respecting the invalidity of a medical certificate of insanity, because the name of the street, and the number of the house wherein the examination took place, were not therein stated, has profoundly affected the serenity of the persons most interested in the strict observance of the statutes on lunacy. This decision, the legal correctness of which has not been disputed, invalidates a large number, perhaps the majority, of the documents under which, lunatics placed in confinement since the passing of the late Acts are detained. The case upon which Mr. Justice Coleridge's decision occurred was that of Mr. Greenwood, an aged gentleman of large property resident at Todmorden, He was unmarried but had several natural children, to one of whom, a daughter, he was much attached. It is stated that he had expressed a desire to bequeath some of his property to this daughter; whereupon his brothers caused him to be admitted into a private lunatic ! asylum named the Billingdon Retreat. He was confined in this asylum a day and a night without certificates. The day afterwards he was removed to a public house in a neighbouring town, at which he was seen by two medical men who examined him, and certified to his insanity; but they omitted in their certificates to state the name of the street, and the number of the house in which their examination took place. Through the intervention of personal friends, Mr. Greenwood was brought to London under authority of a writ of habeas corpus granted by Mr. Justice Coleridge. Here he was examined by various medical men expert and non-expert Among the former were Dr. A. Sutherland whose affidavit testified to his insanity, and Dr. Forbes Winslow and Sir Alexander Morrison, whose opnions and affidavits were quite the other way. When the case came on for discussion on Saturday the 10th of February last, Mr. Serjeant Wilkins on behalf of the alleged lunatic raised the question of the validity of the two medical certificates in which, as we have before stated, the name of the street, and the number of the house in which the examination took place, were omitted to be mentioned. Mr. Justice Coleridge reserved his judgment on this point of law, and on the 19th of February be gave his decision that the certificates were invalid in consequence of these omissions, and he ordered Mr. Greenwood to be discharged accordingly. Such is a brief outline of the train of circumstances which has sprung the mine upon the archives of admission papers treasured with such care in asylums and, hospitals for the insane; and copies of which are guarded with jealous solitude in the muniment rooms of Whitehall Place. The Circular of the Commissioners [Feb. 14, 1855] on Lunacy truly states, “This decision, although immediately applicable only to the particular case, has a wider and general bearing, and enunciates the principle upon which the superior Courts of Law will, it is presumed, judge all analogous questions of form.” It enunciates in fact the very simple and reasonable principle, that the validity of documents upon which an Englishman is to be deprived of personal liberty on the ground of insanity, must be in strict and not in loose accordance with the statutary enactments of the legislature. If these enactments have been made too intricate and complicated for use, the difficulty has not arisen with the persons whose I duty it is to interpret them, but with those by whom they were made. It has been stated, that Mr. Justice Coleridge evaded the onerous and disagreeable duty of deciding between conflicting opinions as to the sanity or insanity of Mr. Greenwood, by this decision on the point of law. That be shirked his straight forward duty by taking a side path. But it must be remembered that the point of law was not mooted by the Judge, but by the counsel for the alleged lunatic, and the Judge was compelled to decide upon it one way or another. If the opinion of Mr. Justice Coleridge is unsound in law it can be reversed. If his interpretation of the enactment is correct, but notwithstanding this has a tendency to consequences which will be of serious inconvenience to the public welfare, the only remedy lies in legislative interference and the amendment of the statute.

I am sorry to find that my remarks on the use of restraints in the Kent Asylum were displeasing to Dr. Huxley; and can only say that my desire was to confine myself to the actual statements in his own Report I was careful to mention his anxiety to hare it understood with what strict limitation he employed any mechanical restraint at all. Dr. Huxley may be assured, that nothing was farther from my wish than to do him injustice or to give him uneasiness.

A. T., a male patient, æt. 32, ‘unmarried, and by occupation a labourer, deaf and dumb, was admitted into the Colney Hatch Asylum on the 7th of January, 1853; having been subject to epilepsy from childhood, the convulsive paroxysms, of late years, having been succeeded by tendency to dangerous violence. He was of medium stature, of robust make, the osseous and muscular systems, as is generally the case with epileptics, well developed; the neck short and chest broad.

The witty Brillat Savarin wrote: “Quand j'écris et parle de moi an singulier, cela suppose une confabulation avec la lecteur; il pent examiner, discuter, douter et même rire; mais quand je m'arme du redoutable nouz je professe, il faut se soumettre.” Physiologie du Gout.