On the border-land of Lunacy lie the criminal populations. It is a debateable region; and no more vexed problem comes before the Medical Psychologist than this—viz: where badness ends and madness begins in criminals. The inmates of Asylums and of Prisons are so nearly allied that “thin partitions do their bounds divide.” From large experience among criminals I have come to the conclusion, that the principal business of Prison Surgeons must always be with mental diseases; that the number of physical diseases are less than the psychical; that the diseases and causes of death among prisoners are chiefly of the nervous system; and in fine that the treatment of crime is a branch of psychology.

This case was in the Glasgow Royal Infirmary under the care of Dr. Gairdner, who sent me for examination portions of the cerebral hemispheres, the pons Varolii, the medulla oblongata, and spinal cord. The following were the chief and most prominent symptoms:—

Imperfect articulation and srvaying gait, characteristic of General Paralysis of the Insane, inequality of pupils, well marked delusion as to the origin of the disease; acquired habits of lying, swearinq, and stealing.

“All theories of the human mind profess to be interpretations of Consciousness: the conclusions of all of them are supposed to rest on that ultimate evidence, either immediately or remotely. What Consciousness directly reveals, together with what can be legitimately inferred from its revelations, compose by universal admission all that we know of the mind, or, indeed, of any other thing. When we know what any philosopher considers to be revealed in Consciousness, we have the key to the entire character of his metaphysical system.”

The more general adoption of the “Cottage System” for the boarding out of harmless and incurable lunatics is regarded by many as the only remedy for the increased demand for Asylum accommodation, for the reduction of expenditure, and for the prevention of the overgrowth of Asylums. In Scotland the suggestion meets with the approbation of high authority—in England it does not. I have experienced no small reluctance in coming forward now to express my opinion of the working of the system as it now exists in Scotland, and to narrate my experience of it derived from actual inspection; but conceiving it to be a fair field for discussion, I enter upon it in the full hope that, however much my views may militate against the opinion of the advocates of the “Cottage System,” they will be accepted as unbiassed by aught but a desire to promote the welfare of the lunatic and the public at large.

When we find, as recorded in the book of Samuel, that the great Psalmist resorted to imposture and “feigned himself mad and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard;” we cannot be surprised if minds less gifted should, for whatever purpose, assume the character of a madman. The beautiful conceptions of Shakespeare unfold to us in its highest fulness the rôle to be sustained by the player who is “but mad in craft.” We are told how Hamlet:—

Repulsed,
Fell into a sadness; then into a fast;
Thence to a watch; thence into a weakness;
Thence to a lightness, and by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for,

and how Edgar, amid all his witless jabbering, himself exclaims aside :—

It has appeared to me highly desirable, if not requisite, that there should be some extension of the present system for the admission of boarders into establishments for the insane, and that the anomalous and confusing condition of the existing laws referring to them, by which each division of our country has its enactments at variance with the others, should be amended in such a manner that all parts of Great Britain and Ireland should be subject to one scheme of legislation on the subject.

The Twenty-third Report of the Commissioners in Lunacy is dated 31st March, 1869. It is a thick volume of 408 pages, of which 107 comprise the report proper, the remainder forming the usual appendices, which consist of—

1. (A.) The number of insane persons in asylums.

2. (B.) Licences and change of proprietorships.

3. C.D. Average weekly cost of maintenance in asylums and hospitals in 1868.

4. (E.) Entries in visitors' books of county and borough asylums.

5. (F.) The state of the Criminal Asylum, Broadmoor.

6. (G.) Entries in visitors' books in hospitals.

7. (H.) Entries at Fort Pitt and Yarmouth.

8. (I.) Isle of Man Asylum. Report of Superintendent.

9. (J.) Pauper lunatics and idiots not in asylums, &c.

10. (K.) Workhouses.

11. (L.) Statistical tables, with a copy of entry made by Commissioners on a special visit to St. Luke's Hospital, and the reply of the Committee thereto.