troduction of a billiard-table calculated to encourage gambling, and would so taint the patients, that when they left the hospital they might have recourse to such practices, which would probably lead them to ruin. For these reasons, and there being no recommendation from the physicians before the court, he seconded Mr Anderton's motion. 66 Very admirably," says the Lancet of 8th July, "did Mr Laurie jun. answer these ill-informed gentlemen. He stated to them the fact, that the recommendation of the committee had been unanimously agreed to at the largest committee at which he had ever been present; and in reply to Mr Anderton's remarks that insane patients could not play at games of chance, he begged to say that cards were originally introduced for an insane king. He thought that refusing to allow amusements in the hospital, for fear of encouraging dissipated habits when the patients went out, was about as rational as it would be to refuse administering wine and spirits to sick persons, lest it should encourage them to resort to dram-drinking on their recovery. He considered a billiard-table would be of great service, particularly in the winter time, or in bad weather, when the inmates could not go into the grounds, or be induced to take any other exercise; and although the physicians had not appended their recommendation to the report, he had received a letter from Dr Monro, the senior physician, stating that there could be no objection to the introduction of billiards and bagatelle. The learned gentleman quoted several lunatic asylums where, amusements and occupation being carried out to the greatest extent, cures were effected in far greater proportion than at Bethlem. He called upon the governors to avail themselves of the improvements adopted in other asylums, and place the Royal Hospital where it ought to be, in the front rank of all, instead of dragging in the rear of pauper lunatic asylums. Dr Webster, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Common Sergeant, supported the views of Mr Laurie; the Common Sergeant honourably and sensibly stating that he was 'at first disposed to treat the proposition as most absurd, but that subsequent inquiry, and the rational arguments adduced that day, had altered his impressions.' The report in the newspaper adds, that, after some farther discussion, the President put the question, and on a division the numbers were:-For introducing billiards, &c. 20; against it, 30; it was consequently lost by a majority of 10. Yet, after another long discussion, a proposition for purchasing a pianoforte, and other musical instruments, for the use of the patients, was carried, the numbers being 25 for, and 23 against it. To parody the Duke of Wellington's hint, we say to the thirty

governors, Pray, gentlemen, place yourselves in the category of men who do not meddle with questions of which they are wholly ignorant.' We could place on the table of the governors at least fifty pamphlets and reports containing accounts of amusements introduced into lunatic asylums, in every instance with great advantage to the inmates. But Mr Laurie has already found the valuable evidence of experience useless in the court."

Dr J. R. Smyth, in an article on rickets, published in the Lancet of 22d July, says―" The development of the mental faculties of rickety children is irregular, and a thing of uncertainty. Sometimes we find precocity of intellect and premature quickness of the power of observation and remark; at other times, just the reverse obtains-the intellectual faculties of the rickety child are plunged in abstraction and stupor. A great many rickety children are, in fact, more stupid than intelligent, and they all appear to be rather stunted and weak in their feelings and affections.' The same Number contains (p. 598) a somewhat jocular notice of one or two meetings of the Phrenological Society of Paris. We extract the concluding passage:-"At a late meeting of the society, M. Fossati opined that his phrenological collaborateurs would do well not to pay too rigid attention to the development of the heads of criminals, with the view of finding organizations adequate to impel to the commission of crime; for that crimes were as much, if not more, the results of defective education and other circumstances, as of congenital organization. Phrenologists should go where the force of external circumstances did not, or ought not, to operate so strongly, namely, they should examine the heads of the upper classes, and see how far their acts and their tendencies coincided.

Oh, Mrs Fry, why go to Newgate? why

Preach to poor rogues? and wherefore not begin

With Carlton, and with other houses?'-Don Juan."

There is a considerable degree of truth in this opinion of Dr Fossati. It is quite unphilosophical to look for an uncommonly bad head in every criminal, and not less so to be astounded by meeting an indifferent one upon the shoulders of a person who, with no strong temptations to crime, has been prudent enough to refrain from breaking the law.

3. The Medical Times.

No. 197 (1st July 1843, p. 218) contains a good editorial article on the answers given by the English judges to the questions on the law of insanity in criminal cases, laid before

s by terms-a marvellously agreeable mode of hiding ourselves and others our ignorance. We are, too, a body d into an acquaintance with not the brightest side of anity, and are taught distrust by experience. All of us heard, most had personal experience, of ingenious frauds. e the dupe of imposture is an imputation on our profes1 skill; and the precocious sharpness and invulnerato deception which we took credit for during the last hs of our first session, are not allowed to forsake us when n exercise them, with such increase to our credit, in a encing or established practice. With this strong presition to incredulity, it is not wonderful that many of us our readily formed judgments the arbiters of what is ble or possible, without any great care as to the asserted -or nice abstract reasonings as to the soundness of our ses. It is new, it is extraordinary, it is unknown, or ilar to our experience: ergo, it is false. Now what makes rocedure the more captivating is, that nine times out of ay, ninety-nine times in the hundred-it will be correct. now that nine-tenths of the patents which cost so much to secure, are left unworked; and of the schemers who nd and tease us with improvements, how few, very few, they are not wasteful enthusiasts. But there is an exn; the one-hundredth may be more than a dream. How pitied and scorned the man who resolved to float through ouds in that frail handiwork of his-the balloon! How laughed at him who launched the first steam-boat on the can waters! How many smiled at the idea of nature, h the agency of light, flinging off the most astounding ses in seconds! How few disbelieved Humphry Davy he, who thought the discovery of the philosophers' stone possible, proved that gas, instead of peacefully lighting n, must destroy it by combustion! or Lardner, when wed the impossibility of doing that which afterwards so him-crossing the Atlantic in a steamer! or that inventor who secured a patent to prevent the friction. would otherwise make railroad travelling impossible! 1 the plainly incongruous, and what is evidently selfdictory, we know not what is impossible. To dical brethren we say, then, on Mesmerism, as on every science, let us doubt till we know-let us nurse idgment till inquiry remove it. The philosopher, ence, like the true believer in religion, 'tries all olds fast by that which is true.' It is only by lat medical men can be worthy of their profestain its respect in the eyes of discerning or unociety, or that any generation of us can pas b without being eternally stained like those w

them by the House of Lords.* "To us," says the writer, "it appears that the criminal's knowledge of his act being against law, so far from increasing his guilt (if there be any), establishes its diminution. It proves a greater amount of mental alienation, for it implies a mind not under the regulation of the ordinary rules of prudence and common sense.

By it the

* QUESTION I. What is the law respecting alleged crimes committed by persons afflicted with insane delusion, in respect of one or more particular subjects or persons: as for instance, where, at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, the accused knew he was acting contrary to law, but did the act complained of with the view, under the influence of some insane delusion, of redressing or avenging some supposed grievance or injury, or of producing some supposed public benefit?

ANSWER. The opinion of the judges was, that notwithstanding the party committed a wrong act, while labouring under the idea that he was redressing a supposed grievance or injury, or under the impression of obtaining some public or private benefit, he was liable to punishment.

QUEST. II. What are the proper questions to be submitted to the jury, when a person alleged to be afflicted with insane delusion, respecting one or more particular subjects or persons, is charged with the commission of a crime, murder, for example, and insanity is set up as a defence?

ANS. The jury ought in all cases to be told that every man should be considered of sane mind until the contrary were clearly proved in evidence. That before a plea of insanity should be allowed, undoubted evidence ought to be adduced that the accused was of diseased mind, and that at the time he committed the act he was not conscious of right or wrong. This opinion related to every case in which a party was charged with an illegal act, and a plea of insanity was set up. Every person was supposed to know what the law was, and therefore nothing could justify a wrong act, except it was clearly proved that the party did not know right from wrong. If that was not satisfactorily proved, the accused was liable to punishment; and it was the duty of the judge so to tell the jury when summing up the evidence, accompanied by those remarks and observations which the nature and peculiarities of each case might suggest and require.

QUEST. III. In what terms ought the question to he left to the jury as to the prisoner's state of mind at the time when the act was committed?

No answer was returned to this question.

QUEST. IV. If a person, under an insane delusion as to existing facts, commits an offence in consequence thereof, is he thereby excused?

ANS. If the delusion were only partial, the party accused was equally liable with a person of sane mind. If the accused killed another in self-defence, he would be entitled to an acquittal, but if the crime were committed for any supposed injury, he would then be liable to the punishment awarded by the laws to his crime.

QUEST. V. Can a medical man, conversant with the disease of insanity, who never saw the prisoner previously to the trial, but who was present during the whole trial and the examination of all the witnesses, be asked his opinion as to the state of the prisoner's mind at the time of the commission of the alleged crime, or his opinion whether the prisoner was conscious, at the time of doing the act, that he was acting contrary to law? or whether he was labouring under any, and what delusion at the time?

ANS. The question could not be put in the precise form stated above, for by doing so it would be assumed that the facts had been proved. When the facts were proved and admitted, then the question, as one of science, would be generally put to a witness under the circumstances stated in the interrogatory.

Mr Justice Maule agreed with the judges in respect to the answers returned to all the questions excepting the last; from this he entirely dissented. In his opinion, such questions might be at once put to medical men, without reference to the facts proved; and he considered that this had been done, and the legality of the practice thereby confirmed, on the trial of M'Naughten.