them as a convenient speculation; and in the same spirit the parochial boards "buy in the cheapest market" board and lodging for the imbecile.

Thirty years since, the condition of pauper lunatics was more pitiable than at the date of this report. They were allowed often to wander over the country, without food or shelter; and were even dangerous in some localities, from their occa. sional violence. This practice has almost entirely been subdued; for, at the date of this inquiry, only two insane males, and one female, were known to the Commissioners, as they state in one page, to be "wandering at large" in Scotland. Two were in Sutherland, and one in Shetland. The number of paupers in Scotland is eighty thousand, from a population of three millions, or one in 37 of the population. The number of idiotic or insane persons is 7,403; of whom 4,642 are treated as paupers. The large proportion of the latter class does not prove a predisposition to the disease among the poorer classes; because many persons who are set down as pauper lunatics would, except for their mental weakness, form no part of the general pauperism; but a low diet may foster this terrible malady, and the use of indifferent food may render the disease permanent.

The tables of the Commissioners occasionally want to be explained. Thus the following distri bution of the pauper lunatics occurs in the third table :

from its position; is built on a low site, and surrounded by very high walls. A similar difficulty has been met partially at Dundee by the formation of mounds in the airing courts, and the pa tients can at least see the outer world by ascending their small pyramids. The Montrose Asylum is a large building close to the docks, and to the river, while it is exposed to the sea. The asylum preceded the docks, the railway, and other works of a similar nature in that neighbourhood, and is now to be removed from its old site, without any loss, we presume, to the means of the establishment. The asylums of Edinburgh and Glasgow are well known; but it cannot be also well known to the people of Glasgow that the latter is £40,000 in debt, to the hindrance of its efficiency and improvement in many particulars.

The Commissioners admit that these institutions are conducted generally in a creditable manner, although in them, as in all human edifices and insti tutions, changes may be necessary. Some of the other concerns do not appear to be quite human, and therefore they can scarcely be improved. The reproach is not applicable to all private establishments-for many are conducted in a proper manner; but others are miserable efforts to live, or become rich, on insanity.

Musselburgh is the grand focus of this private business in the insane. The reason for its adoption of this now staple trade is not stated. One gentleman says that the engagements seemed to be productive. People "throve " upon them, and so others followed them into this strange pursuit. As usual the supply of asylums produced competition. New keepers offered lower terms than their predecessors. Twenty pounds per annum is the standard charge in Musselburgh, for keeping and maintaining a patient in bed, board, and occasionally "clothing." The parochial authorities have generally accepted the lowest tender; but the parish board of Inveresk offer a conscientious exception. Its members being resident on the spot were abler to form a judg ment of the price that should be paid for the maintenance of paupers than men unacquainted in any degree with the mystery. Their Inspector told a beginner in the trade that he could not accept a lower tender than twenty pounds per annum for insane paupers, because the business would not pay under that point.

Musselburgh has seventeen establishments devoted to this business. Some of them are upon a large, and others upon a small scale. They are generally kept by persons who had nothing to do with lunacy until, as a speculation, they dived into the trade. Two of the seventeen institutions had no patients at the date of the examination. They had only then been prepared to receive consignments from the parochial boards. Three of them had only one patient each, one had two patients, and another had three. Seven of the seventeen institutions absorbed, therefore, only six of the insane persons living in Musselburgh. Ten remain; and

last winter," for he said he did not examine them; he wanted to taste their broth, but it was all done; he did not look at the bedding, and he did not think that the chairman was more curious, and he could not speak of it; he did not inquire whether they washed themselves, and, of course, he could not say what they washed themselves in; he did not see whether they had day rooms; but things of that kind might be seen in a large house, if a person kept his eyes open; he did not see any fires, but if there had been any, they would have been visible; and he did not ask whether two or three men slept in one bed-for why should he have asked any questions ?

The employment of inefficient persons of this class in the inspection and management of the poor will, we trust, be discontinued at once, and that the ratepayers will learn the necessity of doing well the work thrown upon them-from economical motives, if humanity have no place in their calculations.

The Government, after considering the report of the Commission on Lunacy, determined to introduce a measure on the subject. Their Lord Advocate's bill proposes the repeal of previous statutes which are recited, after the 1st of January next. It then constitutes a Board of two paid and four unpaid commissioners, and commits to them all matters connected with the management of lunatic asylums. The salaries of the paid commissioners are fixed at a maximum of twelve hundred pounds each. Two medical commissioners are to be appointed, as assistants, with salaries of five hundred pounds each. The Board is despotic in its character, and limited in its existence. It is to endure for five years from the commencement of 1858, and no longer. Thereafter the paid commissioners are to become in spectors-general, and probably have two hundred pounds annually lopped from their salary, which will be brought to the net thousand, while the Home Secretary is to be the Board. The measure is a step towards that centralisation of business which is the policy of the Whigs. The Home Secretary might be supposed to have work enough in his office without attending to the licensing of lunatic asylums. The two inspectors-general may, of course, manage that part of the business; but who is to look after them? For five years the unpaid commissioners might control the crotchets of their salaried brethren; if it be possible-and it is just but barely possible-that these fortunate officials could have any crotchets. After five years they are to be uncontrollable, except by the Home Secretary, who is supposed to have more leisure and greater interest in the business of Scotch lunacy than any local personages. We are not astonished that this bill should have been opposed at county and other meetings; for the bestowal of all this power on the Home Secretary, and two of his friends, in whom he will place perfect confidence, is a very unwise step.

In order to provide money for the Board, the

license for each asylum is to cost £15 annually at least, and as much more as 2s. 6d. for each pauper lunatic, and 10s. each for each lunatic supported by friends, may bring. At this rate, some of the asylums will contribute largely; and, although a direct tax on lunacy has a queer sound, yet we believe the scheme is part of a system by which every necessity is to be made self-supporting. We have good reason to expect an equally direct tax on pauperism at an early day. This tax will suppress some of the smaller asylums, and that consequence is not a great objection to its imposi tion.

After an asylum has been established, a tax is placed upon the sheriff's order for the admission of paupers; but all the moneys will be required for the business of the Act, and perhaps this poll tax of one half crown each is reasonable. The sheriffs of counties are prevented from issuing their orders without certificate of lunacy from two medical men; and that is worth half-a-crown on each order; while the medical certifiers are bound to state the facts on which their opinion is founded; and that again is another improvement.

The bill proposes to deal harshly with the clas of persons who may be able, and who may prefes to retain in their own home a relative under lunacy, with proper provision for personal safety, and the security of others. The power is denied by the bill without the concurrence of the Board, although it is obvious that the members of the Board cannot estimate accurately all the reasons that might affect this decision in a family. The right to inquire into the condition, and register the existence, of any person under this affliction, might be conceded to a public board; but the power to interfere, further than is necessary for public security, with the arrangements of private families is not a right," but only a wrong."

According to the bill, as proposed by the Lord Advocate, the friends of persons who may be con fined in these asylums can only visit them under such regulations and at such hours as the superintendent may fix-and the latter, apparently, may decline to allow the visits; although the only person, perhaps, in the country that could have any wish to prevent them. The friends of pauper lunatics are apparently ignored. These people are not supposed to have any relatives except the members of the parochial boards, whose general neglect of their unhappy wards has involved the country in some disgrace and immense trouble. The Board may authorise any person to visit a lu natic in the asylums, subject to certain regulations; but few persons in humble life will be able to extract the necessary order from the mysterious board, meeting in Edinburgh. The health of the patients, and the hope of recovery depends partly, in the majority of cases, we presume, upon that intercourse with their relatives which the latter are too apt to neglect, and we don't think it the business of Parliament to provide excuses for that negli gence,

The Board at Edinburgh is not to sit in magni- | ficence, solitary and sullen, but is to be the sun of a system of district boards, which will whirl around it, by aid of the gravitation contained in this Act of Parliament; if ever it shall assume that honoured position. Scotland is to be divided into districts. Each of these districts is to enjoy its board of luuacy. Each of these minor boards is to have its official staff, with necessarily also their salaries. In this way the original Board will spread itself over Scotland and effectually take all those who are afflicted by the single disease which it is to combat, under their control.

The district boards are to provide new asylums, -not if their members deem them necessary, but if the members of the central board regard them as requisite. The district boards will not originate anything, but only spend their clients' money, when and wherever their superiors may direct, within the limits of this law.

We have already denied the possibility of being astonished with the opposition directed against this bill out of doors. It seems to have been made to be opposed. The evil needs no such cumbrous enactment as that furnished by the Lord Advocate. The people wanted the power to rate themselves, through some mechanism, for the cost of advisable changes and improvements. An inspector was required, with full power to examine and report into the state of asylums. His duties might have heen made analogous to those of the inspectors of factories or schools. A minimum of qualification might have been required from all

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persons who sought license to open asylums That minimum might have been extended, not only to the man himself, but to his property, its situation, and everything connected therewith, to its fittings. The sheriff's of counties might not have had duties allocated to them which they "may" discharge according to law, but duties which they must perform. The district boards might have consisted of ex officio members, and that also might have been true of the members of the central board, under which the Inspector of Lunacy would have acted. We are not, however, called upon to furnish the heads of a proper bill, but to describe those of an improper measure; and every measure is improper that centralises power, and destroys in that particular the essence and spirit of our old institutions. Many of them have nothing better than their localiaed nature to recommend them. It is their only and their grand qualification. They were founded upon old Saxon usages, which guarded jealously the power of local communities over local business; and we have already seen all the evils of central and irresponsible authority that we need to see, in order to wish that we may see no more.

We hold, not that the power to impose a rate for the support of asylums was in itself sufficient, but the power exercised under an intelligent inspector, bound to report facts and to represent deficiences for the purpose of correction, would have afforded security against the recurrence of negligence altogether inexcusable, because it has fallen upon a class who are entirely helpless.

A THOUSAND guineas form a large sum still, at thirty-seven years of age, to a man who commenced his earnings at twopence a day, and learned first to read at eighteen years of age. The dispute respecting the miners' safety lamp brought George Stephenson more prominently before the public than he had been at any previous period. It is useful sometimes for a man to be abused; and he had been badly abused by the Davy set of philosophers, who derided his claim as an impertinence. The thousand guineas occur to us still as being the more important result of the discovery. The first use made of any portion of the money was in behalf of Robert, who had acquired all that he could learn at Newcastle, and was despatched now to the University at Edinburgh. Then, as now, young men from the northern counties of England generally studied at Edinburgh; but even in Mr. Stephenson's case, who had reached before the discussion on the safety lamp a position of comparative competence, the

expense of supporting his son in the northern metropolis was deemed rather heavy. Immediately after the receipt of the testimonial, Robert was entered as a student there, and while he did not continue long at the University, yet he achieved great success during his stay; especially in those departments of science that his father desired him to prosecute.

Several years of Mr. Stephenson's life, from this period, 1816, present little change or progress. He was still the engine-wright of Killingworth colliery, and engaged in the improvement of his locomotive engine. He, however, observed soon that something else required reform in addition to the engine. A good way was essential to the realisation of his schemes, and he entirely changed the mode of laying the rails previously pursued. Perhaps the alterations, although they now seem simple, and such as would have been suggested to very common minds, were not less important inventions than those connected with the engine.

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The average railway speed would have been im practicable upon the old railways, laid to assist a single horse in drawing several waggons. Mr. Stephenson adopted the half-lap joint for his rails instead of the old butt joint; and necessarily produced a smoother way. He made certain alterations in the mode of affixing the rails to the chair. He adopted a heavier rail than that in previous use, and these amendments were patented by him in conjunction with Mr. Losh, an ironfounder, of Newcastle, upon the last day of September, 1816. The wheels of his locomotive engine were cast, but at the same date he saw the propriety of using malleable iron for their production, and the alteration was included, we believe, in the same patent.

The business was entirely new, and we doubt whether the colliery districts supplied the best mechanics of that day. Mr. Smiles believes that George Stephenson suffered considerable inconvenience from the deficiency of skilled workmen. The want was however, we doubt not, rather local than general. James Watt and his partner were constructing very beautiful engines in these days, at Birmingham.

The machinery requisite for the mills of Glasgow and Manchester was equally complicated, and required, perhaps, a finer finish than that of a locomotive engine. At that date, indeed, the now older men among the clever mechanics of the Clyde, who have rendered Glasgow the metropolis of the steam engine manufacture, were busy at their anvils and forges. There was no want of skilled artisans, but they had not been drawn to Newcastle. They were wanted there, and George Stephenson was nothing better of their existence a hundred miles away-especially as a hundred miles in those days had not been made by him the small matter that it appears to us. We do not, therefore, quite agree with everything in the following extract; but the ingenuity of the contrivance there described is admirable :

It has been already observed that up to, and indeed for some time after, the period of which we speak, there was no such class of skilled mechanics, nor were there any such machinery or tools in use as are now at the disposal of inventors aud manufacturers. The same difficulty had been experienced by Watt many years before, in the course of his improvements in the steam-engine; and on the occasion of the construction of his first condensing engine at Soho, Mr. Smeaton, although satisfied of its great superiority over

Newcomen's, expressed strong doubts as to the practicability

of getting the different parts executed with the requisite precision; and he consequently argued that, in its improved form, this powerful machine would never be generally introduced. Such was the low state of mechanical art in those days. Although skilled workmen were in course of gradual training in a few of the larger manufacturing towns, they did not, at the date of Stephenson's patent, exist in any considerable numbers, nor was there any class of mechanics capable of constructing springs of sufficient strength and elasticity to support a locomotive engine ten tons in weight. The rails then used being extremely light, the road soon became worn down by the traffic, and, from the irregularities of the way, the whole weight of the engine, instead of being uniformly distributed over the four wheels, was occasionally thrown almost diagonally upon two. Hence frequent jerks

of the locomotive, and increased stress upon the slender road, which occasioned numerous breakages of the rails and chains, and consequent interruptions to the safe working of the railway.

In order to obviate the dangers arising from this cause, Mr. Stevenson contrived his steam springs. He so arranged the boiler of his new patent locomotive that it was supported upon the frame of the engine by four cylinders, which opened into the interior of the boiler. These cylinders were occupied by pistons with rods, which passed downwards and pressed upon the upper side of the axles. The cylinders opening into the interior of the boiler allowed the pressure of steam to be applied to the upper side of the piston, and that pressure being nearly equivalent to one-fourth of the weight of the engine, each axle, whatever might be its posi tion, had at all times nearly the same amount to bear, and consequently the entire weight was at all times pretty equally distributed amongst the four wheels of the locomotive. Thas the four floating pistons were ingeniously made to serve the purpose of springs in equalising the weight and in softening the jerk of the machine, the weight of which, it must also be observed, had been increased, on a road originally calcu lated to bear a considerably lighter description of carriage.

This mode of supporting the engine remained in use until the progress of spring-making had so far advanced that steel springs could be manufactured in sufficient strength to be used in locomotives.

Some of his friends persuaded Mr. Stephenson to apply his locomotive engine to common roads; but he resisted that scheme, and believed that it never would be successful. True to his first attachment, the iron rail, he never swerved towards the old road. He even seems to have considered the application of the engine to ordinary roads impossible, and certainly unprofitable. He could not foresee that the obstacles to its success would be removed-although the work that we anticipate from engines now patented and produced in London will not interfere with the correctness of his theory; for they carry their own railway along with them, and would not, in reality, move on the common road, but on the iron way which they bring, lay, and raise and take away, with themselves.

Several railways existed in 1816, one in the neighbourhood of Bristol, and one or more near London, and Mr. Smiles introduces, in his memoir of Stephenson, sketches of some of the original projectors of railways and railway travelling. Mr. James, who was connected with the infancy of the first line to Croydon, and even with that of the Liverpool and Manchester line; and Mr. Pease, who originated the Stockton and Darlington line, both became allies and friends of Mr. Stephenson. Mr. James was quick, sanguine, and speculative. Mr. Pease was acute, determined, energetic, and steady-even a little stubborn in a good work-but the cast of man capable of being an excellent coadjutor. He suggested the Stockton and Darlington line in his fiftieth year; and he has seen the country girt round by a net of railways, and other lands intersected by these means of travelling, which, at that period of his life, were ridiculed by the "scientific world." He obtained a bill for the construction of his line from Parliament in 1821; but some time elapsed before the work was commenced, and another period before it was concluded.