practice, which is founded upon a mistaken view of personal rights, and upon the decrees, often arbitrary and often changing, of legal authorities; but the instances have now become so numerous that they are likely to attract attention. Every one must rejoice that the treatment of insanity is founded in the present day upon humane and enlightened principles; but let not this proper relaxation in the severity formerly exercised towards lunatics, lead us into the opposite extreme, and expose the lives of helpless infants, or of other unoffending members of society, to the random attacks of irresponsible assassins, who are proper objects for the vigilance of the State.-Medical Times and Gazette.

THE PARISH OF ST. PANCRAS AND ITS LUNATIC POOR. Ar a general meeting of the directors and guardians of the poor of the parish of St. Pancras on Tuesday, an official letter from the Secretary of the Commissioners of Lunacy was read to the board. It was accompanied by a Report by Mr. Gaskell, one of the Commissioners in Lunacy, upon his recent inspection of the wards appropriated to the insane and idiotic inmates of St. Pancras Workhouse, and the directors were urged to attend to its recommendations without delay. Mr. Gaskell's Report disclosed a lamentable state of disorder and neglect as prevailing in the wards inspected. He speaks of them as much overcrowded and dirty. In certain wards which were in a former report described as inconveniently crowded when there were 13 men and 16 women in them, there are now 21 men and 45 woman. Eight patients are unprovided with beds; two men slept on beds placed on the forms, and two on the floor of the padded room. The report expresses regret that previous suggestions of the commissioners have been utterly disregarded. The Report, after detailing numerous evils existing in the insane wards of St. Pancras Workhouse, concludes by drawing attention to the following, which they recommend: -1. That no recent case of insanity be detained in the workhouse. 2. That chronic cases on whom restraint or seclusion are imposed be removed to an asylum. 3. That the number of inmates in the idiotic wards be forthwith diminished. 4. That more means of exercise and occupation be provided, and that a larger number of patients be allowed to attend divine service. 5. That a bath be supplied to the women patients. 6. That the better means of washing be provided for the men, and a larger supply of towels and sheets for both men and women. 7. That suitable beds to prevent bed sores be purchased. 8. That better means of cleansing soiled bedding be adopted, and a larger number of bed-ticks be supplied. 9. That the wire-work be removed from the windows in the men's ward. 10. That the women be supplied with suitable books. After the presentation of the Report, it was resolved to appoint a committee of five members, to inquire into the grounds of its allegations. A letter was also read from the Poor Law Board, urging the directors of the poor to lose no time in giving effect to the measures necessary to remedy the serious evils shown in Dr. Bence Jones's Report to exist at St. Pancras Workhouse.-Times, March 6th, 1856.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

WE have embodied in our Retrospect the judicial psychology of the quarter. In consequence of the length of the article on "Moral and Criminal Epidemics." we have been obliged to postpone until July all our reviews, and the communication on Idiocy by the Editor.

THE JOURNAL

OF

PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE

AND

MENTAL PATHOLOGY.

JULY 1, 1856.

Part First.

Original Communications.

ART. I.-THE PEACE.

FROM the eminent point of view which the happy consummation of peace has led us to, we may survey at our leisure the condition of the European powers. Warned by the past, we look upon the present state of the world with a cautious, as well as a critical eye. According to our conception, the study of Mind, in its broad physiognomy of nations and dynasties, of religion and civilization, is the highest point in the study of psychology. In the mental diseases of individuals, we are apt to lose sight of those great intellectual revolutions that break up the harmony of mankind, and involve the individual in the general ruin or disturbance of the whole. Thus, epidemic diseases sweep over wide portions of the earth, like the unchartered winds, and mock at the precautions of legislative quarantine, the rigid performance of pratique, and the cordon sanitaire of military boundaries. So, likewise, the mental phenomena seldom, if ever, appear in solitary cases, or, if they seem to do so, it is because we are not sufficiently aware of what is going on beyond our immediate sphere of vision, so as to perceive the extensive class of maladies to which they belong, and of which they are only isolated instances. Hence it is that we are so frequently staggered by crimes of the same nature developing themselves simultaneously, or coming, one after another, in different persons and widely separated localities. It is because they are the effect of vast moral changes, in operation over vast portions of the world, originating in occult, but by no means inexplicable causes.

The

true spirit of mental philosophy pre-eminently consists in understanding these great epochal psychological variations of the moral atmosphere.

It is no longer possible for this country, nor for any other, to stand isolated and apart from the rest of the civilized world. It is not possible, either, for statesmen or philosophers to act or think as if their own country were the only one that deserved their attention and interest. No nation can any longer pretend to the narrow and exclusive policy of exalting itself at the expense of all others, and of putting itself forward as the model republic, kingdom, or empire, for the rest to copy and work by. That day has passed away, we hope, for ever. The family of mankind are becoming one in thought and feeling; the period of slavery has virtually, if not actually, expired. Our interests are one. Mountains and seas, climates and hemispheres, may mark us off from each other in the many-coloured map of the universe; but our minds no longer recognise the real or artificial barriers between countries, nor the distance of space, nor the varieties of language, nor the peculiarities of manners, nor the difference of creed. It is useless to quarrel about a few hundreds of leagues of territory more or less, and worse than useless to quarrel about faith, which, if it do not amend the morals and correct the heart, is nothing better than an empty sound.

The trials and contests of the last fifty years have brought along with them their own dearly-bought experience, and, it must be added, with a velocity more than equal to a hundred and fifty years in any previous epoch of history. The nations have tried their strength and have failed. They have tottered on their slippery foundations: some of them have crumbled into nothing, while others have literally fallen to pieces. Europe has grown grey in feudalism, warfare, and theological disputes. America, liberal, independent, and young, has arisen out of the dissensions of her tenacious ancestors. Our prejudices are her freedom. On the other side, the Eastern populations have dwindled away into nothingness, abject slavery, and insignificance. China has potentially fallen; India is the spolia opima of Great Britain; and France, after oscillating violently between the two extremes of anarchy and despotism, has, for the present, settled down into a modified imperialism; Germany is still a huge mass of undigested fragments; Austria vacillates between Italy, Hungary, and St. Petersburg; while Russia, who only two years ago was soaring aloft, and motionless like an eagle on the wing, ready to swoop down on the first tempting prey that came within sight of her piercing eye, has fallen, and now lies fluttering at the feet of the two successful marksmen whose well-aimed rifles have brought her to the ground.

Russia has reached a crisis the most momentous to her existence. Situated both in Europe and Asia, she is intimately concerned in the well-being of either continent. Her Asiatic or Mongolian element need not distress her; for, though much too visible to escape detection, it just serves to impart to her that imposing air of superiority and dread so essential to what she has always aimed at becoming-the empress of the world. The testament of Peter the Great, apocryphal though it be, is nevertheless the index of the Muscovite temper; and the aggressive acts of the Czars have at least borne tangible evidence to the probability of its truth. Profiting by a lucky moment, says its fourteenth article, with a large army on land, and fleets at Archangel, in the Baltic and the Black Seas, the Mediterranean may be seized on, France invaded, and Germany subdued: these points gained, and the rest of Europe is ours. Late events are a practical comment on the reality of this supposed will of the Czar Peter. A serious inconvenience within the heart of Russia herself has, however, checked the earnestness with which she proposed to secure her conquests, it is her religion, which retains too many traces of superstition and formalism ever to allow of her adopting any freedom of action in her efforts at political advancement. Peter the Great saw this important obstacle before him at the commencement of his reign. One of his first blows was aimed at the clergy, whose popular influence was incompatible with his own supremacy; and he fancied that with a stroke of this bold kind everything else would bend before him. He changed the Oriental style of dress for the Westerncompelled his subjects to wear the frockcoat, and to shave their beards. But acts of tyranny of this childish sort cannot change a whole people at once; and Russia has not yet been able to coalesce with the Western Powers, nor to enter into the universal spirit of the age with which the rest of Europe has been so long and deeply imbued. She still remains intact and alone, swallowed up in the vastness of her boundless wastes; nor have her people manifested the influence of Christianity, in the plainest meaning of the word: for we must distinguish between the power of religion over the man, and the predilection of the man for his own religion. The one is a formality, the other a principle. They are two distinct things. It is one thing to observe a fast, or to die for a sacred image, and to carry a picture round the ramparts of a besieged fortress, for the purpose of inspiring or preserving devotion; but it is another thing to experience that Christianity which renders both the individual and his nation susceptible of the highest degree of virtue, science, and civilization.

Nevertheless, the Russians are an eminently brave nation—

kind-hearted, intelligent, hospitable, ingenious, and eloquent. Their language is said to be almost devoid of patois, or provincialism, from which so few languages are exempt. They are enterprising, fruitful in resources, and patient-crafty and diplomatic. After the defeat of Narva, Peter the Great was not in the least discouraged: "Je sais bien," was his cool remark on first learning the news-"Je sais bien que les Suédois nous battront long temps, mais ils nous apprendront enfin à les battre !"-a spirit of diplomacy from which we may do well to take a warning on the conclusion of the present peace-quo tandem ?

The faults of Russia belong to her antique, if not antiquated, form of government, which was Tartar, as much as to her aggressive mode of civilization, which is intensely Russian; and her prejudices and government, both of them dating from the darkest epoch of the world, have not yet been reformed by the just demands of her people, nor remodelled by amalgamation with elements external to herself. The Russian sees his own fate in that of his Czars. With the exception of the late Emperor, Nicholas, their reigns have seldom exceeded thirteen years, while the average reigns of other European monarchs is about twenty-five; and as his Emperors have disappeared, no one scarcely knows how, so he himself disappears from his home, as a conscript or an exile, never more to return to his family hearth! In order to reach the level of general civilization, knowledge, popular freedom, and enlightened administration, a crisis, such as the present, was indispensably necessary to the very existence of "all the Russias." She could not advance by means of her own inherent vitality; she could not stand still while the rest of the world was advancing; and to recede was a national decease. The blow has been struck-the walls have been levelled with the earth-an open breach has been effected into the very heart of Russia-and the inroad of modern opinions and freedom of thought through the yawning gap is inevitable and irresistible. When the Allies landed at Old Fort, on the 14th of September, 1854, they took possession, not of Muscovite territory, but of the Muscovite mind.*

*The Czas, the Austrian journal of Cracow, says :-"In the night of the 20th ult., the recruitment of 30,000 men, from the age of nineteen to thirty-five, took place in Poland." This is the most terrible form of serfdom extant. But the Russian government are already alive to the pressure of the times. A university is to be founded at Nicolaieff. An observatory-arranged for meteorological as well as astronomical records-is also to be erected in the city. Proposals for railway undertakings are already in the market. These reports, if true, speak volumes. The following is from the Times' Special Correspondent, April 4th, 1856:

"The demolition of trenches, works, and houses in the city continues daily and incessantly, so that the south side will soon be as desolate and ruinous as Thebes or Palmyra. Every hour long trains of men pass by with beams of timber and