How could they think otherwise, when they saw with their own eyes persons swoon away, and that their touch immediately restored them? Reader, had you been a Judge or Juror would you have passed sentence of condemnation upon the accused? [Forty-seven persons in all were executed.] They might say it was a mystery and beyond their comprehension; but they surely would not say it was witchcraft. They might say it was spiritualism, or something they could not understand. They might say, reasoning from natural science and well authenticated facts, that the unnatural state of swooning and a sort of wakening sleep, apparently caused by another, was caused by the powerful working of the subject's own imagination. The operator could do all this, and the very expectation or imagination that he was doing it produced the expected effect. It is a well authenticated fact that a surgeon, before operating upon a patient, was about to administer ether, but concluded that he would first see what effect her expectation and imagination would produce upon her system. He held the sponge without any ether to her nostrils, and strange to tell she was put to sleep by it, and experienced almost the same sensations as are produced by ether. The cause was in herself, in the powerful working of her own imagination. You must suspend judgment respecting all such seeming mysteries, and wait for further light.

In 1692 a series of mysterious events occurred at Gloucester. The people there saw armed Frenchmen and Indians about their houses and in their fields. They shot at them and saw them fall; on coming up to them they arose and ran off-they were haunted by these mysterious enemies; the alarm continued for three weeks. Two regiments were raised from Ipswich under the command of Major Appleton, and relief came, for as soon as the troops were on the ground all the French and Indians left the town.

There were some remarkable feats performed by children in those days, one in particular, a lad, by the name of Burnham, about ten years old, was walking in the woods and came suddenly upon two bear cubs; he amused himself with them for a few moments, when to his terror he saw the old bear coming fiercely upon him with a wide yawning mouth to protect her cubs. The child instantly seized a pine knot, and as she came up pushed it with all his might down her throat, and then ran for the house; she could not follow him. When his father came out with his gun he found the bear in the struggles of death; the rough edges of the knot caused it to stick fast until she was choked.-History of New England.

A REPORT

OF THE

ROYAL HOSPITAL OF BETHLEHEM IN LONDON,

AND THE

HISTORY OF OLD BEDLAM,

Used as a Mad-House in 1547, and previous to that "to say Divine Service in for the souls of all Christians, when Jesus Christ shall enlarge His grace upon it." Founded by one of the Sheriffs of London, in 1246.

[It may now be worth the time and attention of the reader to turn from the numerous and unpleasant truths just given of the dire mismanagement of our home institutions, to those that have existed of old, and within a few years past in similar establishments in England, the mother country, from whom, in the proper order of things, we should expect such bright examples in all that is good.]-E. H.

Whosoever aspires to effect some great reform in any department of human thought or action, whether moved thereto by a laudable ambition, or inspired by humane feeling, should not look back only to the lofty height on which in the distant past stands the great reformer, and hope that he may reach an equal height of glory in his day and generation, but should rather look abroad and scan the dreary prosaic events in which he is living; should mark well the scarce perceptible motion of any current of progress in the face of interested prejudice and ignorant opposition; and should not fail soberly to reflect how little is thought of him who is spending the energy and sacrificing the comfort of a life in doing good to the world in spite of itself. Then, if he still hold fast to his benevolent aim, let him in firm resolve and with patient endurance, without illusion and without exultation, nerve himself to enter upon a thorny and uncertain path, on which it may be that he will have to sink down and fail. Not only petty jealousies,

irritated prejudice, offended self-interest, malignant envy, and all the host of evil passions that go to strengthen the great army of obstructiveness, will be found arrayed in hostile line against the champion of progress; but his bitterest sorrow will be to find himself opposed and misunderstood by many whom he knows to be well-meaning and sincere, but who cannot conceive of other and better things than those to which they have been accustomed. Such men unconsciously become a part of the system in which they have lived and to which they have grown; they move contentedly in the old ruts, and only that which has been is with them that which shall be. Any one starting forth on a new path, with unfamiliar aspirations, appears to them as a madman, or a self-seeking schemer, or at best a phenomenon utterly unintelligible, but of which they entertain the sincerest distrust, while they are the most formidable enemies of the reformer, because they are conscientiously so, and because they are in the closest sympathy with the stagnation which he labors to abolish. Throughout all time it has been so, and to the end of time it must, by the nature of things, be so; in one way or another the reformer is despised and rejected of men—a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When not actively opposed and openly reviled, his work is not seldom being done while men wist not of it—while they hide, as it were, their faces from him; and it is commonly completed, and the self-sacrifice of his life over, before the world awakens to anything like an adequate consciousness of its vast importance. Often, too, it happens that he survives not to behold any fruit of his labors-has only a glimpse of the promised land; and, like Moses of old, lies down to die in solitary sorrow on some lonely Pisgah, while others joyously gather in the harvest which he has sown with much painful toil. And when they have gathered in the fruits, they slowly call to mind him who has been their benefactor, place him on a pedestal of glory amongst the great ones of the past, and determine with one consent that his name shall live for evermore. Having paid which debt of gratitude to the past, they proceed forthwith to resist the reformer who is living and laboring among them, and with all their might strive to crush him out.

The cost to the individual reformer being so severe, and the strength required of him so great, even when the rare opportunity offers, it is no wonder that there are many who refuse to become martyrs in the cause of humanity; that there are others who break down in the unequal conflict; and that but few centuries have a great reform to boast of. How many years has man lived

upon the earth, and how few has he profitably employed! It may not be amiss, then, that the present century, in which a great social reform has been accomplished by the labors of a few men, should be reminded of the noble work that has been done, and called to take some thought of the difficulties that have been patiently surmounted, and of the vast gain that has accrued to humanity. Familiarity with the modern and scientific treatment of the insane is apt to make us forget that it is of quite recent birth, and that within the memory of many now living it would have been thought the wildest madness to dream of dealing with these afflicted beings otherwise than as with the most dangerous animals. Not in any country nor at any period before this century, was there a just conception of the insane as victims of disease, whom it was necessary to treat as such, and of mental derangement as the perverted function of a diseased organ; and even at the present time this conception has not gained full admission into the mind of every legislator, or of the general public. Happily, mankind is capable of being moved through feeling to a practical course, the theory of which it does not fully appreciate. This was what happened in regard to the insane. The horrible revelations of their miserable condition aroused public compassion, and there were found men of humane feelings and enlightened views sufficiently far-seeing, patient, resolute, and energetic to realize the better. feelings in a better system of treatment. It is now the fixed habit in this country to treat the insane as sufferers from disease, and it is not deemed necessary or thought right to apply any sort of mechanical restraint even to the most excited maniac. Such a vast reform has been accomplished in our time by the labors of a few determined men, and some of them who were leaders in the fight are still living, strangely unregarded, and entirely unrewarded, by an age which owes them so much. We propose now, then, to exhibit the course of progress from the old and barbarous system of chaining up the insane, to the modern humane and enlightened system of treatment; to point out through what difficulties the advance was made, and to indicate, as far as it is yet visible, the path of future progress. To this end it will be most convenient to take the history of Bethlehem Hospital, the management, or more correctly the mismanagement, of which has at different times within the last fifty years, been the subject of special inquiry by a cʊmmittee of the House of Commons, by the Lunacy Commissioners, and twice by the Charity Commissioners. It has been the last stronghold of an obstructive policy, and the congenial home of the worst

:

iniquities of an iniquitous system, with which through all time to come its history will be identified; for, as truly said in the House of Commons, if ever any public establishment has covered England with shame, it is the Bethlehem Hospital. The periodical public interference which has been necessary in order to bring this hospital up to the level of similar institutions, has resulted in certain reports that are now valuable records; in them we witness the gradual breaking down of the old system of barbarity and obstructiveness under the pressure of enlightened opinion brought to bear from without; and they are thus trustworthy landmarks on the road, by the help of which we are enabled to realize how fearfully bad the old system was, how difficult was its destruction, and how great has been the progress.

Before proceeding to elicit from these reports the history of the destruction of the old, and the growth of the new system of treating insanity, it may be well to give a brief sketch of the manner of dealing with the insane at different times and in different countries, in order to show how entirely new the modern scientific system really is.

By the Eastern nations, generally, it would appear that the insane were regarded, according to the manner of their madness, either as inspired by some divine spirit, and then consulted as oracles, or as possessed with some evil spirit, and avoided as having a devil in them. As in the different powers of nature good or evil spirits were supposed to reign, according as their influence was beneficial, or appeared malignant, so in the unaccountable perversion of human nature displayed in the vagaries of insanity, men saw the good or evil spirit, according as these were harmless or offensive. In the latter case, it was often supposed that so great a degradation must proceed from divine anger, and. be a punishment inflicted by divine agency. It can scarcely admit of doubt, however, that many insane must have suffered a violent death, in accordance with the prevailing law of vengeance which ordained an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; for it is the nature of insanity to rebel against and to outrage the established laws and customs of society, and on any such crime the Mosaic laws would press most severely.

The ancient Egyptians-a wonderful people in many regards— seem to have arrived at a far more just conception of the nature of insanity than other nations at that time; for they had at both extremities of Egypt, temples, surrounded by shady groves and beautiful gardens, to which melancholics in great numbers resorted in