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This inevitable tendency to abuse can be checked, and the wishes of the Superintendent thoroughly and systematically enforced, only by means of a party who shall spend his time among the patients and attendants, both day and night, clothed with authority to which all other authority is subordinate. In some institutions he is called a supervisor, and the following may be considered as his principal duties. He is responsible for the manner in which the service is performed, and the attendants are directly responsible to him. He arranges and directs their duties, meets every exigency as it occurs, knows whatever is going on in his department, and infuses order and harmony in every branch of the service. He is the organ of communication between the wing and the centre-house. The attendants should never enter the centre-house without express permission, and the locks should be so arranged that they could not if they would. The supervisor administers the medicine, attends particularly to the sick, watches the varying humors and phases of the patients, and regulates the special attentions they may require. He is responsible for the care and custody of the clothing and other property of patients, and the furniture of the wing, and, the last thing, at night, makes a thorough visitation of the galleries locks the outside-doors, and puts the keys in his pocket. Thus, by his frequent presence, the delinquencies of attendants are speedily discovered, the wants of patients more readily known and supplied, and the general effectiveness of the service most certainly secured. It follows of course, that the degree of excellence which this system will manifest in practice, must depend very much on the personal character of the supervisor. If kind and gentlemanly or lady-like in their demeanor, of a careful, vigilant turn, jealous of their authority and capable of maintaining it without giving offence, possessing a habit of order and a desire to excel, the institution in which they serve, has one of the surest elements of success, and their services are cheap at almost any price they choose to fix.

My views of police also require that the persons engaged in the various branches of domestic service, should never enter the wings, except by special permission. Whatever reason may exist against the introduction of visitors to the galleries, may be urged with tenfold force against the admission of the domestics. In short, I do not see how the peace and order of an establishment can be maintained a single day, if the employees of every description are to be constantly mixed up together, to idle away their time, to circulate gossip, and participate in one another's bickerings and dissensions.

In every institution, I presume, there may be found practices which are connected with some peculiar views or system of the superintendent, that cannot fairly be tested by any conventional notions of propriety. There may be, therefore, some reason for the somewhat prevalent practice of allowing patients both male and female to leave the wing at their pleasure, and have free access to the centre-house and grounds, where they roam about at will, but to me it seems to be subversive of all discipline, as well as of that privacy and seclusion which are supposed to be necessary to the restoration of the disordered mind, as I am sure they are to the maintenance of that kind of propriety which regards every unnecessary exposure of the insane as an unnecessary evil. The only benefit I have ever heard claimed for the practice, that of making patients more contented, because less restricted by locks and bolts, I have thought more fanciful than real, and at best I doubt if enough is gained by it to compensate for the real mischief that must arise from it. I see not how we can pretend to rely on moral treatment in the work of restoration, while we expose our patients every hour to such communications as they may receive from domestics and visitors.

There is another point in the administration of our establishments, of which I venture to speak, because it is intimately connected with the subject in hand. The same spirit of economy which has so mischievously presided over their construction, has demanded a reduction of the price at which their benefits are to be dispensed, to a very low figure. The general desire seemed to be, not to raise the hospital to the highest possible degree of excellence, but to reduce the rate of board too the minimum point, thereby making the merit of its administration to consist, less in the success with which, its peculiar ends are promoted, than in the small amount of means by which, it may be carried on. How the very peculiar and expensive attentions required by the insane, can be rendered at a price below that of the humblest boarding-houses in the country, has never been very satisfactorily explained. However that may be, the very low price of board in the most of our hospitals, has become a fixed fact, and the common impression now is that people may be maintained in a hospital for the insane for little or nothing. Persons who have occasion to place a friend or dependant in one of them, are surprised and dissatisfied if required to pay anything like an equivalent, while their own domestic economy may be indicative of abundance, if not splendor. By all means let the poor be received at the lowest possible point consistent with the true objects of a hospital, but I see no reason why the affluent, those who are able to pay an equivalent for this as well as any other privilege, should be admitted on the same terms. It never could have been intended that the bounty of the State or of individuals should be devoted to this class of persons. Charity does not consist in giving to the rich. But apart from this consideration, there is reason to fear that the charges are sometimes too low to make the institution what it should be to any class of persons. Such charges may procure the means of subsistence, but can they afford all the provisions for maintaining the health and comfort of the patients, which science or a progressive philanthropy have brought forward? Can they give the institution the means of constant improvement, and enable it to take an honorable stand by the side of others? We all know that these questions must be answered in the negative. When an institution is warmed and ventilated in the most perfect manner; when an ample corps of attendants is employed, in one way or another, in ministering to the comfort and gratification of the inmates; when, naked walls are covered with paint and pictures; when parlors and day-rooms, well-lighted, warmed and furnished, present to the patient some of the graces and refinements of a domestic residence; when the grounds are tastefully planted, and offer every charm that springs from lawns, flower-beds and gravel-walks, mounds and fountains, in their most pleasing combinations; then and not till then, should the weekly rate be reduced to a sum just sufficient for the means of animal subsistence.