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The only plea offered for these low rates, is that the pecuniary condition of the community, does not admit of higher, and that the establishment must be maintained at these rates, or not at all. The plea would be a strong one, certainly, were it not founded on a fallacy too much resorted to whenever the claims of humanity become importunate. There is in fact, no such public poverty as the plea would imply. On the contrary, such is our prosperity, that in every community within our borders, the taxes might be doubled and even quadrupled, and then be light when compared with the burdens of other nations. Let the object be one which the people have strongly at heart, any amount of taxation necessary to attain it, would be cheerfully submitted to. This perhaps would prove nothing, were the object manifestly and confessedly of a worthier character than that whose claims we are advocating. But how seldom has this been the case! It is a true and mournful fact, that any scheme of military achievement or territorial aggrandizement in which the popular feeling has embarked, has ever been pursued among us with supreme indifference respecting the cost. The Mexican war cost us more than enough to support all the insane of the country in hospitals of the highest character, through all coming time. And yet who ever troubled himself about the cost of the Mexican war? Let the country once feel that its true glory consists less in its powers of aggression, than in its institutions for promoting the cause of learning and humanity, and then we shall hear very little about the expense of the latter.

Perhaps, as regards individuals, this plea of inability may have more foundation, but let us beware how we suffer this consideration to affect our prices. Such is the general prosperity of our people, that most of those whose means may be called humble, are in the habitual use of certain indulgencies regarded as essential to their comfort, which cannot be afforded at our low rates of board. The peculiar attentions and privileges that constitute the merit of insane hospitals, can scarcely be appreciated by many who would be loud in their complaints on missing some animal gratification which, perhaps, they would better be without than with. We do not find that parties who make the most urgent claims on our charity, for that is essentially charity which is dispensed for less than cost, are disposed to make any sacrifice themselves. We do not find them limiting their indulgence in rum and tobacco, silk and fine broadcloth, on account of the domestic misfortune. If we are to have a very low rate in our hospitals for the insane, let it be for the unquestionably destitute and friendless, but I firmly believe that the highest degree of success, and especially of public confidence, requires for all others, a scale of charges that will warrant the establishment in a generous indulgence in whatever is calculated to promote the comfort and pleasure of its inmates.

The question now remains to be considered, whether the free admission of the public into our: hospitals for the insane, would raise them in the popular estimation. During the last and the early part of the present century, they were secluded from the public gaze, and people ,were unable, without some difficulty, to gain admission, within their walls. Within a comparatively short period, a very different practice has prevailed both in this country, and in France and Great Britain. Here the doors have been thrown open and the public invited, if not solicited to enter, to converse with patients, observe their accommodations, and learn as much as possible, of their history and treatment. The object of this practice, if I understand it rightly, is to increase the public confidence in these institutions, by making people personally acquainted with their advantages for contributing to the comfort and restoration of the insane; to substitute for the darkness and mystery which envelope them, an intelligent appreciation of their merits, and awaken a sympathy for that large class of our fellow-men whose disorder is supposed to incapacitate them for any farther participation in the decencies, not to say the humanities of life. That this object has been obtained in some degree, I am not disposed to deny, and it is quite probable that this publicity has contributed to raise that interest in the pauper-insane, which, under God, has resulted in a great work of humanity characteristic of our times. This, I apprehend, is the only good it has effected. Least of all am I inclined to think it has increased that kind of confidence which we have supposed to be deficient. We must guard against misapprehension of the real sentiment in question. In that general estimation which is made up of the views of all humane, intelligent, reflecting men, hospitals for the insane stand in the first rank of benevolent institutions. On the other hand, among those classes whose intercourse with the world has been too narrow to impart any enlargement of mind, and whose education has been just enough to give them a certain pride of opinion without increasing their capacity to think for themselves, or otherwise than wrong except by accident, there is an under-current of distrust and aversion, having no other source perhaps, than some idle story that has floated into their ears. Now, in regard to the first mentioned class, the proposed remedy is not required, because the evi I does not exist; and in regard to the latter, it is inadequate to accomplish the object in view. They may pass through the halls of the quiet patients, for to them I sup- pose the visits of strangers would be confined, observe them engage in various employments, and for the most part, appearing like ordinary persons ; they may notice the cleanliness of the house, and the many indications of neatness, good order and even kindness, but the real difficulty is not reached. The feeling is, that these traits which make such favorable impressions on the casual observer, may co-exist with a kind of management unseen by the world, which is marked by unkindness, neglect and even positive cruelty. Shocking abuses are not practised before spectators, but at times and occasions when no eye can see, nor tongue proclaim the fact. From any thing seen, there is no guaranty that a patient would not be neglected when sick, shaken or beaten when refractory, supplied with improper or insufficient food, or in some way or other, treated without due regard to the proprieties of life, or the requirements of humanity.