being withdrawn, the reason clears; sleep and food restore the exhausted nervous system, and the man says he is well. His delusions, if any existed, are gone; his pulse is normal; his sleep is good; he reasons well on any topic,-on none clearer than on his unfortunate habit. It is true that repeated attacks sometimes leave the mind weak, but I am considering the ordinary case. Intellectually he is well, and you can detect only one thing lacking,—his moral sense; that, in confirmed cases, seems to have burnt out early. Theoretically you say the man is not well. I doubt not you can point out an undue irritability of the nerve centres, and I am not chemist enough to say that the carbon, hydrogen and oxygen that should go to the making up of the ultimate molecules of his brain may not have there united in the proper equivalents to form alcohol; but practically he has recovered from his insanity, and in a world where there was no rum he would remain well. So you can keep him or let him go. If you let him go, the chances are that he will drink again and be back in a month. If you keep him, which after one or two trials is perhaps the best thing that can be done, you will probably regret it. In a hospital, where labor cannot be compulsory, he never elects to do anything; a life of dissipation predisposes to a life of idleness, but to him the idleness without the dissipation is fearful. His freedom from obvious insanity seems to entitle him to a place among the most intelligent and comfortable patients; he takes your best as being his right, and then abuses it; he poisons the minds over which he has an influence, creating disaffection towards the hospital that detains him. Some slight advantage in education causes him to look down with contempt upon the poor lunatics, as he styles them; he says that his case is not like theirs, that the hospital is no place for him. And I think he is right. It will be said that the absence of moral sense, to which allusion has been made, is the very evidence on which the man should be kept in the hospital. It disposed to argue the point, I should ask, How is it with the man addicted to profanity, whose oaths at last pour from his lips with hardly a consciousness of the words he utters,-must we call his absence of moral sense, moral insanity? Criminal indulgence of all kinds at last passes the bounds of self-control, but we very properly hold the individual responsible for the

course by which the end was attained. Exactly what view we may individually take of his case does not matter; sane or insane, the confirmed inebriate should have special provision made for him by the laws. Those who are agreed that he should no longer be kept in our present hospitals, will differ widely as to what shall be done with him, and it is perhaps hardly my place to discuss it. I only trust that here in Massachusetts, where the Washingtonian Home, with a noble purpose and an unfailing charity, holds out a helping hand to such as have the manhood to help themselves, for that other class who have left no mankind to appeal to, I trust we shall have a practical, not a maudlin philanthropy; that we shall build for them no castle of indolence, or having built, make it a paradise for loafers; but that labor, subject to the direction and discretion of a well-informed, judicious medical chief, be made compulsory. One great trouble with our present houses of industry for this class is, that the term of sentence is too short for any lasting good. In this future asylum, or refuge, or rest—call it by what pleasant name you will-make the sentence long, three years at least; perhaps subject to a reduction for good conduct, at the discretion of its board of directors. Locate such an institution on an island, where nothing intoxicating can be obtained and the liberty of the grounds can be assured; then we should hear less, it may be, about men of gentlemanly instincts with but a single failing, but we should at last hope to learn of some cases of oinomania permanently cured.

The editors of the "New Bedford Mercury" and of the "Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal" will accept our thanks for their valuable publications, regularly received. A number of friends have also kindly remembered us with little tokens which have not been the less appreciated because not enumerated here. We would suggest to those having illustrated papers to dispose of, that they are always well received by our inmates, without reference to date.

There has been no change among the officers of the hospital during the past year. To Dr. Gage and Mr. Kittredge I am again indebted, not only for the constant and uniform support and efficient aid they have rendered me, but for their entire devotion to the interests of the institution in which we all feel a common pride. To all who in their places have faithfully

labored for the good of this afflicted class intrusted to our care, my thanks are due.

Nor can I wholly omit, gentlemen, the mention of your generous support, on which I have so constantly leaned, your unvarying kindness to us, which has made all the burdens of the year seem light. I can only trust that our united labors have not been wholly in vain.

The hospital year has been characterized by general prosperity and progress, rather than by marked events or special changes.

We would not have it otherwise; the mission of a great charity like this is necessarily a silent one, not obtruding itself upon the public gaze, but, Good-Samaritan-like, extending its succor to those who are outcast and ready to perish; and, as year by year it gladdens some home circles with returning faces, kindling again the light that had else been quenched, more and more may it come to be regarded as a refuge for the weary, a shelter out of the world's storm; and in carrying out its philanthropic aims in ministering to these feeble ones, in doing such good as we may,-not hoping to receive again,-may we all find an "exceeding great reward.”

W. W. GODDING, Sup't.