been for many years full to overflowing. In 1850 another asylum was erected in the same county, at Colney Hatch, to serve as a relief to Hanwell. This, at first, was intended to accommodate one thousand two hundred and fifty patients, but has lately been enlarged, so as to furnish room for two thousand. Both these institutions are too large, and have too small a tract of land attached to them. The buildings at Colney Hatch are almost a city of themselves. The greater part of the inmates of both institutions are reckoned among the incurables. In Hanwell ninety-five per cent. are of this class, and in Colney Hatch about ninety per cent. The crowding together of such great numbers of the insane under a single roof, has a strong tendency to paralyze the efforts of the resident physicians for their restoration to reason, by over-tasking their energies, and preventing that intimate acquaintance with each case so necessary for its successful treatment. The attendants, too, accustomed to a tread-mill round of duties, lose their interest in the patients, and do not seek to rouse their intellects, or call off their minds by recreation, from brooding over their delusions. It can hardly be doubted that many, who, under other circumstances, might have been restored to reason and to happiness, are, in such an institution, consigued to hopeless mental gloom.

Among the best-conducted of the English insane hospitals, are the Somerset County Asylum, the Devon Asylum, under the superintendence of Dr. J. C. Buckwill, the accomplished editor of the Asylum Journal of Mental Science, the Lincolnshire Asylum, the Staffordshire Asylum, the Essex County Asylum, and the General Lunatic Asylum, near Nottingham.

The appointment by Parliament some years since of a board, denominated the Metropolitan Commissioners of Lunacy, who were required to visit, at least once a year, every public and private lunatic asylum, to investigate thoroughly the modes of treatment, the condition of the patients, and the changes necessary for the most successful accomplishment of the objects of well-conducted insane hospitals, has been of great benefit to the insane. This board are their legal guardians; and in the faithful performance of their duties, they have rectified many errors and corrected many abuses into which the cu

pidity, thoughtlessness, indifference, and ignorance of the managers or proprietors of these institutions had frequently led them.

Many of the private hospitals for the insane are now as well conducted as the county asylums; but there is a great lack of institutions suitable for the middle classes, where, at a moderate price, they can enjoy the advantages which are now accorded to the pauper.

The hospitals for the insane in Scotland and Ireland, are in no respect inferior to those of England. The Crichton Asylum at Dumfries, the Royal Insane Hospital at Edinburgh, the Asylums at Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee, as well as others in Scotland, and those at Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Mayo, and others in Ireland, are conducted with great ability.

Insanity is fearfully prevalent in the British Islands. The last report of the commissioners of lunacy states the number in England at over thirty thousand, while there were five thousand and seventy-six in Ireland; and, notwithstanding the immense sums expended within the past ten years for the erection of hospitals for their relief, the public institutions are, almost without exception, full, while the commissioners report over ten thousand persons, in England alone, now in work-houses and jails, who are in need of hospital accommodations.

The insanity prevalent in England, and, indeed, throughout Europe, is of a much more passive character than in this country. The number of violent and excited cases being comparatively few, while melancholy and dejection in the milder forms are far more common. This may be partly owing to the greater intensity of life and action here, and partly to the dif ference of climate; but probably the principal cause, especially with the pauper insane, is, that their insanity is produced most generally by their pauperism; that insufficient food, and other depressing causes, have produced that tædium vitæ, which is the most marked characteristic of their insanity. The change from the most abject poverty to the comforts and luxuries of the county asylums is so great, that in cases of recovery, it is extremely difficult to induce the patients to consider themselves sufficiently restored to go out, and enter again upon the bitter and fearful struggle for subsistence.

necklace of a "manufacturer of jewels" in Brussels; and the execution of the work had been so exquisitely nice, that the Paris jewelers had been utterly deceived, and swindled to the tune of over five and twenty thousand francs; thus affording them the benefit of a valuable lesson which they will not soon forget. The "lady" has not since been heard of!

TRACKS IN THE BUSH; OR, THE

A

LOST ONE FOUND.

WRITER, in a late number of Household Words, gives the following interesting narrative of the wonderful powers of vision possessed by the natives of Australia:

A stockman in my employment was, not many years ago, missing from a cattle station distant from Sydney about two hundred and thirty miles. The man had gone one afternoon in search of a horse that had strayed. Not having returned at night or the next morning, the natural conclusion was that he had been lost in the bush. I at once called in the aid of the blacks, and, attended by two European servants, (stockmen,) headed the expedition. The chief difficulty lay in getting on the man's track, and several hours were spent before this important object was accomplished. The savages exhibited some ingenuity even in this. They described large circles round the hut whence the man had taken his departure, and kept on extending them until they were satisfied they had the proper footprints. The track once found, half a dozen of the blacks went off like a pack of hounds. Now and then, in the dense forest through which we wandered in our search, there was a check, in consequence of the extreme dryness of the ground, or the wind had blown about the fallen leaves of the gigantic gum-trees, which abound in those regions; but, for the most part, the course was straight on end.

We had provided ourselves with flour, salt beef, tea, sugar, blankets, and other personal comforts. These were carried on a horse which a small black boy, about fourteen years old, rode in our rear.

On the first day we continued our search until the sun had gone down, and then pitched our camp and waited for daylight. With their tomahawks the blacks stripped

off large sheets of bark from the gumtrees, and cut down a few saplings. With these we made a hut, at the opening of which we lighted a fire, partly for boiling the water for tea, and partly for the purpose of keeping off the musquitoes. During the night we had a very heavy storm of lightning and thunder, accompanied by torrents of rain. This, I fancied, would render the tracking even more difficult, as the rain was sufficiently heavy to wash out the footprints of a man, had any such footprints been previously perceptible. When the sun arose, however, the blacks, seemingly without difficulty, took up the track and followed it at the rate of two and a half miles an hour until noon, when we halted to take some rest and refreshments. The foot of civilized man had never before trodden in that wild region, which was peopled only with the kangaroo, the emu, the opossum, and wild cat. The stillness was awful, and, ever and anon, the blacks would cooey, (a hail peculiar to the savages of New Holland, which may be heard several miles off,) but, and we listened each time with intense anxiety, there was no response.

At about half past three in the afternoon of the second day we came to a spot where the blacks expressed, by gestures, that the missing stockman had sat down, and, in confirmation of their statement, they pointed to a stone, which had evidently been lately removed from its original place. I inquired, by gestures, whether we were near the lost man; but the blacks shook their heads and held up two fingers, from which I gleaned that two days had elapsed since the man had been there. At five we came to another spot where the missing stockman had laid down, and here we found his short pipe broken. It would be difficult to describe the satisfaction with which I eyed this piece of man's handiwork. It refreshed my confidence in the natives' power of tracking, and made me the more eager to pursue the search with rapidity. By promises of large rewards I quickened their movements, and we traveled at the rate of four miles an hour. We now came upon a soil covered with immense bowldThis, I fancied, would impede, if not destroy, the track; but this was not the case. It is true, we could not travel so fast over these large round stones; but the blacks never once halted, except

ers.

when they came to a spot where they satisfied me the stockman himself had rested. None but those who have been in search of a fellow-creature under similar circumstances can conceive the anxiety which such a search creates. I could not help placing myself in the position of the unhappy man, who was roaming about as one blindfolded, and probably hoping on even in the face of despair. Again we came to a forest of huge gum-trees.

At times the gestures of the blacks, while following the footprints of the stockman, indicated to me that he had been running. At other times they imitated the languid movements of a weary and footsore traveler. They knew exactly the pace at which the poor fellow had wandered about in those untrodden wilds, and now and then, while following in his wake and imitating him, they would laugh merrily. They were not a little amused that I should be angry at and rebuke such a demonstration.

The sun went down, and our second day's search was ended. Again we pitched our camp and lighted fires. We had now traveled about thirty miles from the station, and the blacks, who had now got beyond the precincts of their district, became fearful of meeting with some strange tribe, who would destroy them and myself. Indeed, if I and my European companions had not been armed with a gun each, and a plentiful supply of ammunition, my sable guides would have refused to proceed any further.

All night long I lay awake, imagining, hoping, fearing, and praying for day-light, which at last dawned. Onward we went through a magnificent country, beautifully wooded, and well watered. by streams and covered with luxurious pastures, all waste land in the strictest sense of the term. At about ten we came to a valley in which grew a number of wattle trees. From these trees a gum, resembling gum arabic in all its properties, exudes in the warm season. The blacks pointed to the branches, from which this gum had recently been stripped, and indicated that the man had eaten of a pink grub, as large as a silk-worm, which lives in the bark of the wattle tree. Luckily he had with him a clasp-knife, with which he had contrived to dig out these grubs, which the blacks assured me were a dainty; but I was not tempted to try them.

On again putting the question to the blacks, whether we were near the man of whom we were in search, they shook their heads and held up two fingers. We now came to a clear shallow stream, in which the blacks informed me by gestures that the missing man had bathed; but he had not crossed the stream, as his track lay on the bank we had approached.

After traveling along this bank for about three miles we came to a huge swamp, into which the stream flowed, and ended. Here the footprints were plainly discernible even by myself and my European companions. I examined them carefully, and was pained to find that they confirmed the opinion of the blacks, namely, that they were not fresh. Presently we found the man's boots. These had become too heavy for him to walk in, and too inconvenient to carry, and he had cast them off. Not far from the boots was a red cotton handkerchief, which he had worn round his neck on leaving the station. This, too, he had found too hot to wear in that oppressive weather, and had therefore discarded it.

Following the track, we came to a forest of white gum trees. The bark of these trees is the color of cream, and the surface is as smooth as glass. On the rind of one of these the man had carved, with his knife, the following words:

"O God, have mercy upon me.-T. B.”

How fervent and sincere must have been this prayer in the heart to admit of the hand carving it upon that tree!

Toward evening we came to a tract of country as barren as the desert between Cairo and Suez; but the soil was not sandy, and it was covered with stones of unequal size. Here the miraculous power of the black man's eye astounded us more than ever. The reader must bear in mind that the lost man was now walking barefooted and tenderfooted, and would naturally pick his way as lightly and as cautiously as possible. Nevertheless, the savage tracked his course with scarcely a halt.

Again the sun went down, and again we formed our little camp, on the slope of a hill, at the foot of which lay a lagoon, literally covered with wild ducks and black swans. Some of these birds we shot for food, as it was now a matter of prudence, if not of necessity, to husband