omplacent smile as much as to say,
"This is as it should be, I appreciate the honour done to my royal
brothers and sisters."

This is the bright side of the picture; but it had its sombre tints
also. There were those in all the wards who stood aloof from the
merriment, and would have none of the jinks. Lean-visaged men walked
moodily up and down the passages like caged wild beasts. Their lucid
interval was upon them, and they fretted at the irksome restraint and
degrading companionship. It was a strange thought; but I fancied they
must have longed for their mad fit as the drunkard longs for the
intoxicating draught, or the opium-eater for his delicious narcotic to
drown the idea of the present. There were those in the ball-room itself
who, if you approached them with the proffered pinch of snuff, drove you
from them with curses. One fine, intellectual man, sat by the window all
the evening, writing rhapsodies of the most extraordinary character, and
fancying himself a poet. Another wrapped round a thin piece of lath with
paper, and superscribed it with some strange hieroglyphics, begging me
to deliver it. All made arrangements for their speedy departure from
Hanwell, though many in that heart-sick tone which spoke of
long-deferred hope--hope never perhaps to be realized. Most painful
sight of all, there was one little girl there, a child of eleven or
twelve years--a child in a lunatic asylum! Think of that, parents, when
you listen to the engaging nonsense of your little ones--think of the
child in Hanwell wards! Remember how narrow a line separates innocence
from idiocy; so narrow a line that the words were once synonymous!

Then there was the infirmary full of occupants on that merry New Year's
night. Yonder poor patient being wheeled in a chair to bed will not
trouble his attendant long. There is another being lifted on his
pallet-bed, and having a cup of cooling drink applied to his parched
lips by the great loving hands of a warder who tends him as gently as a
woman. It seemed almost a cruel kindness to be trying to keep that poor
body and soul together.

Another hour, rapidly passed in the liberal hospitality of this great
institution, and silence had fallen on its congregated thousands. It is
a small town in itself, and to a large extent self-dependent and
self-governed. It bakes and brews, and makes its gas; and there is no
need of a Licensing Bill to keep its inhabitants sober and steady. The
method of doing