ANDREW REED and DR. CONOLLY excited
public attention to the want of such an asylum
in London, and so successfully, that they were
soon enabled, by voluntary subscriptions, to
take Park House, Highgate. The same
society, accredited to the public by the same
two eminent and respected names, now holds
Essex Hall near Colchester, likewise. The
first report thus graphically describes the
opening of Park House.

"The first gathering of the idiotic family
was a spectacle unique in itself, and sufficiently
discouraging to the most resolved, and not to
be forgotten in after time by any. It was a
period of distraction, disorder, and noise of
the most unnatural character. Some had
defective sight; most had defective or no
utterance; most were lame in limb or muscle;
and all were of weak or perverted mind.
Some had been spoiled, some neglected, and
some unconscious and inert. Some were
screaming at the top of the voice; some
making constant and involuntary noises from
nervous irritation; and some, terrified at
scorn and ill-treatment, hid themselves in a
corner, from the face of man, as from the
face of an enemy."

To this establishment we paid a visit within
a few weeks of the present date. It is a fine
detached house, beautifully situated at a
considerable elevation above the metropolis—
high ground is indispensable for the purpose
—and looking down upon the spot where
Richard Whittington heard the bells summon
him to his glorious destiny of being thrice
Lord Mayor of London. We found the
school-room for male pupils—and full of
pupils too—as quiet and orderly as any
school-room we have ever seen. Writing
was in progress, and the copies were clean,
plain, and good. Drawing appeared to be the
favorite pursuit. Barns, gables, gates, houses,
walls, hay-stacks, churches, fences, and the
usual compositions, were in many cases
exceedingly well executed. One pupil was very
proud of a pump—a portrait, as we
conceived—with the legend " Stick no Bills," on
it. Two young men—one, a curiously slow
deep-voiced dark youth, and the other a
round-shouldered healthy- looking fellow,
rather overgrown and heavy—stood before a
map of England, pointed out towns with a
wand as they were named, and told what
they were famous for—frequently correcting
each other as the occasion arose; they also
achieved some simple arithmetic. In a second
room, likewise perfectly quiet and placid, were
some little fellows busily plaiting straw of
various colours. In a third, the whole male
body turned out on parade, and were drilled
by an old soldier; going through their
exercise with such precision, that we were
disposed to suggest the addition of an Idiot
Corps to the Militia. We found a work-
room full of girls, sewing, and making little
fancy ornaments with beads and parti-
coloured strips; some of the faces among
them were extremely pretty, and gave little or
no indication of the blank within. We found
rooms full of children of all ages, in the
keeping of female attendants whose pleasant
and patient countenances were a strong
assurance of their being well selected, except
in only one instance where we certainly
derived a less agreeable impression. We
found a capital gymnasium, which is of the
first importance, as the mental faculties of
these poor creatures can only be approached
by strengthening their bodies and enlivening
their spirits. There was but one child in
bed. Every room was airy, orderly, and
cheerful; and everybody seemed devoted
heart and soul to the good work in hand.

That class of persons, unhappily always
too large a one for this world, who are so
desperately careful to receive no
uncomfortable emotions from sad realities or
pictures of sad realities, that they become the
incarnation of the demon selfishness, and are,
by their sickly letting-alone, the most
intolerably mischievous people in the community,
will probably exclaim, " O, but all this must
be excessively painful! " To which we reply,
that such an affliction considered by itself is
very painful; but that, considered with a
rational reference to the alleviations and
improvements of which it is plainly susceptible
under such treatment, it ought to become the
reverse of painful, and ought to do the visitor
good. Madam you are a lady of very fine
feelings, you are very easily shocked, you
"can't bear " a great deal that a higher
wisdom than yours would seem to have
contemplated your bearing when your little
place was allotted to you on this ball. This
idiot child of thirteen, sitting in its little chair
before the fire—as to its bodily growth, a child
of six; as to its mental development, nothing—
is an odious sight to you. This idiot old man
of eight, with the extraordinarily small head,
the paralytic gestures, and the half-palsied
forefinger, eternally shaking before his hatchet
face as he chatters and chatters, disturbs you
very much. But, madam, it were worth
while to enquire while the brazen head is yet
saying unto you " Time is! " how much of
the putting away of these unfortunates
in past years, and how much of the putting
away of many kinds of unfortunates at any
time, may be attributable to that same refinement
which cannot endure to be told about
them. And, madam, if I may make so bold,
I will venture to submit whether such delicate
persons as your ladyship may not be laying
up a rather considerable stock of responsibility;
and you will excuse my saying that I
would not have so sensitive a heart in my
bosom for the dignity of the whole corporation.

When we had made the tour of the establishment
and had looked at the whole prospect
without and within, not forgetting the pet
birds, or the idiot woman who was so busy in
carrying the dinners about and so delighted
to be useful, we came back to the schoolroom,