IMPROPER MARRIAGES.

INSANITY AND SUICIDE.

IN almost every instance of suicide, we find, that when the history of the individual can be traced, the unhappy person is either insane at the time of committing the deed, or there is a predisposition to Insanity-which is generally hereditary; and this, being acted upon by some moral or physical excitement, suddenly awakens, as it were, the disease, which had previously lain dormant in his system. No atmospherical influence is required to aid such an event; and, we may venture to affirm in a thousand cases of self-destruction, not five are of a description on which the state of the atmosphere can exert any influence. Truth obliges us, nevertheless, to admit, that more suicides occur in spring and in autumn than in the other two seasons of the year, because the usual change which the human constitution then undergoes renders the brain highly susceptible of morbid impressions at these periods: Insanity, consequently, becomes more prevalent, and suicide follows in its train.

We have asserted, that a predisposition to Insanity is generally hereditary; and supposing that that opinion were not supported by the fact, that this malady appears in successive generations of the same family, the probability that such an hereditary tendency exists might be deduced from physiological data.—Thus, if, as is admitted, Insanity be connected with a peculiar condition of the organization of the brain, whatever the adventitious circumstance may be that, on such a state of the sensorium, produce a diseased association of ideas, it is as probable that this modification of structure shall be continued through successive generations, as the physiognomical distinctions of form, and the peculiarities of temper and disposi tion, which are characteristic of families. It may be said, that, if this statement be correct, every child of an insane parent would necessarily display symptoms of Insanity; but it is a well-known fact, that, although the predisposition to disease may exist in an individual, yet, unless circumstances occur to commence the train of morbid actions in the functions of the affected organ, which constitutes the disease, the person thus predisposed may pass through life without displaying any symptoms of his liability to the complaint. Still, however, the predisposition descends to his progeny; and the disease may again display itself in its most evident features, after having remained as it were dormant for two or more generations.

IMPROPER MARRIAGES.

341

We are induced to mention these facts from having observed, with great regret, the sway which Interest in the present day exerts over Prudence, in uniting in the bands of matrimony the descendants of the sane and the insane, without either party reflecting upon the consequences of such unions on the future happiness of society. How far the predisposition to which we have alluded may be weakened, or as it were diluted, and ultimately worn out, by the sons of insane parents marrying into healthy families, and their successors following their example, we know not; but we feel no hesitation in prognosticating the most ruinous consequences from the present indiscriminate system of intermarriages!

"For to give birth to those,

Who can but suffer many years and die,
Methinks is merely propagating death,
And multiplying murder."

This confusion and intermixture, also, of the sane and the insane, raise those obstacles, which, we may daily remark, present themselves in determining upon the causes of suicides; and which have led many to refer them, in almost every instance, to other causes than Insanity. A Coroner's Jury, who is to decide upon a case of suicide, may find it impossible to collect from the evidence any proof of Insanity in the conduct of the person who has destroyed himself, or even in that of his parents, should the nature of the case permit the investigation to proceed so far back; and, yet, the predisposition to Insanity may have been hereditary, and existed in the habit of both father and son, although the disease had never displayed itself except in the fatal act which produced the inquiry. So numerous, indeed, are the difficulties in many cases of this description, that (transposing a word) a juryman might say with the clown in "Twelfth Night," "I'll ne'er believe a man mad 'till I see his brains.'*

MEDICAL REPORT.

The atmospherical influence on the human habit has been considerable during the last six weeks, not only producing a hypochondrical state in those labouring under indigestion, but as the exciting cause of coughs, rheumatisms, and several other diseases. The good cheer, the exhilirating customs, and all the kindly and hospitable feelings which this social season calls forth, may be regarded as so many counter

Clo. I'll ne'er believe a mad-man 'till I see his brains,-Act iv. Scene iv.

acting causes to those which tend to lower the habit and foster disease; and, for the sake of the suffering portion of the human race, we are tempted to exclaim with the school-boy-" Why does not Christmas come twice a year?"

A PLAIN LETTER TO FATHERS

AND MOTHERS.

DEAR Friends, I hope you will not deem a little leisure time from your necessary duties and avocations misspent in attending to hints, on a subject which to you must always be interesting. Were any one to put you on a plan of keeping your children in that healthy, sound state, as to require few, or none, of the physician's visits or prescriptions, you would not, I am sure, think the time lost in listening to him; but, on the contrary, look on yourselves as under no small obligation, as saving not only expense, but what may be a still more important consideration, many sorrows and anxieties from dangerous sicknesses and sufferings of those most dear to you. Nor surely, my considerate Friends, will you deem the minds of your young ones of less consequence to be attended to than their bodies; for, on the state of the former, still more than of the latter, may your comfort and happiness for years depend; with their conduct may be connected shame and disgrace, the bringing of your grey hairs with sorrow to the grave, or that honour and respect which, next to a good life, will be a crown of glory in your old age.

You, perhaps, labour hard to procure necessary sustenance for your children, a suitable education, and, it may be, to leave them wherewithal to enter on the business of life with advantages superior to those who have nothing but their hands to look to for pushing their way in the world. All this may be well, but a something may yet be wanting, without which all your cares and labours may end only in vanity and vexation of spirit. Without due attention to the training going on in the domestic circle, or at the home fire side, all other education may prove of little avail. Have not you, and those your children associate with, the moulding, to a considerable degree, of both their tempers and manners in your hands? Will their prattle be more the echo of your words than their ideas of right and wrong, of good and evil, copies of your sentiments? School education, at least as far as reading, writing, and arithmetic go, may now be considered as open to all,

while, to appearance, there is but little abatement of profligacy among the young. Must not this be owing to some defect in the mode of teaching the young idea how to shoot? So long as those who have the charge of training up chil dren in the way they should walk continue ignorant or careless in the performance of their duty, can society fail of being burdened with a race of evil doers! It is true, the fault may often be laid on the untoward disposition of the young, but when the case comes to be closely examined into, the teachers may, in many instances, seem as deserving of blame as the scholars.

From the mode in which the principles of our nature unfold themselves, ought not you, my good friends, to lay your account with opposition on the part of your children to the course of training deemed proper to pursue with them? Solomon says truly that “folly is bound up in the hearts of children;" nor can it be otherwise while the mere animal principles continue in action. A child may be as froward and perverse as a kitten, or a puppy, and for a very good reason, having no more discerninent betwixt right and wrong, good and evil, than its four-legged playfellows. The rational principles are not only long in appearing, but, unlike the animal, require care and culture for their developement; where this is wanting, they may remain almost wholly dormant, or in a state of nonage during life; and the attention, wholly engrossed with sensual feelings and objects, or any glimmering of reason, made subservient to the purposes of appetite and passion, man may even fall below the brutes that perish. You will surely think with me then, that the great object of a wise education should be the due exercise of the higher or rational principles of our nature, and due subjection of the inferior or animal. The natural, and, for any thing that appears to us, unavoidable opposition between these principles of our nature,— the flesh and the spirit-the first impelling to gratification without regard to consequences, the second having in view duty or good upon the whole, must, when both are in action, occasion a struggle, which will be more or less difficult, according to the discipline and training received in early years. Knowing from the constitution of their nature, that your children for a time must be wholly in subjection to the flesh, the mere slaves of animal feelings and propensities, ought it not to be your earnest care and endeavour to prevent

THE HEALTHY CONVENT.

THE PORTFOLIO.

LONDON, FEBRUARY 5, 1825.

THE CONVERZATIONE OF THE

EDITOR.-No. 4.

THE consideration of Phantasmagoric Exhibitions is more closely connected than might be supposed with a subject of the highest, and, in fact, the most fearful which can or perhaps ever has engaged the human mind; I mean that

of the existence or non-existence of SPECTRAL APPEARANCES; and in the course, or probably in conclusion of an interesting recital of experiments aud effects, we shall naturally be led to curious and valuable relations of real spectral appearances (if I may so term them,) which, together with their explanations, will be found most properly to belong to the consideration of those extraordinary appearances which we are enabled to produce by artificial

means.

The deep and unexampled interest of supernatural appearances, to use the general and hackneyed phrase, is founded on the passion of FEAR; and we may well question whether there be a source of emotion in the whole mental frame, so powerful or universal as the fear arising from the presence or agency of universal terror. Love, supposed to be the most general of passions, has certainly been felt in its purity by very few; but who is there that has never been assailed by FEAR? Who is there among us that has not involuntarily remembered the gossip's tale of his childhood, when, in the pride and buoyancy of his maturity and his healthful prime, he has accidentally been surprised by solitude and darkness? Who is there that has not, on some occasions, or at some eventful period, shivered under an influence he could by no means explain or reason upon, and which he could scarcely be brought to acknowledge even to himself?

We may without circumlocution consider fear to be a ruling and an uni

versal passion; it has at some period or
other of life imparted a momentary
chill, impressed a torpedo touch upon
every soul. The nurse-maids' stories
may be inhibited, the inquisitorial pen
may be drawn over the word GHOST
every where except in the catechism,
but until you can deprive night of its
darkness, and the light of its shadows,
while the senses of our nature can be
impressed with stillness, or startled by
sounds, while every thing around us
remains, as it ever must remain, all
mystery; while the human mind conti-
nues what it is, and while mau conti-
nues to be mortal, the fear of things un-
known will in some form or other for
ever influence us; and if such impres-
sions be not examined and explained
upon rational grounds, and in the whole-
some spirit of piety and philosophy, ma-
tured into a beneficial and elevating
faith, they will, they must of necessity
degenerate into a noxious, a dangerous,
and a degrading superstition.
we know is a cowardly passion, and
that fear, which arises from objects of
invisible terror, a superstitious one.
Then is superstitious fear, ignorance,
and credulity, grafted upon ignorance:
we find that even the child is half
ashamed to acknowledge its influence;
he struggles with all his might, and
with his better judgment and feeling
he dissolves the spell.

Fear

Let me here dismiss the preamble, and (if the reader has not already determined for himself) determine for him, the importance of looking with a more enquiring eye than we have been accustomed to use, into a subject which elucidate in a powerful and striking manner a passion felt by most men living, disavowed by ALL! which is only potent when the mind is weak, but which then indeed, like incubus, sits grinning on the bosom of its unresisting and powerless victim.

The order of Philipsthal's exhibition was under the following arrangement :— The first was what he denominated the cavern of the dead, in which the spectral appearances we have already described were introduced. The second act gave us fac-simile representations of the most remarkable contrivances with which designing or mischievous men had from time to time worked upon the credulity and apprehension of ignorant communities, as the spectres, the changing pictures, &c. of the German illuminati; the Red Woman of Berlin; the portraits of the dead of the famous Cagliastro, and other similar tricks. The third division was not

ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGINAL PHANTASMAGORIA.