The registration of all lunatics, particularly on the accession of their malady, is exposed to certain objections, none of which, however, are, in our opinion, of sufficient weight to militate against the plan. One great impediment to its adoption, among most persons above the condition of paupers, and in some degree among the poor also, is the desire of secrecy on the part of friends, who endeavour in every way to restrict the knowledge of their relative's mental disorder to the circle of his own family, and, if possible, to ignore its being actual insanity. On the one hand, the insanity is treated as if it brought discredit on all related to the afflicted person; and on the other, relations dread its recognition by any public authority, and set themselves in array against any inquiry which seems to trench on their private affairs. The self-same feelings and prejudices, as before shown (p. 32), operate against the early and successful treatment of private patients; and as obstacles to registration they are equally to be regretted. The attempt to keep secret an attack of insanity is virtually impracticable; and though it is, in truth, a dire misfortune to both patient and family, yet is an attack of mental disorder a less discredit than one of gout, which our forefathers, in their folly, courted as a pledge of good manners and good breeding. The mischief of these notions, however, is, that they operate inimically to the interests of the patient: they stand in the way of early and appropriate treatment, and thereby tend to prolong the malady, or to render it inveterate. Could the friends bring themselves boldly to face the whole truth, and admit the fact that their relative was insane, and were they encouraged by their medical man to take this true view of the matter, and to act upon it, by submitting the patient to the necessary treatment, they would very often escape the evil of exposure they dread, and soon have their relative restored to them again, instead of having, by various subterfuges, to hide his condition, and to account for his long disappearance from society and from home. Besides, the hollowness of the pretences or excuses for absence must some day be found out, when the impression upon acquaintances will be the more profound, and the self-respect of the relatives suffer the wound inflicted by the exposure of the vain deception they have essayed to practise.