8 AUGUST 1908, Page 3

The Report rejects the suggestion that the new organisation should

form part of the Poor Law system of the country, while

indicating possibilities of effectual and economical co-operation; recommends the inclusion in every local Committee of a

woman of special experience and knowledge ; and criticises the standard of expenditure maintained at pauper lunatic asylums. We may note, in conclusion, that the Commissioners strongly condemn the use of the word " lunatic " as repellent, and as a hindrance to administration from its inaccurate application to persons who are neither lunatics nor idiots ; and recommend the words "mentally defective" as a general term to indicate all classes of mental disorder, and "person of unsound wind" as representing the more extreme form of mental disorder hitherto covered by the word "lunatic" in its narrower sense.