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Assuming, therefore, that a man cannot support himself in idleness upon $8 per month, even to the extent of buying only his food and lodging, the Government in undertaking to furnish him with both these necessaries, asks but little in return, in demanding that he shall relinquish his pension. As to clothing, those invalids who cannot work, should have it supplied to them; those who can work should be compelled to supply themselves, being allowed, for that purpose, to purchase it at cost from the Government, or anywhere else they may please.

WHAT IS THE BEST SIZE FOR ASYLUMS?

The experience of all nations shows that in Invalid Hospitals extremes of size are to be avoided, in an economical point of view. This implies also that a very large number should not be congregated within them. They should, in fact, and for the most part, be considered as temporary establishments, which the lapse of the next thirty years will render unnecessary as a class, dwindling them down to a few leading ones in the more populous districts. For, unless war has become the normal condition of a nation, and it is perpetually recruiting the ranks of its invalid soldiers, the number of these must be constantly on the decrease. The laws of vital exhaustion operate upon them with much more intensity than upon the healthy. Their powers of recuperation have been well nigh exhausted in bringing and keeping them up to the point of imperfect convalescence to which they have attained. With youth on their side, and while still in the ascending scale of life, they may continue apparently in equilibrio for some years, but as age creeps on, constitutional exhaustion will show itself more and more rapidly, in a lessened ability to recover from slight attacks of disease, so that far in anticipation of the natural period, and the natural progress of climacteric decline, invalids will be continually succumbing to the latent influences of their past, disabling diseases.

So far as they are concerned, and looking to the ulterior probabilities of being able gradually to diminish the number of these institutions, five hundred would seem as many as should be provided for in any asylum. One building, with two wings, combining simplicity of style with sufficiency of accommodation, could be constructed at no great expenditure. These buildings, when become useless as Invalid Hospitals, could easily be rendered subservient to other public purposes, while, if the numbers in any one of them became so small as to render its further maintenance unadvisable, they could be transferred to other homes, and these latter added to and enlarged to meet the existing necessities.

Indeed, it is worthy of consideration whether, on the score of economy, there should not be established in every State of the Union, one or two parent or central Homes, with branches, termed Lodges; one, for example, for each three congressional districts, which could, from time to time, as the number of their inmates became reduced below the average justifying the further maintenance of the institution specially for them, discharge its invalids into the parent Homes, thus, by consolidating the benefaction, rendering it more economical in proportion as the circle of its operations is narrowed. The Invalides, in Paris, is becoming yearly more costly, because the size of the establishment, whatever the number of its inmates, requires a fixed category of persons for its administrative staff. Originally constructed to contain four thousand inmates, it now contains but two -- yet the staff cannot be diminished -- and the interest on the funded capital, together with annual repairs, is rendering the institution one of the most extravagant of charities. It costs now some fr. 2.75 a day for each inmate, and this cost will continue to increase rapidly, and just in proportion as the number of inmates diminishes. This, it strikes us, is about as good a commentary upon the inexpediency of building over-large asylums as can well be adduced. And we should prove ourselves poor students of history, and sadly illogical economists, did we not profit by this experience of the statesmen of other countries.

In every State, therefore, which has furnished men for the war, and according to its population, there should be erected one or more parent Homes. The size of these, to meet the future necessities before alluded to, should be sufficient to accommodate five hundred invalids. Or, should such an establishment not be deemed desirable in every State, then, and for each three Congressional Districts, there should be a Government Lodge erected, having attached to it a farm, on which invalids might labor, being, of course, paid therefor, as at the Soldiers' Home in Washington. What the size of these lodges should be, will have to be determined by the necessities of particular localities. Some States will have more invalids than others, and so with Congressional Districts. One fact must be borne in mind in constructing these lodges, and that is, that we are providing, at the outset, for the maximum number of inmates which they will be called upon to contain. For ever after, that number will continue to diminish, and by keeping this consideration before our eyes, we shall not be likely to greatly err in forming estimates of the needed size of the establishment, nor the details of its interior management.