454 Pauper Lunatics. [Nov. 



remedies were applied : the remonstrances were treated with contempt. 

 It is not at all probable that complaints were made by these grave person- 

 ages without very obvious cause. 



Then, as to there being no medical attention paid it must be' observed 

 that no such allegation had been made. But it is often good policy to 

 aggravate an opponent's statement. It enables the party to contradict 

 something ; and though the part contradicted be only the aggravated part, 

 it goes in the common estimate for a part of the whole accusation, and 

 weakens the credibility of the charge. An advantage is thus gained, and 

 that is half the matter in securing acquittal. But what is Mr. W/s own 

 account of the medical attendance ? His own son-in-law is the regular 

 surgeon of the establishment, and attends every other day. On other 

 days, a friend of the surgeon visits the house not a partner, nor an 

 assistant, but a friend, or an amateur, perhaps : he is not paid for attend- 

 ance, and of course is not responsible. But we shall hear more of him. 

 In the White House there are about 500 patients, and in the adjoining one, 

 called the Red House, 300 more. This surgeon, Mr. W.'s son-in-law, 

 attends them all. This same surgeon attends also another house of Mr. 

 W.'s, called Whitmore House : but the number of the patients there is not 

 mentioned. This same surgeon is also surgeon of St. Luke's. This same 

 surgeon has also a <l fair share of general professional practice abroad." 

 The inference is obvious j and the fact must be, that only cases of bodily 

 ill-health are specifically attended to. That alone, indeed, must be quite 

 enough to absorb all the attention one man can give enough, and more 

 than enough ; for here are a thousand persons, of a class peculiarly liable 

 to sudden attacks of bodily disease, every one of whom may justly, per- 

 haps, be said to be constantly in a state of bodily disease more or Jess 

 susceptible of alleviation from medicine, and more or less to require attend- 

 ance. That the same man can have any individual acquaintance with the 

 cases of a thousand people, is too plain a matter to be questioned and, 

 accordingly, Mr. Warburton, when, by dint of more searching questions, 

 he is compelled to modify his general assertion, observes that a large pro- 

 portion come from other establishments as incurables ; and with these the 

 said surgeon, who attends to every person, has nothing to do, except with 

 their bodily health. Dr. Robert Hooper is also introduced to the Com- 

 mittee to state his opinion, that, out of 360 or 170 patients, perhaps not 

 more than ten or twelve, on the average, may require to be under process 

 of medicine ; and this proportion will probably give a higher number than 

 is actually under the care of the surgeon at any one time. Now how could 

 Mr. W. thus broadly assert, as he does, that the medical attendant super- 

 intends all the patients, mentally and bodily; and that a " curative pro- 

 cess," as he phrases it, was constantly going on ; meaning or at least 

 meaning the Committee should understand that the minds of the patients 

 were as much attended to as their bodies ? To mislead, of course, and to 

 bear down suspicion, by the weight of confident and indiscriminating 

 declarations. 



But Mr. W. is a man who professes to undertake himself not 

 only the care, but the cure, and may therefore fairly bo supposed to 

 supply any deficiencies, on the part of his medical attendant, by his own 

 practice. Let us see. He tells the Committee his knowledge of insane 

 cases is equal to any man's in England. But how ask the Committee, very 

 properly how does he contrive to apply this knowledge, which nobody 

 questions, attending, as it appears he does, only two single hours a week,. 



