The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons, respecting the Asylum at York / with observations and notes, and a letter to the Committee, &c. ... ; by Godfrey Higgins.

  • Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee appointed to consider of provisions being made for the better regulation of madhouses in England.
Date:
1816
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The evidence taken before a committee of the House of Commons, respecting the Asylum at York / with observations and notes, and a letter to the Committee, &c. ... ; by Godfrey Higgins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    28/82 (page 24)
    Dr. Best says the inaccuracy was detected by reference to the stewards books. I beg his pardon for contradicting him : it was discovered by an examination I made of the register of the parish church of St. Olave's, and a comparison of the number registered as buried, with Mr. Atkinson's publication in the York Count nt. I found that in a certain period, twelve were stated in the paper to have died, when seventeen had been buried. Mr. Suit's books proved to what an extent this practice had been carried. I am obliged to Dr. Best for his hint; it seems there was an official correct record, and in the teeth of it a state- ment, by way of debtor and creditor, the totals balancing, false, to the amount of 144, was published in the York papers. I admit that Dr. Best asked Mr. Atkinson at the annual meeting, if he ever knew him correct the books, and Mr. Atkin- son said he never did: but I do not see how this exculpates Dr. Best. If I am wrong in stating that Mr. Surr's books were false, as well as Mr. Atkinson's, I was misled by Mr. Suit, whose books appeared to the in the same form, and who told me they were the same as Mr. Atkinson's. However, if the books of the former were correct, it appears that all pretence of pleading confused or erroneous accounts is done away. As there was a true account, why was a false one published ? Dr. Best does not deny the fact that the accounts were sent to him and to Mr. Suit for examination before their publication by Mr. Atkinson, and whether either or neither or both should be deemed accessary, the committee will judge. I never wished to prove whether there was an official record or not: I have proved what I have asserted, viz. that 144 deaths were concealed from the public for the sake of supporting the credit of the house. Had the examination been so much to the satisfaction of the court as Dr. Best represents it to have been, a resolution of non criminality would, in all probability, not have been wanting. ' The account given in the same page, of the burning of the steward's books, is equally calculated to convey an erroneous idea of that affair ; and a circumstance mentioned in the same paragraph respecting myself, viz. that the physician's participation in the weekly payments of certain classes of patients, was discovered by a book which accidentally came into the hands of the Committee of Inquiry, is perfectly at variance with fact. At one of the very earliest meetings of the Committee of Governors, and the moment the physician's emoluments became the subject of inquiry, I communicated every particular relating to the ac- customed mode of remuneration of the physician, by participation in the payments of the different classes of patients who were not paupers. The burning of the steward's books at Christmas last, as mentioned in the evidence; did not take place till eleven months after their examination