A vindication of Mr. Higgins, from the charges of Corrector : including a sketch of recent transactions at the York Lunatic Asylum / addressed to Earl Fitzwilliam, by a New Governor.

Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A vindication of Mr. Higgins, from the charges of Corrector : including a sketch of recent transactions at the York Lunatic Asylum / addressed to Earl Fitzwilliam, by a New Governor. 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.

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    pretended transcripts, the material words are changed #—where the sense of a passage is wan- tonly or wilfully perverted—where a fact is dis- torted to give colour to a charge—the casual rea- der who proceeds straight forwards, troubling him- self with no reference or collation, must inevi- tably be misled—as the majority of readers are both casual and careless, even Corrector may have made an impression unfavourable to the character of Mr. Higgins—and that vindication * For examples see p. 6.—the censure in Martha Kidd's case is professed to be given in the words of the Commit- tee, but the language of the Committee is altered, the force of the censure gone. Mr. Higgins complains that no servant was discharged, or called before the Governors, and individually reproved—p. 6 : this is quite misrepre- sented. Mr. Higgins states, that in the Patients' entry- book there is a systematic falsification—that the man who has been destroyed by violence, is said simply to have died—and that he who has escaped, is said to be re- moved. That the entries were thus, is confessed—and notwithstanding the many escapes and at least several vio- lent deaths, there is no instance of an entry corresponding with the fact. How does Corrector meet this general charge ? by producing a solitary entrance in a distinct book respecting the violent death of a person, in the ordi- nary entrance-book said to have died. Mr. Higgins has never denied that when the servants could vindicate themselves from suspicion in a case made notorious by a Coroner's inquest, that they would so do—he said the en- try respecting, Thirkill was like all the entries on similar occasions, deceptious—and it was so.