NURSES ACCUSED OF MURDER.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 6916, 26 January 1901, Page 4

NURSES ACCUSED OF MURDER.

EXCITING TRIAL TO TAKE PLACE INNEWYOEK..

Three male nurses named Davis, Dean and Marshall, who were employed in the insane department of Bellevue Hospital, New York were arrested on December 18, and charged frith manslaughter. The men are accused of having caused the death of a patient named Hilliard, a Frenchman, who at the coroner's inquest it was disclosed had been killed by strangulation and orucal violence.

■ The New York Herald and other reputable papers publish serious charges against the hospital management. It is asserted that inhuman cruelties and almost incredible tortures have been inflicted on the helpless patients committed to the insane and alcoholic wards of the Hospital, and many unfortunates are said to have been kicked, choked, and drugged to death ™ morphine and other narcotics by the brutal attendants, when the patients refused to take their medicine. An instrument of torture known as a " persuader" is alleged to have been freely employed. It consisted of a coarse pillow-case rolled tight, and it was pulled round a patient's neck and twisted until he sucoumbed from suffocation. The bodies of many of the victims who died in the hospital have shown plain marks of the cruel treatment: Immunity from this inhumanity could only be secured by liberal bribery of the attendants.

Sensational revelations are expected when the trial of; the accused nurses takes place, and several former patients have: come forward with the announced intention of giving incriminating evidence against the three men and others equally guilty. Mrs Hilliard, the unfortunate Frenchmans widow, visited the Frenoh Consul yesterday and demanded redress.

The Consul assured her that if the New York authorities did not bring the men responsible for her husband's death to justice he would immediately make representations to hia Government, arid this threat apparently had a good effect, as the arrest of the three nurses promptly followed.