17

H.—29

the yard in such an excited state. I was afraid there would be a mutiny. There was no unnecessary force used, not in the least. The man was lifted off his feet and carried inside."

The patient Whelan, who saw the affair and took part in it, says that the patient Broderick was very gently handled, considering the wild state he was in and the row that was going on. He says that he himself took part in the affair because he thought it was not fair for three men to be getting the better of one. Besides, Broderick was a Catholic. He cried "Ireland for ever," because his father used to cry that before him.—J. T. King.

Deae Me. Impey,— Seacliff, 7th December, 1892. You have asked me to give you my opinion concerning the matter that led up to the informal meeting held by Dr. King re certain complaints about the attendants' food, and I am glad to have the opportunity to state my views in as concise a form as possible. Although absent from the meeting, I would be stating an untruth if I said I was not cognisant of the reasons on which the complaint was grounded. You will, of course, know lam leaving almost immediately, by the doctor's permission. He asked me if I had any specific reason for leaving. I replied that I had several; although I only mentioned one reason, that reason being the bad cooking, as I think it is the one which is at present uppermost, and also the primary cause of the trouble which culminated in the attendants affixing their signatures to the complaint. This complaint would, lam sure, have received unanimity long ago, and been placed in the doctor's hands to be remedied, but, as is well known, certain members of the staff hung back, presumably, I suppose, because might against right is a lever, I am sorry to say, is too often used by the doctor, who, if he ferreted the facts out for himself in a straightforward manner without running to Mr. Stewart about everything, would allay much dissatisfaction. Mr. Stewart, as we all know, must acquiesce with the doctor's decision rightly or wrongly, following as a matter of course from the doctor's inherited hatred of being contradicted, and his disapproval of hearing anything in the way of a suggestion from the staff. I have for the last four or five months intended writing to the doctor concerning the cooking on my own responsibility, and now, I assure you, I am heartily sorry I did not get it done. - Well,-about the remarks that passed between the doctor and myself. In the first place I told him I should certainly have signed the paper indorsing the complaint. I said the whole matter was a simple one, inasmuch as it only required a simple remedy. I told him Mr. Stewart had been told time after time about the bad cooking, and that he almost invariably made the reply, " Oh, I will see the doctor about it," and there the matter has invariably ended. The doctor, even at this time, some days after the meeting, did not seem to realise or must have failed to arrive at the fountainhead of the trouble, as all he could say was that it was most extraordinary. I specifically drew his attention to the fish as a matter of much grumbling, as it was a diet requiring something in the way of sauce being served up with it to make it appetising. He replied he had the very same fish on his .own table, and "really," he said, "it was remarked how excellent it was." He said the sauce had sunk into it. Well, to discuss in detail, I think lam right in saying that the sauce the doctor was thinking of at the time was nothing more than the water the fish was boiled in. I admit proper sauce has been served up on several occasions, but it has been conspicuous by its absence in the majority of times we have had groper. Another reason my wishing to quit the place is the generally irritating and countermanding of orders, as issued between the doctor and Mr. Stewart, and the continued nagging Mr. Stewart pursues regarding certain attendants, myself at times included. Dr. King's knowledge also of the general routine in detail of the institution really appears so limited that his decisions are largely arrived at through secondhand information supplied by Mr. Stewart. Another cause which breeds ill-feeling towards the doctor by the attendants is his haughty, irascible, and overbearing disposition, so that it is impossible that the great majority of the attendants can entertain a friendly feeling for him. Suffice it to say, he has not the knack of controlling so comparatively a large body of men. It has long amongst the attendants been considered as a matter of course that to expect justice and get grievances remedied, and get him to listen impartially to any complaint from the attendants, is a thing quite foreign to his nature. If an attendant here has a grievance and he speaks out his mind, perhaps in effect reflecting on the management of the institution, that man I say is marked, watched, and continually being harassed in his duties, which in the end makes him lose all interest in his work, and in the end he is dismissed on some trumped-up charge and considered a convenient riddance. As an instance, I have only to mention the names of Arundel, Clark, and yourself, who have been manly enough to speak out your minds concerning the matter, and who have been dismissed, or will be —why ? forsooth because you dared to tell him the plain unvarnished facts, and it is at your sacrifice that the food is served up now, I believe, in a way that we all testify our approval of. Ido not hesitate to say the doctor has treated Arundel, Clark, and yourself like martyrs. I do not know whether the matter of the bread was brought up, but I wish to say that the baking and firing of the loaves has frequently been shameful in the extreme. Often have I seen it for a fortnight at a time (at least) in a state of dough or putty, and all we could eat was the crust. The proportion of the inside of a loaf to the crust is, I should think, something like the parts 90 to 100. At such times, which were very frequent, the inside of the loaves were left untouched—l suppose were eventually thrown to the pigs. We receive eleven or twelve loaves per day. The doctor is so unreasonable and purblind in his nature that he rides rough-shod over justice, never as much as thinking of the attendants' interests as a whole, but rather on the other hand casting his weathereye to his own interests, and endeavouring to make his position more tenable and unassailable to the unsuspecting public. Begarding Mr. Stewart, it is an indisputable fact that he is more frightened of the doctor than I think any member of the staff It will suffice to mention only one instance, viz. : From 3—H. 29.