Untitled

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5070, 23 June 1877, Page 2

Another word re Lunatic Asylum management. It appears that the substance of our paragraph about an unfortunate inmate of this institution having escaped and been found shivering on the hills was telegraphed by the Press Agency to their constituents, and late on Wednesday night a gentleman in town received a pressing telegram from a family on the West Coast, asking him to ascertain who the fugitive was, as they have a relative in the Asylum, and were in a state of painful suspense, dreading that he might have been the person found in the sad condition described. Accordingly yesterday morning the gentleman presented himself at the Asylum to ask the name of the patient referred to in the Times, and was more than astonished to be denied the information sought for, and denied it, too, in a manner the reverse of courteous. The most he could obtain was a reference to Dr. France, which reminded him of Duncan Gray’s contemptuous style—“ He may gae to France for me," Unwilling to have his morning walk for nothing, the visitor thought he might know who his non-informant was, and learned that he bore the name of Whitelaw. The gentleman thinks it a pity that a public officer could not be civil to people calling upon business, and more than a pity that he should not be ready to afford the fullest information upon a matter affecting the public.