THE HOSPITAL ENQUIRY

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1792, 30 September 1874, Page 2

THE HOSPITAL ENQUIRY

" For ways that are dark, and tricks that are vain."-

What a refreshing thing it is to observe indomitable perseverance -y a grand determination to proceed in any course Whether such cour.se is radically bad does not signify; or whether that course exposes to the llight of day and the scan of men a mean-spirited servility and utter degradation of all the sublime attributes which make up the creature fashioned after God's own image, is a consideration equally unimportant: the perseverance is there, and for itself I admire it. A writer on the Thames Advertiser has given me, and I rather think a multitude of others, ample proof that he is possessed of this idiosyncrasy in a very strong degree—he has attached himself to a certain side in the present Hospital difference, and with an untiring assiduity he has written in support of his patrons' cause with as much force as the generally asthmatic nature of his pen would permit. There is no attempt to argue two sides of the question—logic is cast aside, and reason is not permitted to intrude. That is why this tool of a certain party is lifted—in his peculiar capacity—so far above any tools that it has ever been the lot of your humble servant to contemplate : and, be it known, there is a certain amount of gratification in the study. He has plunged in—has identified himself with the enquiry, he is the minute taker (ye gods !), and must hold fast to the cause he has adopted. There is something truly absurd in the fact that, while hours have been spent ia determining -whether a certain member is of a sufficiently upright and estimable character to sit on the Committee, a person who is known to be strongly prejudiced in favor of one particular side should be allowed to perform the most important portion of the work, namely, the recording of whatever is said by the witnesses, Committee, and SubCommittee. I said this was absurdwell, it would be under any circumstances, but when «ye take into consideration the attacks which have been made on the Sub-Committee and all but the few of the General Committee who are not with them—theso attacks sometimes having appeared in the shape of "faked" letters, and at others in the leading columns —then, I say, that there is a most unwholesome flavor about the minute book and the minutes taken. Then, this individual is the sole representative of the Thames Advertiser at the meetings of Committee; and if his efforts are to bury the paper he will soon succeed, providing always that he continues in the enviabla position of guiding star to that journal. When the gross inaccuracy of this partizan writer's report was exposed to his face, he whimpered— he professed honest intentions, for which few ever gave him credit; but on the morrow no report of that night's proceedings was given—a local recorded the fact of the, meeting having taken place, in which the writer to whom I have been referring took the opportunity of venting his miserable spleen on the members of the Committee who had objected to the erroneous and one-sided report furnished by kirn. It is men such as this that breed ill-feeling amongst their fellows. If by some unpleasant dispensation of Providence they are not so constituted as to be as other men, appreciative and enjoying life, they spend their sluggish energies in breeding strife—till they become known j by all men, in a comparatively short time, and have the sickening conviction thrust home to them that they are outcasts and aliens of society, without one bright ray of the better nature they hate to soften their baleful existence. And this is the enviable position in which the clumsy advocate of l»r. Lethbridge will find himself. But the excellence of his perstvering qualities, his enemies must acknowledge—they are of an excessively high order. Another article, which bears out the character marking all former articles, appears in this morning's paper, and continues the attack on the Subcommittee and all who agree with them in a marvellously illogical strain (I might charge the writer more harshly), but with a determination which is really heroic. The " bragian boldness of the man is simply stupifying —giving vent to sentiments which could be prompted by nothing but a cherished animosity—or, more likely, by the promise of a small consideration —in the leading column of a public print which should lead the public to a just estimation of the case under discussion. The ostensible object of the leader is of course to influence the Committee who sit to night on the enquiry. But the effect, to my thinking, will be very different to what he (the writer) expects. We are but short-sighted mortals at the best! And for the man I sing—had Dame Nature bestowed upon him as much of intellect, as he is undoubtedly possessed of animal vigor and mental activity, he would succeed better. As it is—that is to say, in the condition in which we find him—his commendable perseverance will avail him nought, and I predict for him the same fate as that which befell the historically famed Humpty Dumpty. Old Mog.