A letter to the Right Honourable Earl Fitzwilliam ... respecting the investigation which has lately taken place, into the abuses at the York Lunatic Asylum / by Godfrey Higgins. Together with various letters, reports, &c. and the new code of regulations for its future management.
- Godfrey Higgins
- Date:
- 1814
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A letter to the Right Honourable Earl Fitzwilliam ... respecting the investigation which has lately taken place, into the abuses at the York Lunatic Asylum / by Godfrey Higgins. Together with various letters, reports, &c. and the new code of regulations for its future management. 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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![also calculated to disseminate a belief, that the Asylum at large and its inmates, are kept in a state of uncleanliness and neglect, and that due attention is not paid either to the health or the comfort of the patients, the contrary of which notion, as I venture to af- firm with the utmost confidence, will be established by the most ample and satisfactory evidence. As I express so much confidence of being able to rebut these charges, and to bring forward a satisfactory explanation of the circumstances mentioned in your statement, you will probably ask, why I should so strongly object to the publication of your documents ? My answer is briefly this—that they are not fitted to further the ends of justice, but to raise a most unjust outcry against the Lunatic Asylum—that popular clamour though easily raised is with difficulty repressed—that numerous individuals who read your charges, will not be at the trouble to attend to their refutation—and lastly, that when the public mind has been poison- ed and prejudiced on any particular subject, no subsequent expla- nation, however satisfactory in itself, can efface the impression which has once been produced. Should you, after al], decide upon publishing your statement, from which a sense of justice and candour will, I trust, still dis- suade you, you are at liberty to make what use you think proper of the paper I put into your hands, explaining, of course, in case of its publication, that it is to be considered merely as a partial and imperfect explanation of the circumstances, taken down hastily on the spur of the occasion, and as by no means compris- ing the whole of the evidence to be brought forward on the sub- ject. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient humble Servant, CHARLES BEST.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21534445_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
