REPORT OF MR. DILLON.

Gregory Dillon, one of the Committee appointed at the last meeting of the Board, to inquire into and report upon the management of the Hospital at Ward's Island, in relation to the charges of dissections and exhumations alleged to be practised there, has the honor to report :

That, on Thursday last, the committee consisting of Messrs. Verplanck, Rodewald and myself, proceeded to Ward's Island, in the performance of the duty assigned to us; but before leaving the city, I proposed to the chairman that some public officer, authorized to administer oaths, be requested to accompany us, in order that we might make a thorough examination, and be enabled to report to the Board the facts of the case, founded upon legal testimony. I regret to say that my views were not concurred in. Upon arriving at the wharf opposite to the Island, we were accosted by a gentleman who represented himself to be a reporter from one of the daily papers of the city, and desired to have the permission of the committee to attend the investigation. Believing that the attention of the public cannot be too frequently called, or to closely directed, to the management of our public institutions-particularly to one so distant and so peculiarly circumstanced as that on Ward's Island-I was desirous that the reporter should be admitted, but was overruled by my associates of the committee. Immediately after our arrival on the Island, we commenced the investigation, by examining, orally, three of the visiting physicians-Drs. MacNevin, Cox and Hosack—the Hospital clerk, Mr. P. Coghlan; the sexton, John Faly; James Doyle, patient in the tenth shanty; and Matthew Gilmore, assistant sexton on Randall's Island.

It would encumber this report, and extend it to an unnecessary length were I to give in detail the examinations thus made. I have accordingly annexed them to this report, that the board may refer to them for the purpose of deciding whether they justify the conclu

sions to which I have arrived. It is my opinion, as the result of these examinations, that the charges of improper conduct in the management at Ward's Island to which the attention of the board has been drawn, and which the committee was bound to investigate, have not, in any degree, been exaggerated, but are strictly true. The board will recollect that I strenuously opposed the new plan for the re-organization of the medical department at the island, and that I frequently urged as a radical objection, that it would open the emigrant hospital as a school of experiment for mere medical students, who would operate upon the patients without the constant supervision of superior medical authority, which was absolutely necessary for the protection of the patients. All my anticipations, I regret to say, have been more than realized. Treated worse than the dead of the prisons, strange to say no less than three-fourths in number of all the emigrants who have died since the new medical organization was established, have been subjected to post mortem dissections.

If the dissections had been confined to those patients who were here without friends or relatives, it would then have involved simply a violation of the rights of the dead; but two cases were proved to us, in which children were dissected without the permission of their parents, and in wanton violation of their rights and feelings, although the parents had been to the island to make preparations for the decent burial of their offspring. In one of these cases, even after the child had been buried, one of the young physicians so far forgot the rights of the father and his own duty, that in the dead of night he, in company with two other house physicians, went to the grave yard at Potter's field, and with his own hands dug up the remains of the child and carried them to the dead house for dissection, thus superadding to the other enormities of this transaction, a violation of a law of the State. It also appeared before the committee, that in some cases, after dissection, the bodies were not buried entire, but parts were taken away by the physicians as it pleased them; and that portions of different bodies were thrown into the same coffin, and buried. together. I must refer the board, however, for a more particular statement, to the examination of the witnesseses, annexed to this report, and which will be found to justify my opinion, that the late proceedings at Ward's Island are scandalous, and demand immediate action on the part of the board. What action should be taken will be very apparent, when we consider the causes which have led to these proceedings; they are two-fold:

First. The present organization of the medical department is radically defective. Ten visiting physicians and surgeons, at $600 a year each, residing in the city, alternately paying daily visits to the island, in which the mere going and returning consumes three hours of the day, cannot possibly give proper attention to the sick, or afford to us that guarantee for the faithful discharge of their duty by the students, nurses, and others employed in the department, which we should require. A physician of known skill and established reputation, with such assistants as he may deem necessary, should be appointed, and should reside permanently on the island, and devote his whole time and energy to the emigrant sick. Such, I understand, is the practice at the Bloomingdale Asylum, and that it works admirably. If, in addition to one responsible head, it should be deemed advisable, as well for benefit of the sick as for the advancement of medical science, that eminent professors from the city should be allowed or invited to visit the hospital, I would interpose no objection. But then it must be distinctly understood that their attendance must be strictly confined to the mere purpose of prescription and of clinical lectures. They must be made to know that under no circumstances can they have any authority to dissect or exhume the friendless emigrant. If medical science cannot be advanced without violating the rights of the dead, the law of the land, or the sacred feelings of living, I prefer that it should stand still.

Secondly-The late scandalous proceedings at Ward's Island may be traced to another cause, which penetrates through all our establishments, and works quietly but with the most baleful effect. I refer to the opinion entertained by many that the emigrants are paupers, and are, therefore, entitled only to pauper consideration. This is a radical error. It is a mistake of fact which leads to serious consequences, and (said Mr. Dillon, viva voce, I am sorry to say that the gentlemen associated with me on the committee are of the same opinion.) They are not paupers in any just sense of the term, they were called paupers when they were a charge upon the city, and before this commission was established; but the returns show that they never have been paupers, and are not paupers now. Every emigrant that comes to our shores pays a dollar and fifty cents to this commission. Those who have health spread over the country, to increase our wealth and prosperity; those who are sick are relieved by the fund to which all, both well and sick, have contributed, and the fund

is sufficient, and in my opinion more than sufficient under proper management. The whole class, therefore, are, as it were, underwriters for each of their number, and by their own aggregate contributions alone, relieve the misfortunes of one another.

It is true that we, the members of this Board, render our services gratuitously; but a fund, to which no citizen of this State contributes a farthing, and which is found sufficient to pay upwards of $5,000 per annum to a resident physician at the quarantine, and $3,000 to a general agent and his private secretary, cannot, with any propriety, be called a pauper fund-at least by those who contribute nothing to it. But so long as this opinion shall prevail-so long as your general agent, physicians and other employees shall consider the emigrants to be paupers, and their fund to be a pauper fund, so long shall we fail in securing to the sick and wretched emigrants that consideration which not merely humanity, but his rights, demand. Let us employ in our service only those who truly understand the nature and character of the fund which we are honored to disburse, and we shall then find that a general and proper sympathy for the emigrant will prevail, without which all our efforts in his behalf will be fruitless. It is my opinion, therefore, and I recommend that early measures be taken to reform the present organization of the medical department at Ward's Island, to re-model it upon the plan to which I have alluded, and to dismiss from service the general agent, and all others employed by this commission, who have failed to evince towards the emigrants that sympathy and consideration to which they are entitled. And, in the meantime, I recommend for immediate action, that the chairman notify those physicians who have been engaged in dissecting or exhuming bodies at Ward's Island, that this Board no longer require their services.

Respectfully submitted,

November 20, 1850.

GREGORY DILLON.

Grand Jury Room, 20th Dec. 1850.

The grand inquest of the county having had under consideration certain charges in reference to mal-practices at Wards Island, after investigating the same, and having heard all the evidence adduced in relation thereto, have adopted the following resolution:

Resolved, From all the testimony before the grand jury, they can come to no other conclusion, than that the Commissioners of emigration instead of being obnoxious to censure by them, deserve their highest commendation for the correct and humane manner in which they have managed the affairs of the commission.

WM. S. CONELY, Foreman.

JOSHUA S. UNDERHILL, Assistant Clerk.

To the court of general sessions of the peace in and for the city and county of New-York.

The minority of the grand jury sent in the following communication:

The undersigned members of the grand inquest beg leave to present that they do not concur in the resolution adopted by the majority of their body in reference to the Commissioners of emigration, and protest against the same, as they do not think the said Commissioners are entitled to the commendation contained in said resolution. ANDREW CLARK,

BERNARD MAGUIRE.

New-York, Grand Jury Room, 20th Dec. 1850.