Twenty-fifth annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. December, 1857.

  • State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twenty-fifth annual report of the trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester. December, 1857. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The Act of 1857 contains no provision for changing the time of holding the annual meeting of the Trustees, nor does it change the time at which the Treasurer is to make his annual report to the Trustees. Under the provisions of the Revised Statutes, chap. 48, sect. 5, the Trustees are required to make their report containing a particular statement of the condition of the hospital and all its concerns, to the 80th day of Novem¬ ber, inclusive, in each year. To accommodate the payment of bills due the hospital, as well as to facilitate the duties of the Treasurer, the rule has always existed at the Worcester Hospital, that the contracts with the patients for their board and expenses shall be payable on the first days of June and December in each year. The Trustees were unwilling to transmit their report to the governor and council unaccompanied with the annual report of the Treasurer of the hospital. That report could not be made at an earlier date, for the Revised Statutes, chap. 48, sect. 5, and the statute of 1842, now in force, requires the annual report of the Treasurer to be made to the Trustees at their annual meeting in December, to be by them audited and examined at said meeting. We have therefore taken the responsibility of delaying our Annual Report until we could receive and audit the report of the Treasurer. If the legislature should change the provisions of existing laws, so as to alter the time of holding the annual meeting of the Trustees from December to October, and require the report of the Treasurer to be made to the annual meeting of the Trus¬ tees in October, the Trustees would then change their con¬ tracts with the patients for board, so as to make them payable on the first days of April and October, and then there would be no difficulty in carrying out the provisions of the law of 1857. Upon recurring to the condition of the hospital for the past year, the Trustees find renewed occasion to acknowledge the goodness of a kind Providence in permitting the institution to pursue its course as heretofore in dispensing blessings and com¬ parative comfort to those unfortunate individuals intrusted to its care. The report of the Superintendent, which is herewith submitted, presents in detail the results and condition of the hospital for the past year, which, in the judgment of the Trus-