Suicides in France

skt.w i-g facts and then proceedsfery i es, wjich the alleged facts, even if true, would not warrant. lia first ,mistatement is the following, viz.i' TM dinuier, we believe, was but thinly attended, Ae company being. nearly two-thirds Tess than it was last year at Southampton. " This statement . h}pens to be untrue; and as the editor was not himself present at the dinner, wve charge him only with asserting, on insufficient grounds, what he did not know to be true. Relatively to the number of members present at the meeting, the dinner was not thinly attended, the guests bearing as full a proportion to the whole number of assembled nembers as on any former occasion. dinner ,ompany ws not two-thirds less than Wwas last yearvat Southampton. I, Sir, who did attend the dininer, counted the guests, and found them to ;ount to seventy. Will the editor of the Medical Press aege, that the attendants at the SouthamWon dinner amounted to 210? even if there were a thin attendance at . dinner, there were, surely, other causes to which . to refer this, without imputing it solely to repul;ou, causedby the alleged misconduct of the secretary. The meeting had occupied above two days; many members had attended from extreme distances, nd were naturally anxious to return to tfheir Jhomes; they were under the necessity, too, of availing themslves of the most convenient railtraina for carrying them back to their respective districts. Even the cost of the usual dinner is well known to have effect in thinning the dinner attendance. Taking into account these several causes of absence from the dinner, I hesitate not to pronounce, that relatively to the whole number of members assembled at York, the dinner was not thinly, but fully attended. Assuming a thin attendance, the writer of the objectionable paragraph immediately proceeds to assign the conduct of the secretary as the cause of this; and, referring to a casual discussion which took place at the meeting, he expressly charges Dr. Hastings with " an intemperate And vulgar attack o4 Dr. Laycock,". and with " attempts to stifle discussion by brawling and bombast. " They who heard the discussion alluded to, will £nd it difficult to recognise it in this splenetic re? presentation; while all the absent members who have any knowledge of Dr. Hastings, will at once repudiate the gross accusation as wholy unworthy of belief. So far from Dr. Hastings making an intemperate and vulgar attack on Dr. Laycock, he was himself the party assailed; and only in defence of the secretaries, the council, and the constitution of the association, did he reply. Dr. Laycock more than insinuated, that the government of the association was not representative of the general members; that the council was arbitrarily chosen; that the secretaries exercised despotic power. Against these groundless and unexpected imputations, Dr. 'sIaBtiDg did earnestly vindicate the parties arraigned. Were the imputations true, it would hate been the bounden duty of the detector of such abuses, either to have impeached the secretaries as guilty of violating the fundamental laws; or, if h.e found, the lawW defective, to have given notice of an express motion for correcting them. But Dr. Laycock's remarks being as untrue in fact, as they were unappropriate to the occasion on which they were uttered, Dr. Haftmii jrecisely as his duty required, rebutted them by a direct refutation, which none but the Editor of the Medical Press would venture to call intemperate 3d vulgar, or characterise as brawling and bombast. For Dr. Hastings' reputation, Sir,. I have no fears, for it rests on too stable a foundation to be thus damaged. But I would caution the Editor of the Medical Press, as he values his journal, to beware of discrediting it by such unseemly personality as that which has called forth the present strictures. Your obedient servant, VERAX. August 12, 1841.