St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1891-05-07
In BUSY GOTHAM.
[From our Regular Correspondent

finest church in the United States,
was publicly dedicated last Sunday
morning with appropriate exercises.
The Rev. DIR. T. Dewitt Ta1mage, it's
pastor, presided, and the Rev. DIR.
Tennis S. Hamlin, who is best known
as president Harrison's pastor"
preached the dedicatory sermon.
The church has a seating capacity of
over 5000, and every seat was occu-
pied, while hundreds crowded the
aisles, stairways, and lecture room
adjoining the main hall.
Perhaps the first thing that at
tracts the eye of the visitor at the
church is the immense organ, which
is probably the largest and most
complete in the United States. 1t
was built at a cost of $4,000. 1t is
estima ted that the total cost of the
building, ground and decorations,
exclusive of the organ, is about
$4,000. In the afternoon union
service was held in the church when
prominent clergymen of all denemina
tons met on the platform of the
Tabernacle to congratulate DIR. Tai
mage. In the evening DIR. Talmage
preached his first sermon in the new
building to an immense congrega-
ton
New York has had a bad shock in
the last week, by murder which SO
. closely resembled the famous White
chapel murders in it's horrid details
and its unfortunate victim, that
many people believe that Jack the
Ripper" has crossed the ocean and
begun a series of crimes in New York
city wretched, rum-soaked old
woman, once respectable, and who
had squandered quite a fortune in
herited from her husband who was
a sea captain named James Brown,
was murdered in a dive in the slums
of the city, and the body was mutt
lated in much the same manner as
the bodies of the poor victims of the
Whitechapel murders, the principal
difference between them being that
in the former cases the murderer
showed considerable medical skill,
while the dissection of parts of the
woman's body in this case were
clumsy and bungling.
Inspector Byrnes and his able force
of detectives are working on the case
and have made number Of arrests
which may prove of great impor
lance in finding who the villain is, and
in bringing him to justice.
"There has been marvellous
change in the treatment of insane
patients in our hospitals within the
last five years." said H. II. Porter,
the president of the Board of Com
missions of Charities and Correction
the other day to your correspondent.
Not long ago every patient was
considered a candidate for the
straitjacket or the cuffs if he was
at all violent. Now we seldom have
occasion to use either one. The
change has come as a result of our
increased facilities and accommoda-
tons We are enabled to employ
better nurses and caretakers, and we
find that persuasion is far more effec-
tive than force.
| remember rather funny expert
ence l had when Mayor Hewitt was
in Office. You know the old gentle
man was very anxious to do the
right thing in regard to appropria-
tions for all the city institutions, and
in order to understand the needs of
each he made remarkably thorough
and careful Investigations He sent
word to us one day that he would
inspect the insane asylums on the
island the next day, so all the COM
missioners made arrangements to
accompany him. When the time
came, there was just an army of us,
for besides the mayor and commits
s1oners, every paper in the city
sent its representative.
Wegot along all right on the island
until we came to the lodge where
the more dangerous patients were
kept. Here Mr.. Hewitt stopped and
said, 1 don't think we had better go
in there-all of us-for we will prob
ably excite the PATIENTS But none
of the commissioners or reporters
wanted to be left behind, so all went
in, the reporters bringing up the rear.
There was big German woman,
thirtytwo years old, confined there,
with whom we had had considerable
trouble l thought she was safe out
of the way, but when we opened the
doors there she was straight before
us. The crowd nettled her for
moment, and then with yell she
rushed forward There was a grand
rush-the reporters turned tail and
ran asfast as they could for the fence,
while the commissioners streaked off