The morning call., 1895-01-27
NOT TO WHITEW ASH.
The Assembly Committees
Investigate.
WILL TELL WHAT THEY saw.
Industrial Home for the Blind Said
to Be Filthy.
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.
Committeeman Think the Superintendent
Is Imposed Upon by Those
Who Can See.
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND.

The visit to the State institution for the
blind at Berkeley by the Assembly COM
mittees on State hospitals and asylums and
public health and quarantine, which con-
sumed the time of the members yesterday,
will result in rather tart report to the
Legislature concerning the Industrial
Home of Mechanical Trades for the Adult
Blind, if they put the same opinion in the
report as they expressed to THE CALL last
evening. There seemed to be but one opin-
ion about it.
1--WE found very many of the inmates in
filthy condition, 'asaid one of them, "and
l propose to speak my mind about it on
the floor of the Assembly when the appro-
priation bill for the place comes up. Many
of the inmates have apparently not had
bath for months.
'tThere seems to be an effort at that sort
of discipline that is without strength to
maintain straight course and the result
is friction and discomfort. Every male in
the Institution had a complaint, while the
women answered questions concerning
their condition by saying that they were
| afraid to speak out. Some of them said
that they had given testimony before the
legislative investigating committee of two
years ago and that they had been made
miserable in a thousand petty ways by the
| superintendent ever since.
"In an institution of this kind there are
always to be found some malcontents, and
would be under the best management pos
sible A grain of allowance is therefore to
be made in such cases, but where the COM
! plant is general and backed up by evil
dences of neglect, nothing less than out
| rageous, that appeared in the filth of the
places, then they must be considered. The
women were reasonably clearly, but many
of the men were actually foul. The smell
of the general assembly and smoking-room
of the men is in my nostrils yet. | shall
not soon forget it, The floor was hidden
under coating of tobacco and filth. A
spade would be the proper tool to begin
the work of cleansing.
"They say that it had not been cleaned
out for weeks. The inmates said that on
rainy days, when they were all driven into
crevices of the windows so that the benches
along the wall could not be used. noticed,
too, that the floor of the dining-room had
evidently not seen water for many days"
"The trouble is charged by nearly all the
inmates to the superintendent" said an
other of the committee. HE is blind him
self, while the other employees can see, and
they say that he is made victim of the
capriees of all of them. Wishing to secure
his favor, they carry him tales that lead
him first in one direction and then an
other. Because theyc can see he trusts them;
he has to trust them.
"He feels himself wholly dependent
upon his clerk, Waterman aud janitor and
they no doubt take advantage of his help
lessness. While we were there questioning
some of the inmates one of these employees,
a teacher in the broom factory himself
blind, denied the truth of what the man
was saying and they had an open row,
each giving the lie to the other, and we
had to interfere to stop it.
''They tell rather startling story of how
one night in December last an inmate
suffering with consumption was allowed to
die without any attendant near. The
Waterman came in during the night, and
another sick man in the same room, named
Gillen, begged him to remain, but the
Waterman said he could do nothing for
him and went away. Later Gillen heard
the dying man lift himself up and fall from
his bed on the floor, and himself sprang
from his bed and felt his way to the door,
calling for help. Two other blind men
came down from the room overhead, and
lifted the body-for the man had died
back into bed.
'These three men made affidavit to these
statements and something of it got into
the papers. Two of them, Mike Coogan
and Byron Nelson, were discharged from
held on Thursday last. Coogan was in
Sacramento at the time under leave of
absence. He went up to see, or rather be
present at, the inauguration of Governor
Budd, and it was he who was mistaken for
Chris Buckley and thereby started num-
Der of sensational rumors that did not
escape the newspapers. He returned to the
home to find that he could not enter it.
He asked why and was told that he had
been adjudged guilty of perjury, and with
out a hearing.
John P. Irish, who is president of the
Board of Directors, took dinner with the
visiting committeeman and explained that
the conditions were much better than
formerly when members of the board used
to take the inmates out to the saloons and
send them home at all hours of the night
and upon elections vote the whole lot in
bunch, defeating on one occasion a pro-
posed tax levy for schools which the best
citizens were very anxious to have passed.
With regard to the instance of the blind
leading the blind in the person of the
superintendent, he said that similar in
stitutions in Europe had found the expert
ment good; that no one could teach
blind man how to develop his sense of
touch as can blind man. A man who
sees cannot possibly place himself in the
position of the man wholly in the dark.
The blind will learn from the blind much
more rapidly.
'This argument is good, /" said Dr. Glass
of the committee on Public Health last
night, $50 far as the teacher is concerned.
But the superintendent employs blind
teacher for this work-he does not do any
of it himself. The superintendent should
be able to tell whether the place is clean or
not whether his employees are working or
not, and when it comes to buying broom
corn he should be able to see that he got
stock as good as his samples.
The committees visit to the California
Institute for the Education of the Deaf
Dumb and the Blind, of which Warning
Wilkinson is principal, was revelation in
contrasts Here everything was found in
the perfection of neatness and order and
the pupils happy.
Huber of Los Angeles was SO pleased
with oil ho cow that u,bay, pdar