New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1899-05-21
THE MERRY, MERRY DOCTORS.
AND THE HOSPITAL PATIENTS WHO REBEL
AT LIGHT HEARTEDNESs AND
GOOD CHEER.

Tammany does have such trouble about music!
Ever since it dned at the Metropolitan Opera
House 1t has been worried TO death on the subject.
The city officials know very well that they are now
regarded as authorities music. and to see them
try do their duty is pathetic. 1t is always pa
theic to see Tammany officials trying to do their
duty anyway, but there are certain departments in
which they have learned something about keeping
up appearances better than they have in this
They all knew how II would be when they went TO
that dinner but II they had not been led TO under
stand by the essees OF the house that the knowledge
Of music would surely soak into them while they sat
at the feast would one of them ever have gone TO 1t?
No. not If $40 had been paid to him. instead OF
taken away from him. And Tammany men have
been known to do things for less than S0-dollars
and dollars less.
The trouble now is over on Blackwelrs Island. at
the City Hospital The doctors there had "A
way Of playing banjos and singing. for their own
benefit and OF letting the patients get the leakage
Some of the patients said that they did not IKE
IT, but the doctors said that 1t was good for them
1t would If that ought to settle It, The
doctors are there and pale to md out what Is
good for the patients and to do it. The patients
are not supposed to Know. II they were, why
have any doctors? Aren't the taxes high enoughY
Is 1t the patients business or the doctors to say
whether the patients leg will have TO come OH?
Is It the patients business or the Doctors to say
whether the patients neck shall be- done up In
doctors to say whether the patient needs music
or not?
There never would have been any trouble II a
Tammany official hadn't been trying to do his duty.
Commissioner Keller, OF the Department OF Public
Charities went over TO the Charity Hospital and
caught the doctors at It. And what did he do but
take the side Of the patients. He issued order
that the doctors should not play a banjo or sing
or dance anywhere about the building. 1t seems
the doctors had been dancing for the ungrateful
natients. too They danced In the Railways OF
course. the patients couldn't see Them but they
could hear them. and II they had been reasonable
they would have been satisfied with that. IL was
not possible to move them all to places where they
could see the dancing, and some OF them were TOO
sick 10 be moved at all. They are only charity
patients anyway and they ought to know that
they cannot expect everything that paying patients
I'm other hospitals can have. But they were un-
reasonable and objected to the dancing altogether
and the Commissioner sustained them. Charty
workers say that the cruelest thing they nave 10
encounter Is the ingratitude or those TOT "ho"
they work and make sacrifices And the doctors
ON BlackweIrs Island are sckened at their very
hearts to-day because OF just that thing.
A week or two ago the Knights OF Labor MADE
trouble for the Tammany impresarios by declaring
that some OF the alleged musicians In some OF the
hands In some Of the parks were not musicians AT
all hut only dummies. who drew pay and held
Instruments In their hands. but could not play
them Now why not take these doctors on Black
wells Island and put them into the bands. ana
,ake the dummies out OF the bands and let them
attend the patients on Blackweirs Islandr Then
they would all be doing what they like to do. and
the city would be getting what Il pays for