New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1914-08-14
Report To Be Delayed Till
Return of Secretary
of Board.
OVERCROWDING IS
CHARGED BY FARRELL
Priest Says SO Women Patients
Lay on Springs Between
Cots Last Tuesday.

Quoted by inspectors Of the State boaru
of Charities into the administration
of municipal institutions under the di-
rection Of Charities Commissioner
Kingsbury has been in part completed
but the results Of the inquiry will not
be made public until the return OF
Robert w. Hebbcrd, secretary OF the
board, who is on his vacation.
This was learned yesterday from an
official Of the state board, who limited
that the reports already received from
the Investigators were Of such nature
"a TO merit further research. What
ever may be the outcome of the inYestl-
cation. it is certain that the state
board will submit a report emoodylns
carefully considered recommendation
to Mayor Mitchell concerning instltu-
tional administration under inc CITY
government. 90
Peter and Paul, Brooklyn, who IS a
trrEtee of the Williamsburg Hospital
end one of the foremost critics OF
Commissioner Kingsbury, yesterday is
that on Tuesday last fifty-three women
patients in the surgical ward Of the
Metropolitan Hospital were compelled
TO lie on wire springs on the floor De-
tween cots in that ward, owing to over
crowding. Father Farrell dehed Com
missioner Kingsbury to deny the truth
of his allegation.
Says Sick Fight Flies.
His statement, in part, is as follows:
"There are no screens in the thousand
odd windows of Sea View Hospital.
And it is pretty sure there won't be any
this season. The commissioner says
he has visited that hospital frequently,
and yet he did not discover its needs.
How could a nonresident from Seattle
be expected in a January visitation to
see the flies and mosquitoes coming N
May? His functional deputies were
also without foresight. So the scores
dying there this summer will 5ufer,
unable to brush away the swarmlag
flies.
"The commissioners rambling lis
sertation on the hardsh:ps Of those
who visit their sick ones at Sea View
Hospital would be laugh able, If the
matter were not serious. As it is, they
are contemplate. He says they DO
not walk from Castleton Four Corners.
They only walk LESS tGan two miles
from Sea View" ! never said how far
it was. A woman with a bundle and
child or two. on one of these August
days, walking "less than two miles
that's nothing Besides, she could pay
for ride in "private bus" And that
is "the great improvement in transpor-
tation" there.
"The former commissioner bought
auto buses for the explicit purpose Of
transporting visitors TO patients with
out charge. Poor visitors are not now
generally allowed to ride in them. The
commissioners verbosity on this mat
ter is absurd
"The great ability displayed in the
departments management. is shown by
the fact that when, after five or six
weeks delay, the auto ambulance on
BlackwelPs Island was Fut in commits
sion-and the few repairs needed cost
less than $50-the department was
without a chauffeur 20 run il.
"The commissioner. in, say, four or
i've months, will have report telling
all about (which ne will have no
time to read and it won't make any
difference then, anyhow. But this is
the new efficiency" and the 'largcr
questions" to which he devotes IN a.
self
Calls Hospital 0vercrowded.
Tuesday August IL, this week,
the night was hot and sultry, and those
most favorably housed around this city
found it burdensome. On that night
in Ward b, Metropolitan Hospital. the
female surgical ward, there were S.
beds. the normal number. In tnat
ward there were 12i patients. an c. ass
of 50. Those poor, sick women swell
tered and groaned in the heat and foul
springs on the floors, in the aisles, >be-
tween the beds, and the overcrowding
was contrary to law.
There were other wards IN similar
case On that very night there were
not far from 1880 empty beds in the
private hospitals, in which those rest
less and suffering women could have
/ been cared for in comfort.
"This is not the season of large de-
mands on hospital accommodation. To
pack those sick women, many surgical
cases, in a ward IN that way was a
crime. Il should be impossible 70 do it
in this big humanity loving city. 1t
was like the Black Hole in Calcutta.
"And the Commissioner was bragg
ging about his low per capita cost the
very same day, although his statement
Of cost is no more truthful than the
rest OF his Munchausen tales about the
! larger work in charities. lie will yet
learn that the Few things I have told
about his departments ] know
many more-are true, and that his adj
mlnistration is faiLure and dlsgrace.'