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FORTY-EIGHTH HEARING.

TUESDAY, December 4, 1894.

The hearing was resumed at 4 o'clock P.M., Chairman HALLSTRAM presiding.

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The WITNESS. Mr. Chairman, here are the milk requisitions that I referred to in my statement, that I wanted to put in to corroborate certain facts that are mentioned there.

(The requisitions referred to were placed in the custody of the clerk.) Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) Dr. Cogswell, in your argument on page three, you say, speaking of the diet list, not page three of the book, but page three of the type-written copy: "This diet list, as they persist through ignorance in calling it, is not a diet list at all, never was intended for such, was never considered so by me, nor did I ever think it was by any one until I heard some of the witnesses before this committee." What did you mean to indicate by that suggestion that they persisted through ignorance in calling it a diet list?

A. Well, they called it a diet list.

Q Well, and what did you mean to have the aldermen infer from that statement?

4. That they didn't understand what it was intended for, and that no one had ever explained it to them.

Q. They didn't know anything about it — is that it ?

A. Not if they called it a diet list, they didn't.

Q. Well, and they didn't have that knowledge which reasonable people ought to have before they say anything about it. Is that it? A. It had that appearance.

Q. Well, what would you say if it appeared that your own counsel, Mr. Curtis, introduced this particular thing at the first time he introduced it with that name and called it that? What would you think that he doesn't know anything about it?

A. I should say that he had heard it called a diet list, assuming that he had it in mind, and said it without thinking.

And that would be the only explanation?

Q.
4. That would.

Q. Now, supposing you found it had never been introduced here until Mr. Curtis introduced it, and that then he called it a diet list - do you think he was guilty of that ignorance with which you charge these visitors, if your own counsel does not know what it is?

A. I should want to see where he said that first, before I made any remarks on the subject.

Q. Well, I will read you first his statement, and then ask you to examine it.

Mr. CURTIS. Well, I will plead guilty of not knowing everything, of course, Mr. Brandeis, right off.

Mr. BRANDEIS. Well, but the question of public institutions you certainly know something about. That is a subject that you have been looking into thoroughly, and we take it for granted that you do know something about such things.

Mr. CURTIS. — Because I might call it a wrong name is no excuse for the visitors.

Mr. BRANDEIS. Well, I think as you have spent some months looking up this case that you know a great deal about it, as you do about other cases upon which you prepare yourself, and I am sure from reading your recent letter that you show you understand the case very fully. This is on page 90, when Exhibit D was introduced by Mr. Curtis on cross-examination, and he says:

Now, you have seen the diet list at the hospital, Mrs. Lincoln?

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Mr. CURTIS.—I would like to submit this to the committee, and to put it in as an exhibit.

The CHAIRMAN.
Mr. CURTIS.

What is this?

It is a diet list in use at the institutions.

Now I ask you, Dr. Cogswell, to take this copy of the report, and to see whether this gross ignorance on Mr. Curtis's part was the result of being misled by the witness, or whether it was a natural meaning which he put upon the document that appears in that report?

Mr. CURTIS.

it is my mistake.

The WITNESS.

I hope the witness will not spare me, Mr. Brandeis, if

I don't propose to. Well, all I can say on that subject is this, that if Mr. Curtis called it a diet list he was just as ignorant of its uses as any of the Board of Visitors.

Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) What?

A. I say that all I can say on that score is this, that if Mr. Curtis called it a diet list, thinking it was a diet list, he was as ignorant of its uses as the Board of Visitors or any other witness. But then, possibly, he might have had some object in calling it a diet list.

Q. What object do you think he might have had?

A.

Well, he might not have wanted to let them know what its uses were, to see if they knew of their own accord without being told.

Q. He had this subtle distinction in his own mind between diet list and diet order, do you think?

A. I don't know.

Q. Now, would it have been at all up to Mr. Curtis' level of intelligence to have had any such idea as that?

A. I don't know.

Q. Well, hasn't this document been called a diet list always in conversation with you?

A. Never by me; no, sir.

Q. But in conversation with you by others who were not so well educated as you are?

A.

Not that I know of; no, sir.

Q. You don't remember the visitors speaking to you about the lists? Well, we talked about them.

A.

Q. What did the visitors call them in speaking to you about them? 4. I don't remember, sir.

Q.

you?

You don't remember, then, that they called them diet lists, do

A. No, sir; I do not.

Q. Well, do you consider it a matter of any significance whether they are called diet lists or diet orders?

A. Yes, sir; consider it of the greatest significance.

Q. You didn't explain it to Mr. Curtis, did you?

4. I don't know whether I did or did not.

Q. When was Mr. Curtis retained in this case?

A. I don't know.

Q. Well, how long before these hearings had he been down at Long Island?

Mr. REED.

The WITNESS.

the morning.

Mr. CURTIS.

About the same time you were, Mr. Brandeis.

I think he came in the afternoon and you came in

Some time in February, Mr. Brandeis.

The WITNESS. - My impression is the latter part of February.

Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) Was it?

A. That is my impression.

Q. The papers gave it a little earlier. That is the time he was down there, was it?

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Q. Well, then, you think that Mr. Curtis, when he said,

"This list,

I believe, as a matter of fact, does not comprise all the special dishes,

but it is the regular diet list of the hospital. It reads as follows"

and when he read it to the committee, that he was giving an erroneous statement to the committee - do you to the chairman and the aldermen ?

A. If he called that the diet list of the hospital, he did.

Q. You did not correct him when he made that statement, did you?

A.

I don't know that I did. I don't think I did.

Q. Well, you certainly didn't.

correct him?

A. No, sir; I did not.

Don't you know that? You did not

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Q.

And have been present at every hearing. Well, if Mr. Curtis made a misstatement, a statement that would mislead the committee

Mr. PROCTOR. Pardon me. I don't think the doctor has been present at every hearing, and if that is going in as evidence and is to be used as evidence hereafter, it had better be stopped right off now. Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) Haven't you?

A. No, sir.

Q.

When weren't you present?

A. I haven't been present at any hearing since

Q. You were present at every hearing on Long Island, weren't you, at which I was present?

A. Yes, sir; I think I was.

Q. Certainly, and this was on Long Island and you were present then ?

A. Yes, sir; present then.

Q. Well, if this was a matter of any importance, why didn't you correct Mr. Curtis and not let him mislead the committee by this erroneous statement made in ignorance ?

A. I thought when my turn came I was perfectly able to enlighten the committee myself.

Q. You had thought of it already at that time, hadn't you?
A. I had some idea of it; yes.

Q. You remember the circumstances then, when he called it a diet list?

A. I certainly do, and I read it in his testimony when it was printed. Q. But you didn't see fit to call his attention to it-to the fact that your own counsel was making a misstatement to the aldermen ? A. He had made it.

Q. Well, but you had a chance to correct it immediately afterwards, didn't you, after you had heard it?

A. It wouldn't have suited my purpose to have done so at that time. Q. So you allowed the aldermen to remain in ignorance of this important fact for a period of eight months, seven or eight months?

Mr. REED. - Perhaps the aldermen knew better. You assume that they did not.

Mr. BRANDEIS. — I don't know why they should know better than Mr. Curtis.

Mr. PROCTOR.

Mr. BRANDEIS. them.

They seem to have survived it.

Well, there are only two of them left-three of

Q. Now, Dr. Cogswell, you gave some testimony here in regard to three fires which there were before the visitors made their report - one fire in which the cottage, so-called, was burned down, one fire in the hospital, and one fire down at the wharf, down at the pier?

A. No, sir, - I didn't testify as to the fire at the wharf, at the pier. Q. Well, you remember that one, don't you?

A. Yes, sir.

Q.

When was that?

A. I don't remember the exact day. It was after we began to construct the cellar for the new dormitory. I think it was in the spring sometime.

Q. Yes. Well, it was sometime during the year before the visitors made their last report?

A. No. I think it was after they made their report.

Q. Yes, and before this investigation began, wasn't it?

A. No, I think it was after this investigation began, but I wouldn't want to swear as to that.

Q. Well, before these new fire appliances were introduced down there, wasn't it?

A. Yes, I think it was

that is, some of them, but not all.

Q. Now, how many fires have there been since that time?

A. Two. We have had two fires since.

Q. When was that?

A. The last fire we had was, I think, about the first of September. Q. Yes.

A.

And we had one previous to that, sometime, I think, in August, but I am not sure as to that date.

Q. Hasn't there been a third fire there — one other one?

A. Not that I remember of just now.

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Well, how much damage was done in these two fires?

A. The fire in the barn? There was practically no damage done at all.

Q. Yes.

A. The fire in what we call the blacksmith shop or store shed, that destroyed the roof of the building, and some old blinds and doors that we had stored in it.

Q. Well, how much damage ?

A. Well, it is pretty hard to estimate the damage on that, because it was the old store shed, and the principal articles that were destroyed were blinds and doors that had come off the old hotel that was there when the new institution was erected, and the building itself was an old dilapidated structure that was not shingled or clapboarded on the sides. The roof was shingled, and from what was left of the building and about $50 additional we have put up a very nice building to take its place, which is much better for our uses. I should say that it would cost us to replace the building as we have, and what we lost in it, about $75 from $75 to $100; but I may be wrong as to that. I may be out of the way somewhat.

Q. Well, you didn't have any difficulty in extinguishing the fire after it was discovered, did you P

4. Well, we did pretty well on that.

Q. Well, you used that new fire apparatus to extinguish it, didn't

you?

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A. It did.

Q. And the fire in the barn; how did you extinguish that?

A. Well, I extinguished that with the hose and hydrant; didn't use the fire pump that night.

Q. And that was quickly put out, too?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Then both of these fires were immediately gotten under control down there, these two?

4. You might say that the one in the barn was immediately gotten under control, before the other one.

Q. And the other one very soon?

A. The other one took about half an hour.

Q. Well, the fire that you had before the fire when the cottage burned down, you didn't do anything, couldn't do anything there at all, could you?

A. No, sir.

Q. That was before you had your fire appliances that you have got

now?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. You estimated the value of that at $1,800 ?
A. Yes. sir.

Q. Well, now, you said on page 59 of the type-written copy of your argument, in speaking of the case of Edward Cuddy, in which the witnesses here testified, that they expected to get the body and sent down there for it, and they found out afterwards that it had been sent to the hospital for dissection you say here that the clerk, your clerk, "told us that when Mrs. Moran asked him he said that Edward Cuddy had been buried." Who was that clerk who told her that?

A.
Q.

Mr. Hinds.

That was Mr. Hinds. Well, when he told her he had been buried he told her a lie, didn't he?

A.

No, sir; I don't think he did.

Q. Why not?

A.

Because he had been buried.

Q. He had been buried, and his body was afterwards taken out and sent to the hospital, was it?

4. No, sir. He had been buried at Mt. Hope, as I understand it. Q. You don't understand it then, do you? Wasn't the evidence that he had never been buried at all, that they got up a false — I don't say it was false, but they had the entry made that he had been sent there when he never had been sent there actually?

Mr. REED. There is no evidence of that here.

Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.)

Wasn't that it?

A. That wasn't offered here. I didn't hear any testimony to that effect.

Q. You say that when clerk Hinds told her it had been buried the clerk told her the truth, do you?

A. It wasn't what I should have told her.

Q. Well, wasn't it recorded in your burial book that he had been actually buried on Long Island?

A. I wouldn't say as to that.

Q. Well, if it does say it

A. Yes, sir; I have.

have you got the burialbook here ?

Q. Well, let us see whether it does.

Mr. REED.

him to.

Mr. BRANDEIS.

book.

The WITNESS his death?

Perhaps Dr. Parker can help Mr. Brandeis, if you want

Well, I suppose Dr. Cogswell is familiar with this

(Producing books.) Can you tell me the exact date of

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