Frequently he organized entertainments for the aged and infirm. These were held in the dining-hall, which on all such occasions was crowded to excess. After I had held office about a year he desired me to provide an entertainment, which I did on several occasions, and my efforts met with much success. In the carrying out of these entertainments, which were musical and recitative, I had the assistance of my nephew, Mr. Julian Rogers, and his wife, who brought with them vocalists of a high order, who contributed much to the pleasure of the inmates. These entertainments were highly appreciated by the inmates, and were frequently attended by members of the Board, and by some of the ratepayers living in the neighbourhood. Now and then I used to read extracts suitable for penny readings. On two occasions my efforts took a higher form, when I gave a lecture on the "Ear and Hearing," and on "Sight and the Eye." The preparation of these lectures and the diagrams to illustrate them was a work of considerable trouble and some anxiety, but the signal success achieved on both occasions amply repaid me for any trouble occasioned. To show the appreciation of my audience for a joke, I will relate an incident that occurred during the delivery of my lecture on "Sight and the Eye." I was describing the function of the iris, or coloured portion of the eye, as an involuntary movable veil, which regulated the amount of light which should be admitted to the eye, and said that in order to make the veil complete it was covered behind with a black pigment, so as to exclude all light except that which passed through the pupil. I then told them that in certain animals this pigment was wanting, and not only there but in the skin generally, and instanced the white mouse, ferret, &c., and showed that all these animals had red eyes and always blinked and winked when exposed to a strong light. I then passed on to state that this condition was sometimes found in man, where again the winking and blinking was noticeable as well as the whiteness of the skin and hair, from the absence of this dark pigment, hence the name of "albinos" applied to those thus afflicted. I then went on to state that recently we had a notable example of this in the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who suffered from this infirmity, and that his dread of light was so extreme that he had attempted actually to put a tax on matches. This joke was followed by a positive scream of delight from visitors and inmates—showing that Mr. Lowe's fiscal effort to increase the revenue was known to them all. At the conclusion of the night's proceedings, Miss Augusta Clifford, who was present, came up and said she should repeat my story of Mr. Lowe and the match tax wherever she went. At the next meeting of the Board, several of the Guardians having been present on the occasion referred to, it was moved and seconded and carried unanimously, that a vote of thanks should be given to Dr. Rogers for the entertainment provided by him, and for the highly interesting and instructive lecture which he had delivered.
I found in the sick and infirm wards several of my old acquaintances of the Strand, who were chargeable to St. Anne's, and had been transferred to this House when the Union was formed, among them a woman by the name of Maria Hall. She had gone into the Strand several years before I left; her friends at first paid for her maintenance. She was an epileptic—and something beside. When I knew her in the Strand she professed an inability to talk, except unintelligible gibberish. She was very artful; she claimed to be a deeply religious character, and contrived to take in the benevolent lady visitors to a considerable extent. She continually showed me letters she had received, and books that had been given her by ladies, and would ask me to share with her the grapes, cakes, and sweetmeats sent her by her dupes. This went on for several years, altogether about twenty. She always posed and was spoken of as "poor Maria"—in fact, she was the pet of the nurse and of the ward. At last it came to my knowledge that she presumed on her condition to be exacting and troublesome. Finding that remonstrance was unavailing, I reluctantly ordered her removal to the insane ward. It was attended with the best result, for, finding that she was at last sternly dealt with, she threw off the mask she had worn for twenty years and talked as distinctly and clearly as any healthy person. She had traded for years on her alleged infirmity. It was true she was an epileptic, and eventually died from that form of disease; but she had been the most persistent cheat I had ever met with.
On the male side I found a poor fellow who had also been transferred from the Strand, where I had known him when he was first admitted there. He was paralyzed all down on one side. He was the most patient, honest fellow I had ever seen. After I had been in office some years Sir Charles Trevelyan came to call on me respecting a public movement that we were both engaged in. Finding I was at the infirmary, he came round to the House and was shown into my room. I asked him to go over the wards with me. He did so. I introduced the poor paralytic to him as an honest, patient, and grateful poor man. Sir Charles asked him how long he had been afflicted, and he answered, "Some twenty years." Then I said, "This poor fellow cannot get downstairs; he has not seen the streets for all these years, but he is always happy and cheerful." Sir Charles kindly left with me £1 to pay his cab fare, so that he might have the chance of seeing them once again. As I had to send two people with him each time the £1 soon went. His enjoyment of this treat in his daily dull, routine life was, I was informed, most pleasing to witness.
There were several other very interesting persons I found on both sides of the ward. One was an old man who was said to be eighty-eight years old. On my morning visit he was always standing on the staircase smoking. He had lived many years in Australia, and his long white hair and beard, which reached to his waist, conjoined with a florid complexion and bright blue eyes, caused me to consider him one of the handsomest old men I had ever seen. One day I took two young ladies over the infirmary. We found the old man in his usual place. I jocularly introduced him to them as the Adonis of the House. The old man was terribly offended. As we walked away I heard him muttering aloud, "That's a pretty name to call a man—'Donis indeed!" He did not forgive me for a long while. I wonder what he thought the epithet really was intended to signify.
I also found in the male infirm ward an old French physician whom I had known by sight for a great many years when he was practising his profession in Soho. He was a tall, fine man when I first knew him. He always used to wear a very singular-looking broad-brimmed hat. He was in all externals a very gentlemanly-looking person. I had missed him for a long time, and was surprised and hurt to think that he should have drifted to a workhouse infirmary. On inquiring into the cause of his becoming an inmate of the House, for I always thought he was well-to-do, as he dressed exceedingly well, I learned that he had lived with a lady who was an employé at a French milliner's in Regent Street, that she was much younger than he was, and that he had given to her all his money, which she, in preparation for possible consequences, had put in the Funds, but in her own name only. Unfortunately for him she was taken suddenly ill, and being ignorant of English courts made no disposition of the property, simply telling him, on her deathbed, where it was. When she was dead, he found to his dismay that the money could not be obtained, as he could not establish any legal claim of ownership. Grief at the loss of his mistress and of all his money caused the complete break-down of the poor fellow, and he had come into the House utterly crushed. He was a very interesting old man, being the only son of a French noble family. His mother and father were both executed during the Reign of Terror, and when the family property was confiscated he was but a youth. When he grew up he studied medicine, and in the year 1802 entered Napoleon's army as a regimental surgeon. After serving with his regiment in Germany, Italy, and Austria, he was attached to the Army of England, as it was called, which was stationed on the heights of Boulogne. He was there some time. Suddenly an announcement came that the encampment would be broken up, and that the army would go to Russia. He traversed the whole of Europe, taking part in the various engagements on the road to Moscow, which he saw in flames. He was in the memorable retreat, and returned to France without a scratch. On the return from Elba he rejoined his old regiment, and, as its surgeon, fought against the English at Waterloo. After the peace his regiment was disbanded, and as the old soldiers of the empire were very much at a discount he elected to come to England, where he lived since 1816. He died at the age of ninety-five, retaining his faculties to the last. After his death I raised a fund to bury him, by writing a letter to The Times, in which I gave his history, heading my letter, "A Relic of the Grand Armée," and asking any friends of the first Napoleon to help me in burying him in some other place than a pauper's grave. My appeal having brought me £25, the Empress Eugenie being one of the subscribers, he was buried at the Catholic Cemetery at Kensal Green. There were two seamstresses who lived in Gilbert Street, Oxford Street, who were his countrywomen and his sole visitors, with the exception of the Catholic priest of the French chapel in Leicester Square. I asked them and the priest to accompany me to the funeral, which I attended as chief mourner. On our arrival at the mortuary chapel, the coffin was placed on a raised bier with three others. Presently two lads, wearing long black cloaks which reached to the ground, came from the altar. When they arrived at the spot where the coffin was resting, one lad suddenly produced from under his cloak a censer containing fire and proceeded to incense the quartette. How he ever carried the fiery thing without setting fire to himself was to me a wonder. He was immediately followed by the other lad, who, taking just as rapidly from under his cloak a vessel like a whitewash-pot, proceeded with a brush to throw holy water on the coffins. This being completed, the coffin was put on a truck and we hurried away as fast as we could go through the miry ground for a long distance to the grave. On reaching it, down went my two lady companions on their knees in the clay. My respect for the deceased did not carry me so far as that, especially as it was raining hard and the ground was a mere bog. Presently the acolyte produced his whitewash-pot and brush, and I was courteously asked to sprinkle the poor fellow's coffin with holy water, which I did. This having been also done by my companions, I was amused by a little girl about fourteen, who, suddenly taking the brush and pot from one of the young women, went to work sprinkling in grand style, and, what was rather alarming, let me in for more than I had expected. On our return journey the priest asked me to attend service in the Catholic Chapel, in Leicester Square, on the next Sunday. This I did. He was a very gentlemanly person. He thanked me very much for the little service I was enabled to render to the poor old French doctor, whom I missed very much, as it was my habit to sit beside the old man's bed and hear him fight his battles o'er again.
The opposition to the removal of the sick to the Asylum Hospital at Highgate continuing, and plausible ground for some action having been shown in the fact of that establishment being so far away, a move on the part of the Department became necessary. The old Workhouse in Cleveland Street being no longer wanted by the Strand Board (as they had built a new House at Edmonton), it was proposed to pull down and rebuild an additional Asylum Hospital upon the site. The vestry of St. James's, instigated by the Chairman of the Board, gave a determined opposition to the proposition. But for once the Department was firm and the hospital was built. At first the four Unions were associated in its use and management, but after a time its use for the reception of acute cases was limited to the St. Giles's, and St. George's, Bloomsbury, the Strand, and Westminster Unions. The Chairman having for a time retired from the Board, his place was filled by a fresh Chairman, and no obstacle being made to my utilization of Cleveland Street Asylum, suitable cases were transferred there, to the relief of the Westminster House, which, through the resistance of the Board, had become inconveniently full. The new Chairman was a very weak man, who was neither by his financial position or general intelligence justified in aspiring to hold such an office. It is possible that if he had devoted the time he spent at the Board and at the Sick Asylum to his private business he might have delayed, and possibly have staved off, his eventual bankruptcy and ultimate death in the Asylum Hospital in Cleveland Street, to the building of which he gave the most determined opposition. His successor as Chairman was a surgeon in Soho, who was a man of very fair attainments, and during the time he occupied the chair the business of the Board was carried on with remarkable success. I received from him the most generous support, and during his tenure of office my official life was hardly chequered by a single cloud.
I have spoken of the clerk of the Board as having expressed a favourable opinion of the economy I had effected on my first entrance on my duties. The clerk had occupied a similar position at St. Martin's prior to its amalgamation with the Strand Union. As I never went near the clerk of that Union after the discovery of his perfidy in making, in conjunction with Catch, a false charge against me, I was often at a loss to know to whom I could go when any difficulty cropped up. Having had an introduction to this clerk, I frequently called and consulted him; consequently I was not surprised when, through the loss of his office, as the result of St. Martin's being joined to the remaining parishes of the old Strand Union, he was without employment, that he should call on me and invoke my good offices in favour of his being appointed to a similar position in the Westminster Union—the gentleman who had filled the office and that of vestry clerk for St. James's having elected to continue in the latter office only, and not to combine therewith any appointment under the Poor Law. Having some influence in St. Anne's at that time, and being also known in St. James's, I gave him my support, with the result that he was elected clerk to the Board. He never exhibited gratitude for my doing this; indeed, on the contrary, he was distinctly hostile to me during the first few years after my appointment, more especially in all matters relating to lunatics, the truth being that he had a sympathy with all those who were alleged to be of unsound mind, arising, I consider, from the fact that he had a consciousness of not being quite right himself. During the two-and-twenty years I knew him I never saw him half-a-dozen times with a shirt on. I do not state that he never wore one, it was simply never visible; what did duty for it was a sheet of more or less crumpled whitey-brown paper. His clothes were as torn and ragged as those of the most poverty-stricken casual—his shoes down at heel, and the legs of his seedy-looking black trousers hanging in rags. He always complained of being so very poor through the strain put upon him in having to support some needy relatives. His condition and poverty-stricken appearance were often the subject of conversation and commiseration: "Poor fellow," it used to be said, "he has had a great deal of trouble, and is very poor." It was therefore a matter of great astonishment to find, after his death, which took place somewhat suddenly, that he was possessed of several thousand pounds. He died without making any will, and there was a legal struggle among distant relations as to who should secure his very considerable belongings. I have frequently noticed on the part of eccentric people this disbelief in and morbid sympathy with lunatics, and believe it to arise from a species of innate consciousness of mental deficiency, and a fear lest they also should be incarcerated.
One morning, some time before his death, he came to me in my room and showed me a letter he had received from the military Commandant of Devonport Barracks Hospital, which was to the effect that they had a young soldier under treatment for lunacy, who, in his attestation when enlisting, had stated that he belonged to St. James's, London, and that the authorities determined to send him up to us. The clerk said to me, "That does not show that he belongs here, as there are several St. James's in London; I shall write and refuse to take him until his settlement has been determined." But he reckoned without his host, for when did the military ever recognize the civil power? The same evening I was requested to go to the insane ward, where I found the young soldier, and the attendant informed me that he had been brought by a corporal and left in the ward, and that the corporal said that he should call the next day for the hospital clothes. The attendant also stated that when brought in the man's hands were tied together behind his back. I could make nothing of the poor fellow, as no history was brought with him, and he would not speak. As he appeared to be very exhausted I ordered him some milk, beef-tea, and wine, and desired that when the corporal called the next day he should be detained, so that I might learn something about the patient, but when asked to stay and explain, the corporal would not stop.
On visiting the man on the next morning I found that he had taken nothing, and as he would not open his mouth, speak to me, nor do anything, I sent for the stomach-pump and some of the strongest of the pauper inmates, that he might be fed by artificial means. It took four to take him out of bed, secure him in a chair, and to assist me to get his mouth open, when I made the dreadful discovery that all his teeth had recently been broken away in the forcible efforts that had been made to feed him. After a most desperate struggle I administered some beef-tea, arrowroot, and wine. This had to be repeated for two or three days, until the necessary certificates were ready, which enabled me to send him away to Hanwell. I was so disgusted with the barbarous manner in which the young man had been treated, that I wrote an indignant letter to the military authorities at Devonport, complaining of his treatment, and their neglect in sending the poor fellow to the Workhouse without affording any history of his case. The reply was a cool denial of the truth of my statement, and an assertion that he took his food readily and without artificial feeding. I sent this letter to the medical superintendent of Hanwell, and asked for his opinion, when he replied that the man had been forcibly fed for some time, and that his teeth had been destroyed in doing so. I then wrote an account of the case and sent it to Dr. Lush, M.P. for Salisbury, and asked him to see the Minister for War on the subject, and in the House to ask the question I had drafted.
A few days after Dr. Lush replied, telling me that he had seen the Minister, who read the statement, and said he thought that it was a very shocking story, but he hoped that I would not press for an official inquiry, as it would ruin the officers inculpated, and promised that he would send out to all military hospitals such an instructional letter as would prevent the occurrence of such things in future. Dr. Lush also added, "I have promised not to press the matter, especially as the Minister for War did not hesitate to tell me that he entirely believed your statement," and continuing, said, "I know, Rogers, you do not want to ruin anybody, and if the matter is made public there will be a dreadful row, and the whole blame will be thrown on the doctor." I reluctantly assented to this view, and the matter dropped.