1. That the successor to our House Surgeon (resigned) should be a dispenser, and dispense the medicines in the house, saving our bill at the druggist's of £150 per annum.
2. A series of House Rules, of which I send you the rough copy.
3. A series of resolutions about not keeping patients, of which[136] I send you the foul copy.
4. A complete revolution as to Diet, which is shamefully abused at present.
5. An advertisement for the Institution, of which I send the foul copy.
All these I proposed and carried in Committee, without telling them that they came from me and not from the Medical Men; and then, and not till then, I showed them to the Medical Men, without telling them that they were already passed in committee.
It was a bold stroke, but success is said to make an insurrection into a revolution. The Medical Men have had two meetings upon them, and approved them all nem. con., and thought they were their own. And I came off with flying colours, no one suspecting my intrigue, which of course would ruin me were it known, as there is as much jealousy in the Committee of one another, and among the Medical Men of one another, as ever what's his name had of Marlborough.
I have also carried my point of having good, harmless Mr.—— as Chaplain; and no young curate to have spiritual flirtations with my young ladies.
And so much for the earthquakes in this little mole-hill of ours.
(To her Father.) … I send you some more documentary evidence—the tail of my Quarterly Report. My Committee are such children in administration that I am obliged to tell them such obvious truths as are contained in what I make the Medical Men say. This place is exactly like the administering of the Poor Law. We have cases of purely lazy fits and cases deserted by their families. And my Committee have not the courage to discharge a single case. They say the Medical Men must do it. The Medical Men say they won't, although the cases, they say, must be discharged. And I always have to do it, as the stop-gap on all occasions.