People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 March 1896 — REFUSE TO TESTIFY. [ARTICLE]

REFUSE TO TESTIFY.

Illinois State Board of Charities Will Accomplish Little. Jacksonville, 111., March 18.—Gov. Altgeld and the members of the state board of charities are engaged in investigating the charges of mismanagement made against the superintendent and employes at the Central Hospital for the Insane at Jacksonville. The principal difficulty which confronted the board in its investigation was the utter refusal of the men who have been spreading the reports to reveal the names of their informants. Some of the attendants were examined. Their testimony was in defense of their own actions., and they strenuously denied any neglect or abuse of patients. The fact that one of the patients was killed by a train while walking upon a track, and that the death of another was due to burns received in a bathtub during the absence of his attendants from the room, was not denied, and other deaths, which it was charged was due to negligence on the part of attendants, are duly recorded, but in each of these cases the testimony of the superintendent and attendants was positive that the occurrences were unavoidable accidents. The state board finished the taking of testimony Tuesday night, but no decision was announced.