rooms. The edifice is crowned with a handsome cupo. la, from which you have a fine view of the city, the harbor and the Hudson. The state allows the Hospital the sum of $12,500 annually, chargeable upon the duties on sales at public auction, in the city of New-York. The greatest number of patients at any one time on record, in the Hospital, is 2,000! As high as 1,725 have been admitted in one year, (including U. S. seamen ;) of this number 1,185 were paupers! Out of the whole, 1,320 were cured: 527 of the patients were Irish. There is a library to the Hospital of 4,800 volumes; containing some of the most rare and most valuable works in medical science in the world. By a law of the United States, every senman in the merchant service pays 20 cents per month (deducted out of their wages,) for their support, if sick or disabled. This not being sufficient for the support of all who applied for hospital relief, the governers have admitted 1,649 more than what has been yearly paid for by the United States; the cost of which amounts to $15,141 28, which Congress as yet refuses to pay: so says report. The Asylum for the Insane stands near the Hospital, and is included in the institution, and both are kept equal to those of Baltimore and Philadelphia, excepting only the lying in ward. Clinical lectures, both medical and surgical, are delivered here by the professors of both colle. ges, viz: Columbia college, and the medical college; being physicians of the Hospital, they use the Surgical Theatre for this purpose. There are usually an hundred students, medical and surgical, who attend those lectures; they were first introduced by Dr. Bard. Be sides this hospital, there is one on Staten Island, three miles below the city, where quarantine laws are enforced at certain seasons of the year. This hospital receives all that are afflicted with epidemic discases; it is one of the finest buildings in the United States. A board of health sits at this place. Columbia College.-Columbia college was founded in *The annual expence of the Hospital is $40,000. No domestic or officer of the Hospital is allowed to receive any present or bequest from any patient. 1754; it stands near Park place, and consists of one great building of gray stone, three stories, and contains twelve apartments in each story. It also contains a Chapel, Hall, Museum, Anatomical Theatre, a Laboratory, a Philosophical apparatus, and a library of 5,000 volumes. The annual revenue is upwards of $4,000; it has a President, and five Professors. The average number of students is 200. It is governed by Trustees, but their number I was not able to ascertain; the President, when I called, being very much indisposed. The Elgin Botanical Garden, formerly the property of Dr. D. Hosack, was purchased from him by the state, and conveyed to this college, (under very rigid restrictions ;) it contains twenty 20 acres of ground, and upwards of 2,000 valuable plants. icted bled. ppli which Medical College.-The medical college stands in Barclay-street; it was incorporated finally in 1813, by the 1,649 legislature; the regents of the university, previous to nited this, granted them a charter, but the institution did not prosper until 1813: it is now in a flourishing condition, and a number of young men have graduated at this colal, and lege. The medical department, which formerly belongal to ed to Columbia college, has been transferred to this, ly the which is better known by the name of "the College of d sur- Physicians and Surgeons." The course of lectures embracolle- ces "the theory and practice of physic, obstetrics, and Plege; diseases of women and children, chemistry, and materia rgical medica, anatomy, physiology and surgery, natural history, the clinical practice of medicine, the principles and those practice of surgery, and the institutes of medicine, and Be medical jurisprudence." p three hun prac CCC enfor al re Being insensibly led to mention the university of N. York, it becomes necessary to explain, that the regents of the university are nothing more than a literary society, of twenty-one gentlemen, whose duty it is to distri bute the money designed for all literary institutions throughout the state; also to visit all the colleges, academies, and schools, within the same; to inspect the system of education in each, and make report thereof to the legislature. They appoint presidents and principals of academies; incorporate colleges and academies, &c. and DH upo har l the es on The rd, in n ad. this 1,320 e is a ining nedi 7 the ; it is board Leded in Shree estic st from confer degrees by diplomas of a higher order than master of arts and medical degrees. The governor and lieut. governor are members ex officio; the regents are appointed by the legislature, and choose a chancellor and vice chancellor of the university from their own body. They are prohibited from requiring any religious test of any president or principal of an academy or college, and no regent can be a president, trustee, or principal, of any seminary or college in this state. Stute Prison. The state prison of New-York, stands on the Hudson river, in Greenwich-street. It is built of free stone, in the Doric style; it has two stories, each 15 feet in height, besides the basement, and is 204 feet in length; it has four wings extending back; the buildings and yard cover four acres of ground; the whole is enclosed with a stone wall, 23 feet next the river and 14 in front. It contains 54 rooms for the prisoners, rooms for the keeper and agents, a chapel, an hospital, a din ing hall for the prisoners, with kitchens, and cells for solitary confinement. In the yard are the work-shops of the prisoners, and the whole is well supplied with water. These prisoners do not work out of doors as at Philadelphia; the most of them are kept at weaving; the first stocking-loom I ever saw was in this prison, but such was the intricacy of the thing that I am unable to describe it. Besides weavers, there are turners, brushmakers, coopers, blacksmiths, tailors, painters, shoemakers, carpenters, and many card and spin; they eat three times a day, mush and molasses for supper, cocoa sweetened with molasses, with bread, for breakfast, beef shins, made into soup, thickened with beans or rice, for dinner, and once a week they have a pork dinner, and always plenty of potatoes; some instances of industry are rewarded by a pint of beer. Good behaviour generally shortens the term of confinement; the young and the old, who are illiterate, are carefully instructed. The prison is warmed by stoves; they have pumps and fireengines in the yard. No convict, sentenced for a less term than three years, can be put in this prison: when a convict arrives, he is stripped, washed clean, and dressed in new clothes, and waster ¡ lieut. after taking a description of his person, which is entered of the and 14 rooms 1 din i ties, 2 7, the preme judges and the attorney general of the state, regbutulate the laws of the institution, which, with all deference ble to to them, are very rigid. A physician and surgeon reside brush in the prison, and others visit there daily from the city, emak none of which receive compensation. threc They of any nd no f any ry arc erally d the years, he is , and 250 7 ly replied that they never lived better, nor had a wish ungratified. I saw an exception in the cruelty of an Irish woman toward some of the children. The managers are highly censurable for placing these Irish women over the children-I would as soon put them under the care of a tiger. I am the more surprised at this, as these savages are sometimes brought before the police for their cruelty to their own children. My feelings have been torn to pieces since my visit to the Atlantic states, by the cries of children under the lush of these Irish hyenas. But to return: This establishment might be improved, by removing the children to a separate asylumn. There are too many children in one house, even were there no grown persons. I do not know whether any one has made the remark which I have, viz. that a great number of living beings, whether of the human species or the brute creation, will not be healthy for any length of time, when crowded together. Work House.-The work-house stands in rear of the alms-house, and is used for the employment of the poor. It is built of brick, 200 feet by 25; it contains a hos pital for males, and one for females. Penitentiary.-The penitentiary, likewise, stands in the rear of the alms-house; it is a stone building, 150 feet long, and 50 in width. are confined, whose sentence to be imprisoned falls unIn this prison, all convicts der the degree which subjects to confinement in the state prison, and those only can be confined in the penitentiary whose offences have been committed within the city or county of New-York. The average number of convicts in the penitentiary, is 250; these are kept at work. The whole of those buildings are enclosed, together with six acres of ground, with a wall of 7 feet high; on the outside is a school for the poor children, called a free school: also a garden, where those of the paupers who are able, cultivate culinary plants. A physician, surgeon, and apothecary reside in the almshouse, and attend to the sick of the whole establishment; for which they receive a salary; it has, also, a visiting physician, and surgeon, whose attention is hon orary; they receive no compensation. |