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"That a fair and impartial investigation never injures the innocent, but is frequently the means of their vindication, and a restoration of public confidence, where that confidence has been causelessly impaired."

Why, therefore, did Dr. McFarland so dread this investigation if he was innocent, and had conscious rectitude to stand upon?

In such a case he would have nothing to fear, but everything to hope for, from an impartial investigation.

But did he fear his evil deeds would be exposed, and he be brought to justice by an incensed public?

So it seems, from his fleeing when no one was pursuing him.

No pursuer! -- did I say?

Yes. He was pursued by a guilty conscience, from which he found it impossible to escape.

It is the wicked or guilty "who flee when no man pursueth;" but the righteous or innocent are "bold as a lion," because they have no reason to fear evil results from conscious rectitude.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
Result of the Investigation.

As seen in the foregoing pages, the Committee found Dr. McFarland a guilty man -- guilty of all the charges brought against him -- and therefore unworthy the confidence the public had been reposing in him, and these conscientious, faithful investigators had the moral courage to place this public servant just where his own actions placed him.

They had no power delegated to them to depose him. Their instruction from the Legislature was:

"To confer with the trustees for the correction of abuses, and to report to the Governor at their discretion."

This they did; but they found the trustees determined to defend the Doctor in spite of all this overwhelming testimony of his guilt.

Therefore to confer with them was useless, so far as correction of abuses was concerned, since they were so blind they would not even see that these abuses did exist.

All that remained now for them to do, was, "to report to the Governor," which they did, Dec. 1st, 1867.

This report was published in the Tribune and Times, and the verdict of the people plainly coincided with that of the Committee, viz.:

That the present incumbent. Dr. McFarland ought to be, removed at once.

But the laws governing the institution admit that no other method of removing the incumbent, except through the trustees who appointed him.

The Committee were powerless to act in that direction, while the trustees sustained the Superintendent. All they had power to do to get him removed they did do, by reporting to the Governor, and if he did not call a special meeting of the Legislature to attend to this business, they must wait until a year from that time, as the Legislature met only once in two years

But when they did meet in 1869 they reported to that body and their report was accepted and adopted. The following is copied from this report.

The Committee say that in entering upon their duties:

"They had well hoped that, although there might be mistakes or even neglect on the part of the Superintendent nothing involving his character as a humane man and gentleman, would be shown to exist.

"In this, however, the Committee have been grievously disappointed. Familiarity with suffering and sorrow has apparently to some extent, deadened his sensibilities and sympathies; and long accustomed to govern, he has become about the hospital a kind of supreme law, and the rule of force has too often usurped the law of love.

"And the classification of patients in their wards does seem, in many cases, fundamentally wrong. The refined and cultivated are found many times placed where they are annoyed by the vulgar and profane, and often perfectly quiet patients are placed with the noisy, excited, violent and dangerous ones.

"As to "restraints," it appears that those in use in the hospital, are the screen-room, the straight-jacket or camisole, the wristers, the crib-bedsteads and the bath-tub, all of which, when properly used, as means of restraining or controlling patients in their paroxysms, seem proper and necessary; but when used as instruments of torture by inhuman angry attendants, as the testimony shows they have been, is reprehensible. The ordinary bath-tub has also been so used in the Hospital by the attendants, as a means of punishment, that the threat of a bath has more terrors attached to it than a straight-jacket.

"Again, his police regulations are bad, and fatal to his government. He assumes that insane patients are never to be believed, and therefore does not listen with favor to their complaints.

"He substantially denies the right of petition and investigation and like all public officers who do this, he finds himself, too late, surrounded with difficulties, and imposed upon.

"He does not require or encourage attendants to report to him each other's delinquencies, and for this reason he is ignorant of a large portion of the abuses. His government of patients is believed too severe, and his discipline of attendants too mild.

"The Committee, throughout the investigation, have endeavored to jealously guard the true interests of the institution -- to neither shield the guilty nor magnify their faults -- but to carefully ascertain as far as possible, the truth, and when ascertained, to fearlessly declare it.