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153
guilt or othen'lise of the convict officials;
both sides ;
therefore,
resorted to statistics to prove their point. On the 24th, the Tasmanian
Daily News pb lished a simple table of comparative deaths of children
duri_ng the first six months of 1854 at the Cascades Factory, and of the
last six months of 1854 at the Infirmary . This table showed that , had
the deaths at the Infirmary continued in the same relative proportion to
strength as at the Cascades, forty six children instead of eleven would
have died; consequently, in the last six months of 1854, thirty five
lives \'/ere saved.
Therefore, if the children had been placed under the
/
same improved management from July 1, 1852, to July 1, 1854, instead of
228 deaths, there would have been only 57 - that is, 170 lives or more
would have been saved.
Hall explained:
These are no trifling figures, it is not a slight
difference; the saving of lives in the proportion of
more than three out of four; and no amount of certificature,
sophistry or mystification can nullify such palpable facts
and persuade the pub lie that my single judgment \'las not more
correct than that of Drs Secomb e, Benson and Brock and that
there \'las something radically \'lrong in the management of the
·
children , under Mr May's superintendence.
The next day, the Advertiser inserted an article by M. Burges s, the son
of the Chief Police Magistrate, formerly Clerk of the Medical Department
and now Assistant Inspector of Schools and Secretary to the Mechanics
Institute, who claimed that he had a lo_ng and intimate personal knm.,rledge
of the circumstances .
In his review of Hall's evidence before the Select
Committee, he, too, used statistics to prove that the mortality rate at
the Cascades Factory in the first six months of 1854, 64 deaths out of
a total number of 209 children, or at the rate of 43.6% per annum, was
no higher than in England or in Europe for children of the same age.
Moreover, he denied that. the Comptroller-General and the Medical Department
'
had ever been neglectful of the children's \'lelfare, as regards food,
clothing, warmth, and accommodation;
the improved condition of the
chi ldren after their removal to the Infirmary he attributed to the
superior position of the buildings, the more extended means of exercise,
and the freedom of the mothers from the restraints of a gao l;
Atkinson
alone and not the Comptroller-General was responsible for their removal
to the Brickfi elds .
·Hall he accused of "personal malice" and "an urgent
thirst for popularity" coupled \'lith ''egotism, vanity and self laudation" ,
all of which were so noticeable in his correspondence.
Though Hal l
replied at some length, the Daily News made one scathing comment: