Philanthropists are commonly grave,
occasionally grim, and not very rarely morose. Their expansive social
force is imprisoned as a working power, to show itself only through
its legitimate pistons and cranks. The tighter the boiler, the less it
whistles and sings at its work. When Dr. Waterhouse, in 1780, travelled
with Howard, on his tour among the Dutch prisons and hospitals, he
found his temper and manners very different from what would have been
expected. My benevolent companion having already made a preliminary
exploration of the hospitals of the place, before sharing my bed with
him, as above mentioned, I joined him in a second tour through them. The
authorities of Middletown are evidently leagued with the surgeons of
that place, for such a break-neck succession of pitfalls and chasms I
have never seen in the streets of a civilized town. It was getting late
in the evening when we began our rounds. The principal collections of
the wounded were in the churches. Boards were laid over the tops of the
pews, on these some straw was spread, and on this the wounded lay, with
little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on.
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