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REPORT.

State Board of Charities:

The special committee appointed by the president at the meeting of the Board on May 18, 1898, to investigate the charges made against the New York Post-Graduate Medical School and Hospital, respectfully report as follows:

The charges in general were to the effect that the sums donated to the hospital for "endowment of beds were not invested in proper securities and the income thereof applied only to the maintenance of the beds.

After the examination of many witnesses and documents, the committee find:

That it does not appear from an examination of the terms and conditions of the gifts for "endowment of beds" that it was incumbent upon the authorities of the hospital to invest these moneys in proper securities and use merely the income thereof for the maintenance of beds. In the case of but one donor, do the committee find that there was a special written contract with regard to a donation for "endowment of beds" which made it incumbent upon the hospital to maintain the beds, giving certain provisions of appointment of patients to the donor, with the restriction that in case of the failure of the hospital to maintain such bed, etc., such amount of money should be paid over to another hospital for the same object.

The committee further found that written opinions upon this subject had been given by two counsel to the institution, to the effect that it was not incumbent upon the hospital authorities to place any of these funds out at interest and to make use of the income only. The committee further find that it appears to be understood by the donors themselves and by the form of the usual receipts for such moneys which were given by the hospital

authorities that the moneys should be generally used for the maintenance and operation of the hospital, it being incumbent upon the hospital to maintain the bed and in some cases to have the name of the donor or some other person attached to such endowed bed, and to give the donor or such persons as he might name, the right to place a patient in such bed to be cared for without charge by the hospital authorities.

It further appears that the charges were based in part upon the report of an accountant who never examined or even looked at the books of account kept at the hospital, but based her conclusions upon other reports of the hospital, which were made in annual statements or in reports to the State Board of Charities, which made comparison difficult because the reports were dated or made up at different times and on different theories of bookkeeping. In one of the reports an item of some $1,200 was stated as interest, but it does not appear from the books of account kept by the hospital that any such amount in that form was either received or expended, but that the amount was put in by the request of some of the lady managers of the babies' ward, in order to show what would be the income producing value of certain gifts which had already been used. This statement in a report the committee cannot praise or deem to be the proper thing in the history of an institution.

Your own inspector, a competent accountant, did not find, aside from this statement which appears in the report, any errors in the accounts themselves as kept by the institution.

The committee found that some of the directors or persons interested in the institution held the earnest opinion that all moneys given for the "endowment of beds," as the phrase goes, should be invested in proper securities and the income only thereof should be devoted to the maintenance of the hospital. This, however, seems to the committee to be a question of the conduct or management of the hospital. and the use of its funds, since it does not appear to the committee by its investigation that there has been in law or equity any breach of trust.

It further appears from the report of an accountant, which

report is mentioned above as one based upon the reports and not upon the accounts or account books themselves of the institution, which were not examined or even seen by this accountant, that the total of moneys paid, by the city of New York, to the hospital, would produce at the rate of thirty-eight cents per day a much larger number of patients than were ever reported to be or ever were in the hospital. But here again it appeared that this particular accountant's report was based upon the supposition that the only sums of money received from the city of New York by this hospital were the moneys allowed at the rate of thirty-eight cents per day for each baby patient, oblivious of the fact that another appropriation was made in a lump sum for the benefit of the hospital.

This latter charge that the city of New York had paid for children who had never been in the institution was not sustained by the complainants. It was evident upon their examination that they had made the accusation in ignorance of the meaning of the law.

(Signed)

TUNIS G. BERGEN.

STEPHEN SMITH.

JOHN VINTON DAHLGREN.

Committee.

REPORT OF AN INVESTIGATION

INTO THE MANAGEMENT OF

The American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless, New York City,

BY A SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD.

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