MR. PERCYsaid, he would take that opportunity of calling the attention of his right hon. Friend the Member for South Wiltshire (Mr. S. Herbert) to a statement which had appeared in one of the public journals, that Dr. Meyer, who had been appointed to the direction of one of our hospitals in the East, was a German gentleman who was not possessed of any diploma, and whose only qualifications for the situation to which he had been appointed were, that he had managed a lunatic asylum abroad, and had attended with some regularity the levees of His Royal Highness Prince Albert. He wished to ask his right hon. Friend whether there was any truth in this statement?
§ MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, he was in some degree responsible for the appointment of Dr. Meyer, because he recommended him to his noble Friend now at the head of the War Office (Lord Panmure). There must be some great misapprehension, because Dr. Meyer was an Englishman, born at Norwood, near London. He was educated at Hammersmith, afterwards at Eton, 98 and studied the medical profession at Guy's Hospital. He was a member of the College of Surgeons, where he passed his examination with great distinction, and had been at the head of large establishments in Norfolk Island and Van Diemen's Land. He (Mr. S. Herbert) believed that he was very favourably known at the Colonial Office; and so far from his having attended the levees of Prince Albert, he informed him (Mr. S. Herbert) that he had never had the honour in the course of his life of seeing His Royal Highness.