44 TOPOGRAPHY 



The expenses of this hospital are partly defrayed by 

 government, and partly by private donations and 

 legacies. Patients are also admitted into this hos- 

 pital, by paying one shilling and six-pence per diem, 

 who cannot claim the usual certificate of pauperism. 

 The Jews, Roman Catholics, and Protestants have 

 each their board of directors, but from this multiplicity 

 of masters, much of the efficiency of the establish- 

 ment is destroyed. The hospital can accommodate 

 eighty patients, but rarely are there more than thirty 

 or forty in it. Besides the in-door patients, the dis- 

 pensary attached to it affords relief to a large number 

 of out-door patients. There is some room for im- 

 provement in the whole institution, and a well quali- 

 fied resident English surgeon would be a great advan- 

 tage to the establishment. Perhaps no class of people 

 object to go into hospital more than the poor of 

 Gibraltar ; and it is only when the case is hopeless, or 

 when the supply is stopped, that they can be per- 

 suaded to enter the hospital, relief to them having 

 been, in the meantime, afforded by efficient medical 

 practitioners* I had much pleasure in noticing, in my 

 last Annual Report on the sickness and mortality of 

 the civil population, the existence of a benevolent 

 fund, called the " Liberal Society of Friends United," 

 which should be encouraged by all parties, as it ena- 

 bles a working man, in case of his own illness, to 

 obtain a sufficiency to keep him above want for a 

 period extending to even twelve months. Thus I 

 have known some labouring men draw from the funds 

 of this useful society one shilling and six-pence per 



