4 HOSPITAL ACCOMMODATION. 



I regret to feel, abeady exists among certain classes of our young 

 and otherwise prosperous community. 



" Pour years ago an attempt was made to induce the men of a 

 large manufacturing iirm in the metropolis to add something from 

 themselves to a subscription of fifteen guineas per annum already 

 given by the firm to a neighbouring dispensary ; the whole of the 

 letters given for this amount being constantly in use, and many 

 more being required. It was found that a penny a month, from 

 little more than half the men at work, would raise the subscrip- 

 tion to forty guineas per annum, which would entitle them, 

 according to the published scale, not only to as many tickets as 

 they could require for themselves and families, but also to a 

 certain number for their friends. 



"Notwithstanding these advantages, the subscription was started 

 with considerable difficulty, and the collection of pennies became 

 gradually so irregular and unsatisfactory that at the end of two 

 years and a half it had to be entirely dropped, a small balance of 

 the subscription for 1871 and '72 sfili remaining unpaid. It thus 

 appears that_ a farthing a week was considered too heavy a charge 

 for medical attendance and medicine, not because they were 

 not wanted, for the full complement of letters was in constant 

 requisition, nor because a penny a month could not be afforded 

 by each man, but simply because every trace of the principle of 

 independent self-help had been undermined and abolished by the 

 facility presented to the men of getting what they needed at other 

 people's expense." 



I take the following, as one of many similar examples which 

 might be quoted, from the Second Eeport of the New South Wales 

 Charity Commission recently issued, page 73. Speaking of out- 

 door relief as administered at the Benevolent Asylum, it says : — 

 " The imposition which is practised on the institution arises not 

 so much from persons applying who are not entitled to relief in 

 the first instance, but chiefly in cases where a husband is sick in 

 the Infirmary, and the family require relief and get it, and then 

 the husband gets well and goes to work, and the family still con- 

 tinue to receive the relief, and after a time the circumstances are 

 discovered. The evidence is that in such cases there is scarcely 

 one in a hundred who has the honesty to say I do not require 

 the relief any longer." 



Thus it appears that the results of wholesale and indiscrimi- 

 nate medical charity tend to increase the number of its recipients 

 and the cost per head, as well as to induce general pauperism. 



If such evUs have accrued in a Country like England, during a 

 period when money was more scarce than it now is, from a dis- 

 regard of the true principles which should guide the distribution 

 of charitable funds, surely it is important in a young Country, 

 where wages are high, the necessaries of life cheap, and the climate 



