}Q2 BENEVOLENT ESTABLISHMENTS. 



of the noblemen who a6l as administrators, fill up the yearly 

 deficiency. 



The general hospital for the poor is a recent establishment, 

 which is indebted for its origin to Don Diego De Guevara, an 

 opulent merchant of Lima. He had long entertained a per- 

 suasion that the most efFedtual mode of exterminating an im- 

 portunate mendicity, consisted in the ere6tion of a general 

 hospital, in which invalids and infirm persons having been 

 colle6ted, should be provided with food and lodging, em- 

 ployed in some easy mechanical labours to render them indus- 

 trious, and assisted with spiritual exhortations to eradicate 

 their vices, and stimulate them to the pursuits of virtue. Ac- 

 cordingly, in 1757, he presented a memorial to the viceroy, 

 in which, with the most efficacious reasonings, and the great- 

 est weight of authority, he exposed the necessities of the poor 

 and their vices ; together with the frauds which were com- 

 mitted on the real obje6ls of charity by those who, being able 

 to live by their labour, were led by their vicious inclinations to 

 become mendicants. He proposed the plan of an hospital in 

 which the necessitous poor should be assembled ; and de- 

 scribed the useful and moderate labours in which they might be 

 employed, tendering to this efFedl his person and his fortune. 

 He pointed out at the same time several expedients calcu- 

 lated to defray the indispensable expences of the hospi- 

 tal. 



A royal schedule, dated in November 1758, not only granted 

 the license requisite to this establishment, but likewise charged 



the 



