Imatges de pàgina
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men, whose ambition or interest was the first consideration for the establishment.

Where such conduct is suffered to prevail, all discrimination of merit or skill is thrown aside ; and the poor, who are to be relieved by the successful purchaser, are devoted to the chance of his inexperience: this momentary influx of money to the charity is pregnant with a future evil, infinitely counterbalancing the present advantage; for, at the expiration of the subscriptions so brought in, they are scarcely ever renewed, and the offence given to the former subscribers is sufficient to induce them to withdraw the support of themselves and their friends, and to leave the institution to the fate of a fresh struggle for annual competence, with perhaps the novelty of additional competitors to contend with.

The prevention of an evil of this serious tendency, both to the institution established and to the poor, seems to rest upon a rule which has been made in some very respectable charities in and near the metropolis, and which is now earnestly recommended to all others, viz. "That no new annual subscribers shall be competent to vote in any election, unless their subscription

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shall have been paid six calendar months previous to the day of election."

Again: I cannot omit recommending to the governors of all charitable institutions a strict investigation into a practice which prevails, and is in many, though not in all of them, regularly allowel; a practice which tends to the disgrace of this country-to the ruin of every principle or emotion of gratitude which might arise in the breast of a patient feeling the blessings of recovery while under their protection-which leads many of the indigent and distressed to undervalue the benevolent motives of their benefactors, and which opens a source of corruption inconsistent with the principle of every charitable foundation. I mean the practice of levying fees upon patients at their admission to, during their residence in, or at their discharge from, several of our principal hospitals. The wages of nurses and servants are thus, in part, drained from the scanty pittance of the poor, whose difficulty and delay in previously providing themselves with money and necessaries often retard their admission till the ravages of their complaint leave them but a hopeless prospect of recovery. If admitted through

through prevailing entreaties and the extremity of their case, without these payments they must despair of receiving all the attention necessary; and if it be granted them, the smallest act of duty is made to wear the semblance of favour and liberality. On the other hand, if they have money enough for the purpose, all gratitude is stifled by the right of au apparent purchase.

Finally I beg leave earnestly to submit these few considerations to those who humanely "make charity their care," whose liberal zeal has irradiated their own and their country's praise, and whose example and influence over the minds and consequent actions of the poor is of as much importance to their welfare as any laws for the regulation of their conduct.

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