A few words on Hospitals.-They are, in my humble judgement, the only Charities for which I would not have a prohibitory law of mortmain, not suddenly but gradually, introduced. Mortuary endowments are apt to transmit and clothe with authority the errors of past times; they are apt to be the offspring of caprice or undue persuasion, so likely to be uneconomically conducted. There are no living vigilant subscribers to scrutinize the application of their funds; and the reproach to a complainant is ever ready,-"Why should you interfere? we are not dealing with your money." I can not recognize the right or advantage of any man being able by a mere flourish of his pen at some particular period of his life, and that generally when his faculties are not in their best state, to dictate how men should act in a distant future, the requirements of which he can not know, and when he himself would probably have entirely changed his views. Speaking for myself, I would—as a general rule,— let the Charities (I use the word in its wide legal acceptation) of the day be supported by the people of the day; but I incline to except Hospitals for the sick, the infirm, and the deranged; because they are managed by the gratuitous services of Medical men; because they afford help to those who most require and can least misuse it; because they are tied to no formulæ, but call into action the most advanced knowlege of the day; because they form the most valuable school for the most valuable knowlege; and because

(though this may be common to other charities) they require a permanent local habitation. MR. JUSTICE GROVE, Address at St. Mary's Hospital, Brit. Med. Journ., 29 May, 1869.

Real active benevolence requires time and investigation, and imposes responsibility. — N. W. SENIOR, Essays, 1865, vol. ii, chap. vi.

Though many men are nominally entrusted with the administration of Hospitals and other public Institutions, almost all the good is done by one man, by whom the rest are driven on, owing to confidence in him, and indolence in them.-JOHNSON, Boswell's Life. 1776.

We all know what Committees are: how frivolous the excuses for neglect or absence, how great the lack of moral courage, how heavy the burden on the one member who has a conscience.-Quarterly Review, vol. 108, p. 386.

The suggestion of reforms is more likely to injure the mover, than to benefit the Institution. For there always are some practical defects in such establishments; which it is vain to attempt to correct and every servant, high or low, has his own Patrons ready to resist any effort to disturb him in his "vested rights."- W. H., Letter, 1850.

Each Englishman's home should not only be his Castle, but his Hospital. Charity will not then degrade, but will elevate; and that alone will be true Charity which assists the poor to assist themselves, and so live independent of alms

begging and alms-giving. We are now proud of our Charities, of our public Hospitals which cost £1000 per bed, plus the additional expenses of administration, in which hospital-beds sick men are treated at a money-rate three times greater than the wages they could ever earn when in health. "Our charitable Institutions are the glory of our land;"-but happy will that State be which neither possesses nor needs such form of glory.-R. RAWLINSON, Address as President of the Social Science Association, Brit. Med. Journ., 1 Oct. 1870.

More money should be spent on surgical and medical skill, and on educated nurse-tending; less money should be spent on architectural designs, contractor's profits, tipsy ambulance-drivers, and the furniture of pestiferous wards. I argue from cumulative proofs that admit of no displacement, that the noblest edifices permanently devoted to surgical, obstetric, or zymotic cases are not, and can not be made by any scientific art, as propitious for the restoration of the sick as the ordinary homes of the working classes.-W. T. M'C. TORRENS, M.P., Rich Hospitals and Poor Homes, Gent. Mag., Sept. 1875.

'Have they kept faith with the Public?' said * *, in answer to an appeal for farther contributions from the Managers of the

L**

Infirmary. 'It is notorious that they have not,'

86

V. PASSING THROUGH LIFE. PRIVATE LIFE.

RRESOLUTION on the schemes of life which
SOL

offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest and most universal causes of all our disquiet and unhappiness. When ambition pulls one way, interest an other, inclination a third, and perhaps reason contrary to all, a man is likely to pass his time but i who has so many different parties to please. * * If we are firmly resolved to live up to the dictates of reason, without any regard to wealth, reputation, or the like considerations, any more than as they fall in with our principal design, we may go through life with steadiness and pleasure: but if we act by several broken views, and will not only be virtuous, but wealthy, popular, and everything that has a value set upon it by the world, we shall live and die in misery and repentance. ADDISON, Spectator, 162.

The world is a Comedy to those who think, — a Tragedy to those who feel. HORACE WALPOLE, Quarterly Review, vol. lxxii, p. 541.

Those are the wisest, and the happiest, who can pass through life as a play; who,

without

making a farce of it, and turning everything into ridicule, or running into the opposite extreme of tragedy, consider the whole period, from the cradle to the coffin, as a well-bred comedy; - and maintain a cheerful smile to the very last scene. For, what is happiness, but a Will-o'-thewisp, a delusion; a terra incognita, in pursuit of which thousands are tempted out of the harbor of tranquillity, to be tossed about, the sport of the winds and passion, and the waves of disappointment, to be wrecked perhaps at last on the rocks of despair;-unless they be provided with the sheet-anchor of Religion, the only anchor that will hold in all weathers? Life is only tolerable in a romance, where all that is commonplace and disgusting is kept out of sight.- H. MATTHEWS, Diary of an Invalid, ch. v, vii.

Do me the pleasure to expound the various objects which occupy the yawning brains of the persons whom I see already risen, and who are preparing, as it seems to me, to leave their houses: what can possibly call them out so early? What you ask me is well worth your knowlege, answered the Demon. You shall gaze on a picture of the cares, the emotions, the anguish that poor mortal man gives himself during life, to occupy with the vain hope of happiness, the little space which is granted him between the cradle and the tomb. LE SAGE, Asmodeus, ch. 16.