The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-02-14 00:00:00

LORD DERBY ON CHARITY.

In London, on Tuesday evening, a dinner In aid of the
funds of the University College Hospital took place at
Willis's Booms, King-street, St. James's. Lord Derby took
the chair and amongst those present were Sir Frederick
Cohismid, Bart., MP Lord Romtlis, Mr. Justice Quain, Mr.
Unite, Mr. J. Boom, CII., and r. E. Enfield (treasurer).—la
the course of Gls speech, Lord Derby said
• , I am agreed, and we are all agreed, that charie
table institutions of various kinds are a necessity in a
state of society like cure; they may be unduly multi.
plied, and some people say that they cannot always he
w eking to the best p wsible advantage. There may be
abuses and waste in the distribution of their fern is, but
that more or less will alwaye be the case. In a country
like ours, where a change of fashion, or a foreign war,
or a commercial critin, or a hundred other Inci-
dents that no man in the working classes or any
people out of it could reasonably be expected
to foresee, will throw out of employment hundreds of
thousands of families, you most be prepared to deal with
a great deal of distress which la entirely unmerited, and a
great deal of suffering which the rigid economists cannot
trace to idleness or vice. If that is true throughout
Eugland generally. lam afraid that it is more ceps.
cially true in London. We draw to ourselves a more
than average proportion of the national wealth and the
national poverty at the same time. It will be in the
experience of many that it is to London that
everybody comes who wishes to break off from
old antecedent or with ideas more ambitious than
can be satisfied in the life of a country village. Some
come in a spirit of adventure, with the idea of making
a fortune ; others come with the vague hope that
among more than three millions of people there is
sure to be employment for them; others come, not
with ambitions hope, but only with a view of hiding
their di-grace or poverty from friends or aerauaint-
anus who had known them in happier days. Among
this enormous mess of population, by no fault of
ours, but simply by the necessity of the case, this
simple social arrangement, which in rural districts
prevents a great amount of poverty from degenerating
into paupoi-m, was necessary. In our country
villages the relation between the rich and the poor,
the employer and empl eyed, is not one merely of
economical aud industrial account, it is a personal
human relation. We know them individually; we
know the people whom we employ, man by man, and
w dram by wo nan, That intercourse cannot be cast
sway. In London the rich and the poor are separated
as tney are not separated anywhere else, except in a
few treat towns which have, more or less the same
characteristics. The more this capital increases in
slz4, the more that tendency to separation will in-
crease also. It has almost come to this, that the
rich and the poor live in separate districts, and
except by special iequiry we can know nothing
of those who want our aid, sod we cannot in
some cases give that disciiimita e assietance which
was possible in a email community where every.
body knew everybody else. We are compelled
to fall baek upon an imper•ect subs.itute—upon the
assistance of charitable institutious and organisations
of various kinds. Now, lam not going to enter
here into auy survey or criticism of the various
Lou lon charities. Moot of us know them' super
Acially or otherwise; but as far as I can judge I
imagine that there are s ocee among them which du un-
mixed good, while others, owing t ifaulty construction,
do more harm than good; and in some eases they do
some good and some harm. My point is this; that of
all institutions i .tended for the relief of human dis-
tress, there are none which are so safe from abuse
as in the case of a great and established hospiial—
(cheers)—because, from the very nature of the case,
from tree very nature of the help which a hospital under-
takes, imposture of one kind becomes utterly impos-
sible. Many people a-herd for money when they did
not want it; but, as a rule, they did not ask for physic
when they did not want it. A man who earnestly de-
sires to be taken into a hospital really requires to be
dealt with there. A man who deeires to be admitted as
a patient, who does not require to be medically treated,
that ie a kind of imposture which is very easy of detec-
tion. These hospitala indirectly do good service, tar
beyond the limit of those who are received into them,
or who are treated as out-patients ; and they are our
great medical schools, where dis-ass can be studied of
all kinds. There is only one thing, however, again, t
these schools, and that is when a certain number of
persons occasionally obtain gratuitously medical
assistance who are really, as far as poverty and
destitution go, not ectitlsd to receive it. But that
is an abuse which csn be guarded against where caees
of that kind exist. Although the poor may be
robleed, stll the fault rests with the subicribers
and those who have a power over the institution itself.
We all hope that a time may come when the average
of disease and mortality may be very much lower
than it is at presents (Cheers.) Itetter lodgings and
better habits will accorcplish a great deal in this direc-
tion. (Hear, hear.) NVheu we recollect what, be • sani-
tary point of view, a great town is at the best—when
we recollect that in the London parks and squares
there are only three or four kinds of trees which
reasonably grow, and that an atromphere which kills
an oak is not a healthy one for a child—when we
hear in mind pea erty, intemperance, and crowded
homes, whichar e . !likely to disappear in our time—
when we remelu. r that physical weakness and die.
ease are inhe• ed, and, as a general rule, the children
and families' welch have lived for generations in town
are below the normal condition of health and strength
—when we bear in mind all these things, and when
you recollect it it were possible to get rid of this you
could not get rid of accidents, it seems to me clear that
our great hospitals will lied work enough to do, not
only for our time, but for as many generations as we
base to look forward to. (Aptilause.)