The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-09 00:00:00

THE ROYAL ORTIWP(EDIC HOSPITAL.

The anniversary festival of this institution, which
was established for the cure of club-foot, lateral curvature
of the spine, and all other contractions and deformities,
was celebrated yesterday at the London Tavern. The Earl
01 SHAFTESBURY was in the chair, sad was supported by a
number of gentlemen who take a personal interest some-
what more marked than usual in the charity.
The CHAIIMAN, in proposing the toast of the evening,
dwelt with great force on the value of the charity as a
source of succour to a very numerous class of sufferers, for
whom, until its establishment, no certain cr permanent re-
lief could he obtained. He stated that it would be difficult
to exaggerate the amount of individual suffering
and ecdurance, and of far-spreading destitution
which had been thus happily relieved end averted.
Unfoitunately, little was generally known of the
extent to which the afflictions, to alleviate which the hos-
pital was established, prevailed amongst the poor, or of the
distressieg consequences which attend them. The majority
of the applicants were persons of adult age, or verging upon
it, or youths hindered from the acquisition of some trade or
useful employment, and baffled in their efforts to fit them-
selves for obtaining a livelihood by their own exertions;
or parents, mechanics, labourers, and others, who in manly
self-reliance and by steady perseverance had hitherto
earned a subsistence for themselves and their families, but
having become crippled in their limbs were incapable, their
own misfortunes rendered more palpable by the destitution
which surrounded them, and their severe affliction
made tenfold more acute by the reflection that
it involved others in its consequences, and deprived
their children of bread His lordship urged very power-
fully the claims of the charity in relation to tho benefits
which it conferred upon young children, who were at a
very early age, by timely medical aid, relieved from defects
which would embitter and render comparatively useless
their future lives. The number of patients during the
put year had been 1,538, and the total number relieved
sines, the opening had been 13,541. The number admitted
in the past year exceeded that of the preceding year by 105.
It was to be regretted that the funds of the hospital were ina-
dequate to its wants, there being now about 300 patients
urgently needing early admission, and all certain to be-
come more difficult of cure by their treatment being de-
layed, and yet there was no accommodation for them in the
hospital, and their cases did not admit of treatment
as ou•-patieuts. In fact, is the great majority of cases,
they could not be successfully treated, unless within the
walla of the hospital. In addition to this the receipts from
orninary sources for the put year had fallen short of the
expenses of the year by 3611. 12s. 91. His lordship, there-
fore, made a very urgent appeal to the liberality of the com-
pany, in which be was warmly supported by Mr. Thomson
Hankey, Mr. Roger., of the Chancery bar, and several
other gentlemen, who stated their own personal experience
of the benefit' derivable from the institution, and the result
was a very handsome collection, amounting to between
1,5001. and 2,0001.