The Sun.
London, England, 1859-06-09 00:00:00

THE ROYAL YItE-B HOSPITAL,

Yesterday evening the thirty-first annual festival
of the Royal Free Hospital, Gray's-inn•road, was
held at the Albion Tavern, Aldersgate-street—the
Earl of Carlisle in the chair, supported by about
100 gentlemen, most of them the immediate patrons
and subscribers to the institution.
It may be stated that this hospital, which was
founded mainly by the instrumentality of Dr.
Marsden, differs in the principles on which it is
regulated from most, if not all, of the hospitals of
the metropolis. With reference to in-door patients,'
it admits foreigners, strangers, and others having
neither friends nor homes, on their own application,
as far as the means of the charity will permit ; as
regards out-patients, all sick and diseased persons
having no other means of obtaining relief are
allowed to attend the hospital every day at one
o'clock, when they receive medical and surgical
advice and medicine free. It will at once be seen
that the benefits of this hospital are to be obtained
by all who require them without the circumlocutory
and patronising. process to which they would be
subject in gaining admittance into or assistance
from other institutions of the like kind. Previous
to the founding of this hospital there was no medi-
cal establishment in the metropolis where the
destitute stranger, when overtaken by sickness or
disease,.and disabled from moving about, could find
an asylum for his immediate reception. This
want has now been supplied so far as the means
which are at the disposal of. the managers of this
institution will allow. It was stated as a fact that
in the building in which the hospital is situated
there are several well ventilated and well built
wards, containing ample accommodation for at least
eighty in-patients, which are at present not used
for want of adequate funds, and great efforts are
being put forth to make some addition to the
number of beds during the ensuing frar in this
unoccupied portion of the hospital. During
the past year medical aid has been afforded
to no less than 40,403 in and out patients, which,
added to those previously relieved since the com-
mencement of the hospital in 1856, make a
grand total of 649,388 patients. During the past
year there have been received in donations, sub-
scriptions, and legacies,an aggregate sum of £6,234.
Among the interesting incidents of the year have
been the receipt, for the ninth time in succession, of
an anonymous gift of £3OO ; a generous gift of £lOO
as a thank offering from a gentleman who withheld
his name, and also a sixth donation from a bene-
volent lady of £lOO. One of the features in the
contributions to the institution is the humbler
offerings of the poor. These are taken weekly out
of the boxes open to passers by in the street, and
they amounted during the year to £B5 17s. 5d., of
which sum £4 2s. ld. was in copper, including no
less than 232 farthings. Notwithstanding these
evidences of sympathy with the objects of the
institution, and such appreciation of its merits, still
greater liberality on the part of the public is neces-
sary to the full development of its usefulness. It
need hardly be said that on the present occasion the
interests of the charity were advocated by the noble
chairman with all the genial earnestness and capa-
bility of adaptation to the duty before him which
characterise his efforts in behalf of institutions of a
charitable description. Other gentlemen, including
Dr. Marsden and Mr. George Moore, also contri-
buted to the objects of the festival by their voices
and by their contributions, and, on the whole, it
may be stated that it was successful, not only in a
pecuniary point of view (some £1,500 or £1,600
was collected), but also in enlisting the sympathies
of every one present, and tending towards a better
and fuller knowledge of the value of the Royal Free
Hospital on the part of the public in general.