New-York tribune., 1873-01-16

pictures make the play rooms IA wonderful
70 the toddling babies az was the hospital
ward to Betty Higden's Johnny, and doubtless
each rosy, caressing nurse seems TO them a
"bOofer lady"
The building which Captain Thomas Coram
began in Lambs Conduit fields stands now
ten minutes walk from Temple Bar and the
ffty-fve hundred pounds which he paid for
his purchase come back annually to the insti-
tuition in rents. Lovely grounds are all about
the house, great trees rustic and sway above
it, green stretches tempt stumbling little feet,
and flowers are everywhere. Bu5 within tho
sober brick walls are cOstier adorDments. In
one hall HOgarth painted the March of the
Guards to Frinchley. On the walls of other
rooms hang pictures by Kneller, Sir Joshua.
and GainsbOrOugh. Royalty has given its por-
traits to enrich the place, and the painted
names by benefactOrs are countless. More
than this under that sOmber roof the Royal
Academy of Painting and Sculpture was born,
a founding honored of the whole nation.
And most Of all, in the chapel stands the
grand organ that Handel gave the babies.
whereon he played the score of the Messiah.
which also he gave them, and from which
All these gifts and graces has the London
Founding Hospital, Thomas COram, Founder.
Nothing like its work or its endowment has
been attempted in America until the New
York Infant Asylum came into being. Already.
that corporation has purchased large double
house far up town, with eight adjacent lots.
These are to constitute a garden, which the
mothers of the babies will cultivate. Within
the house will be the nursery, the hospital
wards the school-room, dning-roOms, work
rooms, dormitories. All this sounds very
meager and homely after the story of the
superb endowment and the rare possessions OF
the London charity. But we maintain that
our own society has much the better start.
Between unknown and plebelan Thomas
COram begging a dozen years for five
thousand pounds, and the fashionable world
struggling to secure the privilege of paying
one pound for single evenings pleasure, the
difference is enormous. 1t remains now for
the State to give its aid, for artists to ask
permission to make the hospital The House
Beautiful, for rich men and women to endow
it. BY the successive mistakes of the ages
there has come to be permanent stratum In
our society known as the dangerous classes"
This is recruited from the homeless
gamins of the street. If we can provide that
there shall be no homeless gamins of the
street, as in few years we ought to be able
to do, if we go about it with half the zeal
that we take into the discussion of our clothes
or our cTeeds, we diminish appreciably the
power of "the dangerous classes" 1t were
good that through love for the needy, and
pity for the sorrowing, and sympathy for that
motherhood so cOnsecrate that it can never
wholly desecrate itself, we should do our
utmost to save annually TO goodness and hap
piness three thousand mothers and their chill
dren. But if we cannot be thus lofty, let us
at least be guided by an enlightened selfish
ness to the same end. Let us remember that
the light gift to the wanderers home saves us
the heavy tax for the felon's prison.