Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/607

LONDON 601 dispensers of relief is the society for the sup- pression of mendicity, established in 1818, re- constructed on a larger scale in 1869 under the title of " The Society for organizing Charitable Belief and repressing Mendicity," having offices close to the poor-law relieving offices through- out the metropolis, with the design of compel- ling the poor-law officers to do their duty. "A committee in each parish or district superintends the operations, which are carried out through a special charity agent in conjunction with the relieving officers, the local charities, the police, the clergy, and the district visitors. Tickets are supplied to beggars, and on their presenta- tion they get food and also work. Confirmed beggars and vagrants are sent to the poor-law guardians or legally prosecuted. The chief aim of the society is to procure work, to ex- tirpate professional mendicity, and to detect and expose begging-letter impostors. Promi- nent among similar district associations of the kind, pledging themselves to seek out the sick and afflicted, and to supply visitors in parishes where the ordinary residents are unable to meet the wants of the population, are the metro- politan visiting and relief association (formed in 1843), and the society for the relief of dis- tress and to furnish work for the poor (1860). A powerful impulse has been given to London charities in the present generation by the wri- tings of Charles Dickens and his followers, the munificence of Lady Burdett-Coutts, the care of Florence Nightingale for the sick and wound- ed, George Peabody's donations for improved dwellings for the poor working classes, and the influence of the queen and other members of the royal family. The total number of char- itable institutions is over 1,000. Their united income has been computed at about 5,000,- 000, half of which is given in the shape of food and clothing, and the rest for the relief of the infirm and for the promotion of general im- provement. Alms and other relief afforded by private individuals raise the total amount spent on charities to nearly 6,000,000, of which nearly one third is provided by poor rates, and the rest chiefly by bequests, donations, and voluntary contributions. The principal gen- eral hospitals are St. Bartholomew's, Smith- field (present structures opened in 1547), West- minster (1719), Guy's (1721), St. George's (1733), London (1740), Charing Cross (1818), Eoyal free (1828), North London or Univer- sity (1833), Metropolitan free (1836), Mid- dlesex (1836), King's College (1839), St. Mary's (1851), Great Northern (1856), West Lon- don (1856), and the new St. Thomas's (1871). St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, occupies the site of a priory which was founded in 1102. Subsequently the hospital was enlarged, and now contains about 600 beds and affords relief to over 70,000 patients annually. Its income is about 40,000 a year. Connected with it are a school of medicine and many medical and surgical museums. Among its celebrated teachers and lecturers was Harvey, and its most munificent benefactor was Dr. Radcliffe, physician to Queen Anne, who bequeathed to it a perpetual annuity of 500 for improving the hospital diet, and 100 for the purchase of linen. Guy's hospital, near London bridge, was endowed by Thomas Guy, a bookseller, and its chapel contains the tomb of the celebrated sur- geon Sir Astley Cooper. It treats annually about 80,000 patients, and the number of inmates is usually about 500, but occasionally much lar- ger. The lectures and practice attract many medical students. St. Thomas's hospital origi- nated from an almshouse established in 1213. It was connected with a hospital in 1552, re- stored in 1706, and removed to High street, Southwark. It now has 44 wards, with ac- commodation for about 500 patients, the total number of indoor and outdoor patients be- ing 50,000 annually. The income is 32,000. The Southeastern railway bought the building and its grounds in 1862 for 296,000, for the use of their London bridge terminus exten- sion to Charing Cross. It was rebuilt between 1868 and 1871 on ground gained from the riv- er on the right bank of the Thames, between Lambeth palace and Westminster bridge. It consists of seven detached blocks of red brick buildings, four stories high, 125 ft. apart, and raised on lofty foundations, and occupies a large area of the new Thames embankment. Connected with Guy's and some of the other hospitals are lying-in asylums. Among other general institutions of the kind are the French hospice, originally founded for the relief of Huguenot refugees, and removed in 1866 from its old site, Old street, St. Luke's, to Victo- ria park, S. Hackney, and rebuilt in the style of a French chateau; the German hospital, Dalston, annually relieving about 20,000 Ger- mans; and the seamen's hospital ship Dread- naught, moored in the river off Greenwich. (For the celebrated Chelsea naval and Green- wich military hospitals, see CHELSEA, and GREENWICH.) Among special hospitals are those for smallpox in Upper Holloway, for con- sumption in Brompton and other localities, for cancer in Brompton, and for diseases of the eye in Finsbury and Charing Cross ; the royal orthopedic institution in Oxford street ; the national hospital for the paralyzed and epilep- tic in Whitechapel; Lock hospital, chapel, and asylum, Westbourne Green, for the cure of female diseases and for the redemption of abandoned women ; Magdalen hospital, for which a new building was opened in 1869 in Leigham Court road, Streatham, for penitent prostitutes; St. George's, Hyde Park corner, a general hospital, but in which the lame are specially cared for; and the hospital admin- istered by women for women and children, and intended in 1874 for removal to Mary- lebone road. There are altogether nearly 100 distinct organizations of hospitals, infirmaries, and surgical societies for special objects, and for attending to all classes of diseases, be- sides the soldiers' hospital at Woolwich, the