other inmates of the house, they must both have perished through want. That day I visited five other patients, in the same narrow lane; three of whom were children. I offered to go down to the cellar, in which they were, but their mother told me, that I could not have found my way to the spot where they were lying. These little creatures were brought up to me, black with dirt, evidently many days ill; and so dark was this miserable dwelling, that they wept with pain, when they attempted to open their eyes to the light. They were all taken to the Whitworth Hospital.

A very fine young man was seized with fever in Autumn last. His wife waited on me, to request admission into the Whitworth Fever Hospital. But there was then no vacancy; the other hospitals were also full; and, in the mean time, he became so ill, that he died the day after he had procured admission.

Within the last week, I was called to visit a family in the neighbourhood of a respectable private street, the residence of many of our nobility; for some of whom the mother of the family washed clothes. I had sent her son to the Hospital, a fortnight before; and now found her, and two other of her children, sick of a fever. Her house, like almost all in which the poor live,

was well calculated for a nursery of contagion: so small, that I could with difficulty pass between the beds; and so dark, that, in the noon-day, they were obliged to light a candle for me to see the patients.'

These, my brethren, are but scanty specimens of that misery which abounds, in every quarter of your city and I am confident, that the strength and the simplicity of this plain recital, cannot fail to answer for its conscientious fidelity. But, could the frightful aggregate be presented to your view, could the mass of contagion, at this moment diffused, and diffusing itself, through the streets, and crowded lanes of this metropolis, be palpably and visibly embodied, who that is human among you, would not feel eager to do all, that man can do, towards its utter extirpation? What would you not do, if you felt and saw? Recollect, however, that, though unfelt and unseen, by many of the gay, the busy, and the thoughtless, the misery is extended, is urgent, is terrific. And, unless the wealth and the munificence of those whom I see around me, and of others, whom I lament not to see, interpose between the whole and the infected, between the living and the dead, the consequences to yourselves, to your children, to those, if possible, yet nearer to your hearts, may be calamitous, beyond the

reach of calculation. To know the bare localities of this city, is to know the magnitude of your danger. How would you shudder, to see your whole vicinity in flames? And can you sit indifferent and unmoved, when, far more terrible than fire, the pestilence is, and has been, for the last eighteen months, raging around you, about you, at your very doors? Who does not know, that, in this metropolis, beyond most others, the miserable abodes of the poor, are in contact with the luxurious dwellings of the rich? Some of the cases which have been just read to you, go to illustrate this fact; and, were further examples needful, they could be multiplied alarmingly. But I spare your feelings and I leave it to your sober judgment to determine, putting humanity out of the question, and barely considering the vicinity in which you live, and the risks to which you are exposed, whether it can be wise, whether it can be prudent, to withhold, I would almost say, your unlimited bounty, from an Institution, which, if you enable it, will instantly extract from the mass, those points from whence contagion might have spread, and, unless thus extracted, too probably will so spread, as to accumulate into those horrid forms, which the full-grown virulence of fever exhibits, in ships, in camps, in prisons? These are the calamities

which you are this day invited to avert; not from the poor only, (though, if ye be followers of Christ, you will not disregard the poor,) but from yourselves, your parents, your children, your wives, your husbands. Such an invitation, surely, will not be rejected.

While endeavouring, for myself, and in my closet, to investigate the advantages of a feverhospital, I can truly say, that the subject so expanded, so grew upon me, and presented itself in so many points of view, each, as in a boundless range of mountain scenery, rising above the other, that I was lost in the contemplation. It is with the results of this perplexity, that I now appear before you. To state all, or nearly all, that has occurred, or been made known to me, is quite impracticable. You will pardon me, therefore, if, in a case where selection was, at once, difficult and indispensable, I may happen to have selected amiss. And I trust you will not visit upon this charity, the errors, not of my will, but of my judgment.

Next to the grand distinctive feature of separating the infected, from the uninfected, I would mention the change which frequently takes place in the fever patient, on his removal from the close, ill-ventilated habitations of poverty, to the cleanly, spacious, well-aired wards, of a properly

regulated hospital. I am enabled to state, from unquestionable medical authority, that, by the mere influence of this salutary transition, many cases, which, at reception, bore the most alarming aspect, have almost immediately assumed an appearance comparatively mild.

In an

Next in order, and superior in importance, stands the facility afforded for suitable medical treatment. It is well known, that much of the management of fever, consists in avoiding every cause of excitement; for example, light, heat, noises, thirst, but, especially, all officious and unnecessary disturbance. And in hospitals alone, can this caution be maintained with rigorous observance. The apparently trivial excitement, caused by the visit of a friend or relative, has, frequently, produced the worst effects. hospital, such visits can always be prevented; in a private family, they often cannot. This holds true, even in the upper walks of life: but those who are at all acquainted with the preposterous good nature of the lower orders, must know, that, in every particular, their treatment of the sick, is diametrically the reverse of what it ought to be. The removal, therefore, of a poor man from his own family, to a fever-hospital, is, in very many instances, a transition from almost inevitable death, to probable recovery.