HOSPITALS AND THE MANUFACTURE OF PAUPERS.
ITO THY EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Your article No. VII. of the series on " The Manufacture of .Paupers " in your issue of July 7th is entitled " The Hospitals," and is of peculiar interest and value, as drawing the attention of the public to the very imminent social danger which we arc courting by the manufacture of paupers in the out-patient departments of our great London hospitals.
I believe that the free and gratuitous provision of medical advice and treatment in those departments is the first step in sapping the independence of thousands of our people. A f ter that/ad/is descensus Averni,—the rest is easy and rapid. Few will so far demean themselves, at first, as to beg openly in the streets, but it is quite respectable to beg, and to receive, all the gratuitous help which you can get from hospitals, who, I think, should know better than to give it. I believe the indiscriminate charity given in this and a thousand other ways is the direct cause of a large part of the distress and want of employment in London. A large proportion of our London population are of wretched stamina, and have but little backbone wherewith to fight the battle of life. If we once begin to sap their independence by the all-too-tempting system of gratuitous gifts or doles, most of them will at once discover the insidious but fascinating charm of subsisting, not by their own work, but on the easy charity of others. The case of the vagrant lately reported in the papers is instructive. He said that he " was an American, but had never cared for work. He had heard that one could easily live in England on the charity of others and without working. He bad, therefore, come here, and during the last nine months had verified the truth of that advice" !
Any weakening of the manhood of our people is most dangerous, and I earnestly hope that your valuable article may go far to convince our large London hospitals of the faulty system of their free out-patient departments. The evil does not end there, but is also advanced by free, or almost free, dispensaries. It appears to me that what is required in London is to teach the public that sooner or later illness must come to every man, and that this trouble should be provided against beforehand. The best way in which this can be done is by becoming a member of the Metro- politan Provident Medical Association. This Association has already twenty-one dispensaries in and about London (and would have many more if they were better supported), and has already over thirty thousand members. As chairman of this Association, I may say that I believe there exists no more valuable agency towards thrift. Our members pay 6d. per month ; families of father, mother, and any number of children up to fourteen years of age is. 10d. per month ; and for this payment they receive medical advice and medicine free whenever required at the dispensaries or their own homes from a choice of the best medical men in the neighbourhood. From the payments of our members we received last year more than £5,200. In order to avoid interference with the just rights of practitioners we have a wage-limit of 40s. per week per family.
The secretary of the Metropolitan Provident Medical Associa- tion, 5 Lamb's Conduit Street, Bloomsbury, W.C., will be most willing to give any further information on the subject.
42 Grosvenor Gardens, S.W.
[It is to organisations like that to which Mr. Francis Buxton draws our attention that we must look for help to combat the work of pauperisation which is being done by public and semi-public institutions. We trust that the Metropolitan Provident Medical Association will meet with wide and strong support.—Eo. Spectator.]
Previous page
