is the special refuge of those who are most especially of service to
the dwellers in the Westend. Those who are used up--fairly or
unfairly--in ministering to the luxuries of the high-born and
wealthy: the groom thrown in the park; the housemaid crippled by
lofty stairs; the workman fallen from the scaffolding of the great
man's palace; the footman or coachman who has contracted disease from
long hours of nightly exposure, while his master and mistress have
been warm and gay at rout and ball; and those, too, whose number, I
fear, are very great, who contract disease, themselves, their wives,
and children, from actual want, when they are thrown suddenly out of
employ at the end of the season, and London is said to be empty--of
all but two million of living souls: --the great majority of these
crowd into St. George's Hospital to find there relief and comfort,
which those to whom they minister are solemnly bound to supply by
their contributions. The rich and well-born of this land are very
generous. They are doing their duty, on the whole, nobly and well.
Let them do their duty--the duty which literally lies nearest them--
by St. George's Hospital, and they will wipe off a stain, not on the
hospital, but on the rich people in its neighbourhood--the stain of
that hospital's debts.

The deficiency in the funds of the hospital for the year 1862-3--
caused, be it remembered, by no extravagance or sudden change, but
simply by the necessity for succouring those who would otherwise have
been destitute of succour--the deficiency, I say, on an expenditure
of 15,000l. amounts to more than 3,200l. which has had to be met by
selling out funded property, and so diminishing the capital of the
institution. Ought this to be? I ask. Ought this to be, while more
wealth is collected within half a mile of that hospital than in any
spot of like extent in the globe?