Punch (74.1878)

Apxil 13,

1878.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

167

AN ORTHODOX DOUBT.

" Mamma dear, Francoise, the new Nurse, always says her Prayers in
French. Do you think she will be understood?"

PUNCH'S PEOCLA.MATION.
IJunrTjtus, M.

Whereas, by the Reserve (Moral) Force Acts of no
particular date, but of general recognition and universal
application, it is, amongst other things, provided that,
in case of imminent national danger and emergency,
the Reserve Forces of Prudence, Patience, Patriotism,
Justice, Magnanimity, Wise Forethought, and Rational
Self-Restraint, ordinarily latent in the breasts of the
sober, sagacious, and, for the most part, silent portion
of the community, may authoritatively be called out on
active public service:

And whereas the present state of public affairs and
public opinion, and the necessity in connection there-
with of taking steps for the maintenance of peace, and
for the protection of the real interests, honour, and fair
fame of the Empire, and, especially, of checking the
insurgent forces of Pride, Passion, Prejudice, and
spurious (if well-intentioned) Patriotism, now and for
some time past deplorably and mischievously rampant,
in our opinion, constitute a case of great emergency
within the meaning of the said Acts :

Now, therefore, We do, in pursuance of the said Acts
and of our earnest endeavour for the furtherance of the
Public Weal, hereby direct that forthwith all classes of
the Reserve Forces above specified be called out on per-
manent service, and shall henceforth proceed to and
attend in their places (in Parliament or otherwise), and
at such time or times as may be needful, to serve as
part of Our Army of Moral Militancy until their services
are no longer required.

Given at our Court in Fleet Street this tenth day
of April, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight
hundred and seventy-eight, and the thirty-seventh of

our reign.

Vivat Punchius!

Predestined.

(See the San Stefano Treaty Boundaries.)

The Greeks held that names are made, like marriages,
in a higher Btate of existence. Does not the name
" Bulgaria" support the theory ?—It is evidently a com-
pound of " Bulge " and " Area."

"GIVE! GIVE!"

The Cry of the London Hospital.

Happy the Hospital that has a history! For a history means a
far past; and a far past means landed and funded property, dating
from days when a penny of bequest or rental meant a shilling and
often a pound now. Thus a past for a Hospital means property.
Look at Bartholomew's, and St. Thomas's, and Guy's.

A Hospital without a past means a Hospital dependent on Volun-
tary Contributions. Now Voluntary Contributions are wonderful
helps. But they sometimes let you down. They are the best Hos-
pital crutch, but cannot be trusted as its stay.

Here is the London Hospital. It has a right to the definite
article, for it addresses itself, more than any of its many excellent
and useful fellows, to the needs, the labours, and the emergencies of
London—as they are concentrated in the East-End, its poorest,
densest, most toiling, and most suffering part.

Here, in black and busy Whitechapel—as little of whiteness as
of chapel about it now—in a high road roaring with traffic, girt
close about with railways and docks and manufactories, with a huge
fungus-growth of labour and _ poverty gathering densely all round
it, Btands the London Hospital, little more than a century old,
having grown from a little nucleus of four hired leasehold houses
in Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields, to its present proportions,—a
great and well-ordered building, with its wards and waiting-halls,
examining-rooms and kitchens, baths and laundries, making up
close on 800 beds, with doors open night and day to all who knock
in their stress of need, without distinction of race or religion;
practically a free hospital, for nearly three-fourths of its patients
are admitted without letter or recommendation, save the urgency
of the case,_ medical or surgical, as it maybe,—to the tune of some
7000 m-patients and some 48,000 out-patients last year. On the one
side, the sleepless labour of London continuously pouring in its
accidents and diseases; on the other, the sleepless kindness of the
London Hospital taking in and tending this influx of human
wretchedness night and day.

And yet, though the London Hospital can boast such a growth,

and does such a work, and though it has been winged by a Queen
and a Princess, its wings want more feathering, that they may fly
further on their errand of mercy, and cover more ground in their
pelican-work of charity.

Its seven hundred and ninety beds cost £30,000 more than its
fixed income. It now seeks these thirty thousand poimds of annual
income, to set off against so much pa,-u relieved, and life lengthened.
Shall it be enabled to open more beds, or must it close four hundred
of those it has now ready ?

To Mr. Punch's mind, a question not to be asked in this huge,
rich City—in the East End, too, the quarter where the bones are
ground that make the poor man's bread, and the rich man's money.

Already the question has been asked, and a beginning made of the
answer—an answer to the right tune, " That's the way the money
goes ! " Let all who pick up their gold on that Tom Tiddler's ground
—they say there's not much for the picking up just now—set a few
yards of their claim apart for the London Hospital. Why should
not other guilds follow the Grocers, and give the Hospital a
wing ? It can accommodate as many wings as an Indian idol, and
will look all the better for them. Punch rejoices to see the big
Brewers—the Buxtons, and Coopes, the Barclays, and Charring-
ton and Heads—putting their shoulders stoutly to the wheel, and
coming down with their thousands and Ave hundreds of annual sub-
scription ; and the big money-men and merchants, the Rothschilds,
and Barings, the Hodgsons and Barnetts, the Peeks and John-
sons, tithing and tolling themselves to the same or like amounts for
the same good object.

Let the great City Pactolus, of which these are some of the chief
tributaries and affluents, turn its main stream in the same channel,
and send off some of its superfluous auriferous fluid on the same
good work of irrigation, till the London Hospital is out of all
danger of being left stranded by the ebb of " Voluntary Contribu-
tions." Till it can take thought for opening beds, instead of closing
them. Till it can open new wings, instead of closing sadly under
pressure of poverty those it has already opened, by the fostering aid
of Queen, and Princess, and City Guild.

A Cry a la Russe (to Roumania).—" Bully for you! "