Looking just now over
the last report issued by this society, and confining my scrutiny
to the head of illness alone, I find that in one year, I think, 672
days of sickness had been assuaged by its means. In nine years,
which then formed the term of its existence, as many as 5,500 and
odd. Well, I thought when I saw 5,500 and odd days of sickness,
this is a very serious sum, but add the nights! Add the nights--
those long, dreary hours in the twenty-four when the shadow of
death is darkest, when despondency is strongest, and when hope is
weakest, before you gauge the good that is done by this
institution, and before you gauge the good that really will be done
by every shilling that you bestow here to-night. Add, more than
all, that the improvidence, the recklessness of the general
multitude of poor members of this profession, I should say is a
cruel, conventional fable. Add that there is no class of society
the members of which so well help themselves, or so well help each
other. Not in the whole grand chapters of Westminster Abbey and
York Minster, not in the whole quadrangle of the Royal Exchange,
not in the whole list of members of the Stock Exchange, not in the
Inns of Court, not in the College of Physicians, not in the College
of Surgeons, can there possibly be found more remarkable instances
of uncomplaining poverty, of cheerful, constant self-denial, of the
generous remembrance of the claims of kindred and professional
brotherhood, than will certainly be found in the dingiest and
dirtiest concert room, in the least lucid theatre--even in the
raggedest tent circus that was ever stained by weather.
Pages:
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168