Our medical charities : an address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Counties Branch of the British Medical Association June 26th, 1877 / by Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Our medical charities : an address delivered at the Annual Meeting of the Birmingham and Midland Counties Branch of the British Medical Association June 26th, 1877 / by Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ‘‘ Dispensaries should be established in proportion to the wants of the population.” Such recommendations only require to be rightly placed before the provident working men, to secure their sympathy and co-operation. Very much depends on how the working men are approached, and in what spirit their co-oj^eration is sought. It is the habit with some public men, who on other platforms and for grander schemes, speak of the working men in the most flattering and con- fiding terms, to treat them very differently when co-operation for social purposes nearer home is in question. They are then reminded of their improvidence, and of their intemperance, and are asked to do their duty in terms not very well calculated to awaken kindly feelings. Whatever the faults of the working classes, and I am not here to be their apologist, neither have I evei* sought their favour by unmanly and insincere adulation, the class above them must take a goodly share of the responsibility. It was only the other day that the cry of national education was raised—and it takes many and many a long- day to permeate a mass of people with the light and the blessings of culture. The Artisans’ Dwellings Act is still no more than an enactment, full of promise, it is true, but yet unfulfilled. Meanwhile an immense part of our population live in physical conditions ill calculated to promote healthy growth and appetite, whether bodily or mental. If the working classes have shewn themselves only too ready to beg at the doors of our medical charities, it is largely owing to the fact that they have been demoralised and pauperised by quasi-feudal institutions, charitable in their origin, but in their growth and management often directly opposed to the first principles of thrift and social economy. Let me ask you what would be the result if, in such [a community as this, an association were formed to assist needy tradesmen in meeting their bills ; the society to be free, on applicants paying a registration fee, and answer- ing certain questions put by a clerk, whose enquiries were practically never submitted to any revision. The bankers of the society to be the Bank of England, its chairman Sir Josiah Mason, its directors Alderman Avery, Mr. George Dixon, Mr. R. L. Chance, Mr. G. F. Muntz, Mr. Sampson Lloyd, Iffr. Joseph Gillott, Mr. William Middlemore, and a few others of our wealthy neighbours ? Do you not suppose that the number of manufacturers and factors who would apply to have their bills met, would steadily increase week by week ? Or, supposing again that, suddenly moved by the philanthropic desire of spreading broadcast the inestimable blessings of cheap and speedy justice, the lawyers formed a Free Legal Hall, registration fee one shilling, Henry Hawkes, Esq., J.P., the chair- man, presiding over such a body of directors as Messrs. Beale,