To the Sunday School children of Glasgow.

Date:
[1889?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To the Sunday School children of Glasgow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    For a complete and interesting account of the Sick Children’s Hospital, see “ The Royal Hospital for Sick Children and its Dispensary,” published by Messrs. James MacLehose & Sons, (>1 St. Vincent Street, Glasgow—cloth, “2s. ; paper covers. Is TO THE SUNDAY SCHOOL CHILDREN OF GLASGOW. Dear Children,— I wish to tell you something about one of the most interesting of the charitable institutions of Glasgow, and to enlist your sympathies for the poor little ones for whose benefit it was instituted. It is the Hospital for Sick Children. Glasgow is now a very big place. Next to London, it is the largest city in the Empire ; but within a period comparatively recent it was a small town. So late as 1779, the population was less than 43,000. Including the suburbs, which are really part of Glasgow, it now exceeds 780,000. The increase has been rapid, and—as in all great cities, especially in a great manufacturing city like Glasgow where there are so many of the working classes—the increase of population has been accompanied by an increase of poverty, and intemperance, and sickness. You, who are, most of you, the children of well-to-do parents, and enjoy the comforts of a home, with good food and warm clothing, can have very little idea of the want, and misery, and attendant sickness, to be found in the dwellings of the very poor ; and, as might be expected, it is the helpless little children who suffer most. In 1883, there was a hospital for sick children in every considerable city in Europe ; but, incredible as it may appear, in the great and wealthy city of Glasgow, where it was so sorely needed, there was none. At that date, the infant mortality in Glasgow was appalling. Of the total deaths which took place each year, 50 per cent, (one half) were of children under five years of age, and that percentage is not yet much reduced. At length the attention of the public was thoroughly roused, and, notwithstanding much prejudice and opposition, a Hospital was provided. It was com-