WITH THE SICK.

The memory of the pleasant summer holiday remains with many of us when we have come back again to the duties of the work-a-day world, and it will be good for us all if the gentle thoughts which that time of enjoyment brought with it remain in our hearts, to brighten our daily lives by the influences that suggest a merciful and forbearing temper.

It is perhaps remarkable that few of the charitable institutions at places to which holiday-makers resort are to any commensurate extent benefited by the contributions of those visitors who, while they are engaged in pursuing their own pleasures, seldom give themselves time to think that as they have freely received so they should freely give. Considering that while we are engaged in the absorbing business of money-making, or in the exacting engagements of our daily calling, we can afford little time for the investigation of those claims which are made upon us to help the poor and the needy, it might not altogether detract from the higher enjoyment of a period of leisure if we devoted a few spare hours to inquiring what is being effected for the relief of suffering in any place wherein we take up our temporary abode.

With some such reflection as this I stand to-day on the spot which to ordinary Londoners is most thoroughly representative of the summer "outing," without which no true Cockney can feel that he is content—a spot, too, which has become, for a large number of English men and women, and notably for a whole host of English children, the synonym for renewed health and strength—the head of Margate jetty.

It is a strange contrast, this moving crowd of people, with their bright dresses and gay ribbons fluttering in the breeze; the smiling faces of girls and women amidst a toss and tangle of sea-blown tresses; the green sparkle of the sea beneath the shining sky; the voices of sailors, the shrill laughter of boys and girls coming from the sands below; the gleam of white sails; the flitting wings of fisher-birds; the gay tumult of the High Street; the traffic of hucksters of shells and toys—a strange contrast to the scene which may be witnessed in and around that large building which we passed only yesterday as the Margate boat stood off from Birchington, and passengers began to collect coats and bags and umbrellas as they saw friends awaiting them on the landing-stage of this very jetty.

It seems a week ago; and just as these few hours seem to have separated us far from yesterday's work, and the routine of daily life, does the short distance along the High Street and past the railway station seem to separate us by an indefinite distance from the sickness and pain that is yet in reality so near. Even as we think of it in this way, the division is less marked, the contrast not so strange, for in that building Faith, Hope, and Charity find expression, and bring a cheerful radiance to those who need the care of skilful hands and the sympathy of loving hearts.

The name of the place is known all over England, for within its walls are assembled patients who are brought from the great towns of different shires, as well as from mighty London itself, that they may be healed of that dread malady, the most potent cure for which is to take them from the close and impure atmosphere of their crowded homes, and exchange the stifled breath of courts and alleys for the boundless æther of the sea.

For the building, to visit which I am here to-day, is the "Royal Sea-Bathing Infirmary, or National Hospital for the Scrofulous Poor, near Margate," and there are at this moment 220 men, women, and children within its sheltering wards. Stay—let me be accurate. I said within its wards; but here, as I pass the gates and the unpretentious house of the resident surgeon to the broad sea front of the building, I note that under the protecting screen of the wall that bounds the wide space of grass-plot and gravel-paths a row of beds are placed, and in each of them a patient lies basking in the warm sunlit air; while a little band of convalescents saunter gently, some of them with the aid of crutch or stick, with the enjoyment of a sense of returning strength. If I mistake not, there are two or three "Bath chairs" crunching the gravel paths a little further on, and down below upon the space marked out and separated from the outer world upon the beach, the two bathing-machines of the establishment are occupied by those for whom convalescence is growing into health.[3]

The full meaning of such a change can only be realised by those who know how terrible a disease scrofula becomes, not only in the deadly insidious form of consumption, but in the various deformities and distortions of the limbs of which it is the cause; and in those cases where, to the pain and depression of the disorder itself is added some terrible affection of the skin, which the sensitive patient knows can scarcely fail to be repulsive to those who witness it, unless, indeed they have learnt to regard it only as a reason for deeper compassion and for more earnest consolation.

Almost every form of the disorder is to be seen out here in the wide northern area of this inclusive building, which has long ago been bought and paid for, along with the three acres of freehold ground on which it stands.

Of the deep sympathy with which it has been supported by those who early learned to take an interest in its beneficent work, the fountain which has been erected in the centre of the green to the memory of the late Rev. John Hodgson, one of its trustees, is a mute witness. Mr. Hodgson laboured earnestly to secure those casual interests which might be obtained from the vast number of persons who visit Margate every year. In order to make the most of small regular contributions, he appealed for "five shillings a year," and since his death in 1870 this fund has increased, so that in one year nearly 6,000 subscribers had contributed £1,405 7s. 4d. Never was holiday charity more appropriately applied, as anybody who will visit the institution itself may witness in those long wards beyond the open passage, to which the card of Dr. Rowe, one of the three visiting surgeons, has directed me.

Since the first establishment of the institution, seventy-seven years ago, when sixteen cases were treated as a beginning, above 29,000 patients, from London and all parts of the country, have received relief; and to-day the number in the institution (taking no account of a contingent of "out-patients") includes 42 men, 50 women, and 120 children, none of whom are local cases, but all from other parts of England, whence they come frequently from a long distance.

In each of the six wards, of which four are on the ground floor, there is a head-nurse and an assistant, with six helpers for the children's, and four for the adult department, beside the night nurses, who sit up in case of any emergency. There is accommodation for 250 sufferers and for the 40 nurses, attendants, and domestics required for the service of the hospital; so the 220 patients there now, represent the approaching period when a new wing will have to be added, even if only the urgent cases are to be admitted.

The year's list of occupants of the 250 beds shows a total of 721 patients, of whom 614 had been discharged in January, 399 being either cured or very greatly benefited, 171 decidedly benefited, and only 44 obviously uncured; a very large amount of actual gain to humanity, when we reflect on the conditions of the disease to remedy which the institution is devoted.

If out of 721 cases 399 are either cured or have received such marked benefit as to render their ultimate cure highly probable, it is an achievement worthy of the earnest work of which it is the result, a contribution to beneficent efforts well worth the £7,966 which has necessarily been expended in the provision, not only of the appliances which give comfort and rest, but of the generous food and drink which, with the glorious air from the sea, is the medicine necessary to build up the feeble frames and renew the impoverished blood of those to whom meal-times come to be welcome events in the day, instead of merely languid observances.

Down in the kitchen, with its great cooking range and its capacious boilers, there are evidences of that "full diet" which is characteristic of the place; and it is difficult to decide which are the most suggestive, the long row of covered japanned jugs which hang conveniently to the dresser-shelf, and are used for the conveyance of "gravy," or the mighty milk-cans standing in a corner, ready to be taken away when the evening supply comes in from the Kentish dairies. Half a pound of cooked meat for dinner is the daily allowance for each man and for every boy over fourteen years of age, while women and girls receive six ounces, and children four ounces. Breakfast consists of coffee and bread-and-butter, varied in the afternoon by tea, and supper of bread and cheese for adults, and bread and butter for children. Roast and boiled meat is served on alternate days, with accompanying vegetables, and there are three "pudding days" for those who can manage this addition to the fare; while every man and woman may have a pint of porter, and each child a pint of table ale, at the discretion of the doctors. This, of course, represents the ordinary diet, in which specific differences are made for special cases where other or daintier food is required. Perhaps I should have said that this is the scale adopted in the refectory, a large airy room, to the long table in which the patients who are able to "get about" are now advancing with a cheerful premonition of dinner. There is no space to spare, and there are at present no funds to spend in additional building, so that this great airy refectory is used as chapel and assembly room. The Bread of Life, as well as the temporal bread, is distributed here; and those who would object to the necessity may either contribute to build another room, or may come and learn how every meal in such a place, and for such a cause as this, should become a sacrament. Many varieties of the forms taken by scrofulous disease may be seen here; and yet the hopeful looks, the cheerful influence of the bright summer weather, the green glimpses of the sea through doors and windows, and the fresh bracing air, impart to these sufferers an expressive lively briskness, which somehow removes the more painful impressions with which we might expect to witness such an assembly.

It is so perhaps in a still greater measure in these large airy wards, where children sit or lie upon the beds, some of them wholly or partially dressed, where the disease has produced only deformities under surgical treatment, or such forms of skin disease as affect the face. Of the latter there are some very severe and obstinate cases, and from these the unaccustomed visitor can scarcely help turning away, but often only to re-turn, and mark how cheerfully and with what a vivid alacrity the little patients move and play, and look with eager interest on all that is going on. For here—in the boys' ward—there is no repression of youthful spirits, so that they be kept within the bounds of moderate decorum, nor do the patients themselves seem to feel that they are objects of melancholy commiseration. To speak plainly, even the worst cases are not reminded that there are people who may be revolted at their affliction. Indeed I, who am tolerably accustomed to many experiences that might be strange to others, am rather taken aback by one little "case," whose face and limbs, though apparently healed, have been so deeply seamed and grooved by the disorder, which must have claimed him from babyhood, that he has evidently learned to regard himself as an important surgical specimen, and, on my approach to his bed, begins with deliberate satisfaction to divest himself of his stockings, in order to exhibit his legs. Hip and spinal disease are among the most frequent and often the most fatal forms of scrofula. One boy, with delicate and regular features, his fragile hand only just able to clasp in the fingers the small present I am permitted to offer him, shows the shadow of death upon his face. In his case the disorder has shown itself to be beyond medical, as it has already been beyond surgical aid, and his short hurried breathing denotes that before the summer days have been shortened by the autumn nights, and the leaves are lying brown and sere, he will be in a better and a surer home, and healed for evermore.

It will be a peaceful end, no doubt, and he will yet have strength enough to be taken home to die, where other than strangers' hands will minister to him at the last, but not more tenderly, it may be, than those that smooth his pillow to-day.

As we leave the boys' wards—clean, and bright, and fresh as they are—we encounter a cosy little party of juvenile convalescents, who are comfortably seated on the door-mat, engaged in a stupendous game of draughts.

There is more of beauty than deformity, more of life than of death, more perhaps of living eager interest than of sadness and sorrow to be seen here, after all; and this is particularly remarkable in the large-windowed spacious ward where the girls can look fairly out upon the gleaming sea. Properly enough, the room occupied by these young ladies has been made more ornamental than that of the boys. The walls are gay with coloured prints, and there are flowers, and a remarkably cheerful three-sided stove, which gives the place an air of comfort, though, of course, it has now no fire in it. Then some of the girls (with those thoughtful delicate faces and large wistful inquiring eyes which are so often to be observed among lame people) are engaged in fancy needlework as they lie dressed upon the beds to which they are at present mostly confined, because of deformities of the feet or legs requiring surgical treatment. There is a library (which needs replenishing), from which patients are allowed to take books; and those children who are able to leave the wards, and are not suffering from illness, are taught daily by a schoolmaster and a schoolmistress, while a visiting chaplain is of course attached to the hospital.