Royal Hospital for Incurables Annual Dinner 1857

Ladies and Gentlemen, A few days ago I was called upon to fill up my proxy for the election of candidates to be admitted into the Royal Hospital – a Hospital established for the permanent care and comfort of those who by disease, accident, or deformity, are disqualified for the duties of life. Coming on that occasion to the perusal of the extended list of cases there set before me, I could not but feel – in common, I am sure, with many who are here – inexpressible pity for the vast number of persons who are in that forlorn condition. When I saw in that list no fewer than 121 cases, out of whom the subscribers to this charity at the next election can elect but ten, I thought, with a kind of despair, not only of the 111 who must suffer by rejection, but of the great crowd of incurables dispersed about this country of whom this society has never so much as heard, and who will never hear of it. Having that morning been busy about my own country rest and recreation, I could not but strongly feel the contrast between myself – then in the full enjoyment of health and the use of all my limbs – and that of so many of my fellow creatures, until I was glad to put this list aside, and make my escape from the reflections to which it gave rise. 

In one of my recent walks, I found myself in a pretty village in Surrey, which I had indeed often proposed to visit before, but had only paved the dusty road with good intentions – as I am sorry to say I have paved a worse place with a great deal of the same material – but on this morning I really found myself at the place. I inquired of a labourer for a house I wanted, and he told me, ‘When you can't go any further, turn to your left, and there you'll see a house with some writing wrote on the outside, which they tell me is its name; but you'll know, because you can read, and I can't read.’ At last I found it, and was shown into an agreeable sitting-room, which might be called a library. One sick man was lying on a sofa, and as soon as he saw me he opened the conversation, doing, as it were, the honours of the place. We spoke of the usual topics, talked of the weather, of our common enemy, the late wind, and of the progress of the crops, in the most pleasant and agreeable manner. He told me that that spot was above the cross of St. Paul’s – a fact of which he seemed excessively proud – and was altogether quite as cheerful as I was, or as I am. As I went upstairs, I got pleasant glimpses of the grounds, and of persons walking about in them, and met another sick man, quite as anxious for the arrival of dinner time as any of us in the London Tavern, and insisting that the cook's clock must be ten minutes slow. I went upstairs into another sitting-room, where were a number of sick women of various ages grouped about on sofas and chairs, engaged in various feminine tasks, and all talking and smiling as they went on. There was one poor paralytic creature busy at her embroidery, delighted to have her work admired, and I could not help feeling great admiration that anything so orderly and straight could come out of a form so warped and cruelly afflicted. I very much doubt whether she was ever more contented in her whole life. Another woman, much older, having only a thumb and two fingers left to work with, was plodding away at her work, and very proud of what she was able to accomplish with such an imperfect complement of digits. She told me, that in her old healthy days she thought there was no greater pleasure than to sit and read all day, but that would not do now, and she had taken to this work for relief and comfort, and she had found relief and comfort here very much. One old lady, who said she had been awake all night, in great pain and trouble, was nevertheless wonderfully conversable and talkative. She said she was very comfortable on the whole; but had a certain tendency to revert to the subject of rheumatism (and no wonder). In another and smaller room there was an old lady who said she was seventy-five years of age, but she was determined to persevere, which I told her I thought was a capital thing to do. Two other young women, evidently enduring much bodily suffering, had a pleasant consciousness of good looks, and showed a desire to make the most of them. I declare to you that in all these people – and all the inmates of this house whom I saw – there was not only a hopefulness of manner, but a serenity of face, a cheerfulness and social habit that perfectly amazed me. And this was the Royal Hospital, and these its incurable inmates.

Ladies and gentlemen, while I congratulated myself, as I need hardly tell you I did that morning most heartily, that this institution was able to give so much relief to sufferers in such very hopeless cases, I must not deceive you as to the Royal Hospital itself. It is not by any means what it ought to be. Its present temporary establishment is in a very inconvenient old house, by no means suitable, with rooms not half high enough, and not half ample enough. The beds are much too crowded together, and I [should] say ventilation is exceedingly difficult. The furniture is excessively inadequate to the requirements of the establishment; and a great number of appliances are needed which healthy people would, perhaps, call mawkish, but are of the gravest importance in the presence of sickness. In one comprehensive word, it wants money; and for that money, ladies and gentlemen, in the name of Christian charity, I have undertaken to appeal to you. I cannot possibly make this appeal sufficiently strong for my own satisfaction; but if I only rested it on this one consideration, that there is no hospital in London or throughout England to which this Royal Hospital is not a natural and necessary adjunct it would, I am sure, not be made in vain. The stronger the case for any of those excellent institutions which you may most favour, the stronger is this case. Every hospital knows what it is to be obliged to discharge incurable patients for whom it can do no more, and whom it cannot retain, and every member of the most generous and devoted of all professions – the medical profession – knows what it is to contemplate with pain the heartrending spectacle of those weary ones turning away from the friendly shelter of the infirmary, without any suitable resting-place, and in all probability to lay themselves down at the door of the poor-house. We know the goodness of the poor, and their readiness to help one another on all occasions. But if we do all we can to relieve them of the burden of incurable sufferers, we shall still leave them field enough for the exercise of their utmost virtues. 

I will not distress you by imagining what must be the conditions of these unhappy sufferers, lodged in hot and crowded attics, or what must be the misery which their presence brings to others; I will only end, as I began, by referring you to the list of applicants for admission at the next election. We live in an age of elections – at one time or another we almost all apply to be elected into clubs for pleasure or for profit – into great corporations, the House of Commons, and what not; and three-fourths of us associate our ambition with an election of some sort or other. Within how small a compass lies the ambition of these 121 applicants! If one of this number could but make an audible address to you here at this table, instead of me, how touchingly might he say, ‘Health has departed from us for ever – our place in the struggle for bread has been filled up by others, and we have faintly dropped out of the course. Give us only a quiet home, where we may endure what yet we have to undergo, and where, by our patient manner and our brightened faces, we may somewhat reward your kind interest on our behalf.’ Once they were busy and strong, but now they are hopelessly disqualified for the duties of life; let us discharge the first of these, and provide for them a resting-place, where they may be sheltered and cared for in their irremovable afflictions. I am sure we shall not reject their prayers, and that the time will come when this Hospital shall be nobly and bountifully endowed, so that no other qualification will be needed to ensure entrance within its walls but the presence of incurable disease. I call upon you to drink prosperity to the Royal Hospital.

Dickens then gave ‘The President and the Vice-Presidents’, coupled with the name of a distinguished gentleman who was not more remarkable for his talent than he was for possessing the kindest and tenderest heart. He proposed the health of Dr. Connolly. 

Finally, the chairman said that although he had been invited to take the Chair on the next occasion, he should recommend a change of diet. But he would accept the office on one condition, that in the event of the City of London re-electing the best sheriff from the time of the great Whittington, he would preside over the next meeting; but if the City took anybody else he must claim his right to take his seat as a private individual.