The treasurer has the care of the affairs of the whole house, and of the revenues, and therefore is commonly resident on the spot. He is allowed a good dwelling-house, but receives no salary.

Each governor, upon entering this institution, has a charge solemnly given him, in the presence of the president, or treasurer, and other governors assembled in court.

Besides the chief governors, there are subordinate officers, who receive salaries: four clerks, a steward, and a matron; for every ward a nurse and her maid; a porter, and four beadles. They also employ three servants, called street-men, who see to the wellgovernment of the carts of London. The foundation also maintains clerks for Blackwell-Hall; whence are certain duties coming to the house.

With respect to the charge of providing the necessary supplies for this great family, two of the governors, called almoners, take care to buy and send in butcher's meat, &c. the steward attending them.

The food for the children, which was originally of a very homely nature, is now the best of its kind: it consists principally of breast and cheese, or butter for those who cannot eat cheese; rice milk, boiled mutton and broth, boiled beef and pottage, roast mutton, &c.; to which, on particular days, the liberality of various benefactors has added the occasional indulgence of roast beef and pork.

To support its enormous expences, the hospital has a great annual revenue in houses and lands, the benefit of licensing and looking after the 420 carts allowed by the city, each of which pays a certain sum for sealing; and the duty of about three farthings upon every piece of cloth brought to Blackwell Hall. The expenditure of these various members of this vast establishment must be immense; it has been stated to be, for clothing, victualling, and contingencies, as much as £30,000 per annum.

This hospital also provides for a considerable number of younger children at Hertford, at which place there is a school-master regularly paid for teaching these children to read. At Hertford the girls are also brought up, consistent with the regulations of the charity.

perma

The support of this hospital is principally dependant upon benefactions and bequests, as that of its income which is nent, is far short of maintaining the usual number of 1200 children, whose education fits them either for the church, the navy, or every station in life, according to their abilities; and as their attention is constantly directed to the purest principles of religion, as well as the due observance of the order of civil society, it is confidently hoped and anticipated that all charitably disposed and worthy Christians, who wish well to the rising generation, will readily co-operate in a work so replete not only with local, but with national benefit.

The governors of Christ's hospital have been made trustees to several other extensive charities by the founders. Among others is one of £10 per annum each to 400 blind persons, a bequest of the Rev. Wm. Hetherington in 1774. But as these funds have been confounded by some, with those for the particular uses of the hospital, this explanation may not be thought amiss: they are separate aud individual concerns, except that, for their tried integrity in other instances, the governors have been appointed guardians of those lesser charities.

A passage from under the writing school, through the cloisters, leads to St. Bartholomew's Hospital.

This hospital is one of those termed Royal, from having been founded or endowed by English sovereigns; and may claim, as a benevolent institution, an antiquity of more than seven centuries; it having been originally founded by Raherus, in 1102, who is said to have been a minstrel to Henry I., and established a priory of black canons near it. The endowment of this hospital, which was for "brethren and sisters, sick persons, and pregnant women," was £305, and it received several additional bequests previous to the time of that great destroyer of religious edifices, Henry VIII.; who, while he suppressed the monastery, preserved the hospital, and bestowed 500 marks yearly on it, upon condition that the city should give an equal sum. It was a death-bed bequest on the part of Henry, and not a very sincere one, the property on which the payment of the 500 marks was secured, being in a very ruinous No. 44.-VOL. II. I É

state, and already charged with pensions, so that a very small part indeed of this apparently royal bounty, was available to the sup port of the numerous sick of London.

The liberality of the citizens, however, seemed only to receive a fresh incitement, when they discovered the shallowness of Henry's donation; they, with a spirit which reflected infinite credit on them, repaired the ruinous houses the monarch had bequeathed, at an expence of £1000, and provided the means of admitting 100 persons into the hospital, so early as the reign of Edward VI., who incorporated it by the name of "the Hospital of the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, governors for the poor, called Little St. Bartholomew's near West Smithfield." The expences of the hospital at this period, amounted to £795 a year; the king's endowment, after the repairs made by the city, produced the 500 marks: the corporation gave a similar sum, and the deficiency was made up by the citizens.

Immediately that the state of the funds permitted an increase of patients, arrangements were made with such alacrity, that in the year 1660, the hospital maintained upwards of 300 sick or lame persons, at an expence of £2000. per annum. The hospital itself fortunately escaped the appalling conflagration of 1666, which proved so fatal to most of the public buildings, but many of the houses which formed part of its revenues were destroyed. Still the generous aid of the citizens was ready to assist the impoverished institution; they rebuilt the houses, which henceforward became a source of greater profit than before; thus the hospital continued till the year 1730, when it was deemed necessary to rebuild the whole, and a subscription was raised for the purpose. Gibbs, who built the churches of St. Martin in the Fields, and St. Mary le Strand, was chosen as the architect, and under his direction the present structure was raised.

The exterior of the hospital towards the street, consists of the portal to Giltspur-street, which is a very good piece of architecture, of the Doric order, with a large gate and footway on each side, and two round windows; the basement is rustic, and four pillars support the entablature and pediment. In the centre are two plain