their own forethought or that of their friends has prepared, or whose relief at all events does not come under the head of preventive charity.

Fever wards are a most valuable, and almost indispensable appendage to every county infirmary; they are more immediately and exclusively preventive of evil. By their means

contagion is timely checked, a wide-spreading disorder is kept within narrow bounds, at the same time that the individual sufferer is better attended to than at home, where, in consequence of the confined space, want of cleanliness, and ignorant prejudice *, he would have much less chance of recovery than in any other disorder.+

*The poorer class entertain an idea that it is always necessary to keep up the strength by stimulants, and generally adopt a heating rather than a cooling treatment, by which many lives are lost, as used to be the case with respect to the small pox. Vide Dr. Currie's excellent Medical Reports, 3d edition. Also Edinb. Review, vol. 7. p. 49.

In the autumn of 1820, I knew several instances (in a county where there was no fever ward) of persons who were attacked by fever and obliged to remain at home, communicating the disease to all their own family, and subsequently to several other cottages, and in one case three deaths occurred in consequence.

Similar circum

Another reason for the establishment of fever hospitals, is the difficulty and cost of effectually eradicating the seeds of this disease, when once it has visited a poor man's dwelling. All apparel and bed clothes, (especially woollen,) should be destroyed or thoroughly washed; (and in washing in warm water often communicate infection.) So bedsteads should be purified, mattrasses burnt, and the walls and floors should be scraped, and the former whitewashed. * As, however, these precautions are frequently neglected, the disorder lurks unsuspected, and often breaks out again, when from damp weather, slight illness, or other causes, the constitution of the inmate is predisposed to receive it. "It is "peculiarly in the prevention of disease and contagion, that the benefit returns with increase upon the benefactor, and that the "merciful receive mercy." +

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Perhaps there is no kind of preventive charity

stances must have been observed by almost every one at all conversant with the subject.

• Vide Dr. Haygarth's Directions for preventing Contagion. Reports of Society for the Poor.

+ Vide Account of a House for the Prevention of infec tious Fevers, by Sir Thomas Bernard. Reports of Society for the Poor, No. 13. vol. 1.

by which the opulent may excite more lively gratitude, than in assisting the neighbouring poor at home with medicine and advice in illness. Their feelings are then softened by distress, and they seldom forget the hand that relieved them.

They frequently stand in need only of some simple remedy. Food of a more nourishing kind than they can afford, or a little wine, (which they can never buy good in small quan-、 tities,) is all they want. In this way (as in many others) the wives of country gentlemen may do infinite good at a very small expense; their pleasurable reflections will not diminish as they see those growing up around them, in health, and strength, and comfort, whom their judicious aid has rescued in infancy from deformity or death.

CHAP. XIX.

ON LOANS TO THE POOR.

MUCH good may frequently be done by small loans, judiciously made to the poor around. It is easy for one who chooses to avoid trouble to say, "That it is so much money thrown away, and that the poor will never repay the sum lent." But experience has taught many benevolent persons that this is not the case. small loan in time of need is worth much more

A

It

than its nominal amount. It may save a son from enlistment, or a cottager's property from being hastily sold for half the real value. may give a poor man the opportunity of putting out his children; or, at all events, enables him to buy at the best market, and prevents his applying to the parish. The legislature appears aware of the advantage of occasional loans to the poor. *

In proportion, however, as loans judiciously made will be beneficial, will they be hurtful if too easily and improvidently afforded. One

who really wishes to aid the neighbouring peasantry, will take a little pains in that respect; and by learning the real character of the applicant, the actual necessity for aid, and observing his general conduct and punctuality in repayment, will soon be able to discriminate, and at least not be deceived twice by the same person.

There is a ladies' society in London who lend out childbed linen to poor married women; most of their stock is made by the contributors, and the punctuality and neatness with which it is returned is very remarkable. In the country the loan of a small portable set of brewing vessels would be extremely useful to the sur rounding peasantry, enabling them to enjoy their natural beverage at small expense, and lessening the temptation to visit the public-house. The first expence would not exceed ten or twelve pounds.

Dr. Franklin had a singular method of lending, and writes to one to whom he had lent a large sum in these words: "When you meet "with another honest man in similar distress,

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you must pay me by lending this sum to him; enjoining him to discharge the debt by a like

* Vide Cobbett's Cottage Economy, 1822.