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 {139} 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.