The wise and benevolent design of founding an hospital for those brave men who have been disabled by age or accident, from serving any longer in the navy, is said, to the honour of the female sex, to have originated with that excellent woman, Queen Mary, the wife of King William the Third; and the founding of an asylum for invalid soldiers at Chelsea, was also attributed to a female, one of King Charles the Second’s favourites. The buildings at each place are more like palaces than hospitals, and great care is taken to render the objects of the institution comfortable in their situations. The hospital at Chelsea, with its appendages, covers above forty acres of ground. There are three hundred and thirty-six in-door pensioners, and an unlimited number of out-door pensioners, who receive an annual allowance of seven pounds twelve shillings and sixpence each. Greenwich Hospital admits two thousand three hundred and fifty pensioners, who are provided with lodging, food, clothing, and pocket-money; exclusive of about twelve hundred out-pensioners, who receive seven pounds each per annum. Both hospitals are situated by the water-side. At Chelsea, the pensioners have gardens and fields to walk in; and at Greenwich, there is a large and pleasant park. [Picture: Greenwich and Chelsea Hospitals, and Pensioners] * * * * * THE END. * * * * * * * * * * Joseph Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane. Footnotes {9} Published at 58, Holborn Hill. {14} Here Ann Boleyn, and many other illustrious persons, languished out their miserable hours of captivity; especially the amiable and learned, the good Jane Gray, who was shut up in it for five months. She fell a victim to the jealousy of Mary. Her piety, magnanimity, and conscious innocence, afforded her invincible fortitude in this trying hour, which, even the sight of her husband’s body, reeking from the scaffold, did not shake. {29} The summer of 1794 had been very dry, and a pitch-kettle, happening to boil over at a wharf near Ratcliffe Cross, it set fire to a warehouse containing many bags of saltpetre: this soon exploded, and the wind blowing from the south, directed the flames towards Ratcliffe High Street, which took fire on both sides, and more houses were consumed than in any conflagration since the great fire in 1666. It was estimated that upwards of four hundred families lost all their possessions, and many of them lived in tents or booths for a considerable time after. {65} When in Palestine, Edward nearly escaped being murdered by an assassin, from whom he received a wound in his arm, which was given by a poisoned dagger. It is affirmed that he owed his life to the affection of Eleanor, his wife, who was with him, and sucked the venom out of the wound.