~Hospitals.~--_The General Hospital_ may be said to have been commenced in the year 1766, when the first steps were taken towards the erection of such an institution, but it was not formally opened for the reception of patients until 1779. The original outlay on the building was £7,140, but it has received many additions since then, having been enlarged in 1792, 1830, 1842, 1857 (in which year a new wing was erected, nominally out of the proceeds of a fête at Aston, which brought in £2,527 6s. 2d.), 1865, and during the last few years especially. The last additions to the edifice consist of a separate "home" for the staff of nurses, utilising their former rooms for the admittance of more patients; also two large wards, for cases of personal injury from fire, as well as a mortuary, with dissecting and jury rooms, &c., the total cost of these improvements being nearly £20,000. For a long period, this institution has ranked as one of the first and noblest charities in the provinces, its doors being opened for the reception of cases from all parts of the surrounding counties, as well as our own more immediate district. The long list of names of surgeons and physicians, who have bestowed the benefits of their learning and skill upon the unfortunate sufferers, brought within its walls, includes many of the highest eminence in the profession, locally and otherwise, foremost among whom must be placed that of Dr. Ash, the first physician to the institution, and to whom much of the honour of its establishment belongs. The connection of the General Hospital with the Triennial Musical Festivals, which, for a hundred years, have been held for its benefit, has, doubtless, gone far towards the support of the Charity, very nearly £112,000 having been received from that source altogether, and the periodical collections on Hospital Sundays and Saturdays, have still further aided thereto, but it is to the contributions of the public at large that the governors of the institution are principally indebted for their ways and means. For the first twenty-five years, the number of in-patients were largely in excess of the out-door patients, there being, during that period, 16,588 of the former under treatment, to 13,009 of the latter. Down to 1861, rather more than half-a-million cases of accident, illness, &c., had been attended to, and to show the yearly increasing demand made upon the funds of the Hospital, it is only necessary to give a few later dates. In 1860 the in-patients numbered 2,850, the out-patients 20,584, and the expenditure was £4,191. In 1876, the total number of patients were 24,082, and the expenditure £12,207. The next three years showed an average of 28,007 patients, and a yearly expenditure of £13,900. During the last four years, the benefits of the Charity have been bestowed upon an even more rapidly-increasing scale, the number of cases in 1880 having been 30,785, in 1881 36,803, in 1882 44,623, and in 1883 41,551,