THE HOSPITAL CORRESPONDENCE.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 423, 8 December 1868, Page 2

THE HOSPITAL CORRESPONDENCE.

{To the Editor of the Westport Times and Charleston Argus.) Sir, —Setting aside all personalities, supposing the same ever to have really existed, (but which, however, I must beg leave to doubt, and trust that any such supposition has in the mind of everyone been set at rest for ever), I wish in my own name, and in that of the subscribers to the Hospital generally, to thank Dr Giles for the candid and straightforward spirit evinced by him, in a letter appearing in this morning's columns of your valuable journal, in which he has grappled with, and to a certain extent explained away, many of the supposed grievances complained of by some of your correspondents, touching the much vexed question of Hospital administration.

I should like, however, to make one or two remarks thereon. In the first place, I cannot help thinking that if the idea of a subscriber's guinea, subsidised by two from the Government, being sufficient to insure his reception, if necessary, into the Hospital, be, as Dr Giles states it to be, so absolutely preposterous to the uninitiated in Hospital management as to be beneath discussion, surely it was more so for certain of the collecting committee to state that such would be the case, knowing, as they must have done, that it was impracticable. Perhaps, they thought, like many others, that the end sanctified the means. But enough of this, as we are at all events promised that, in future, no such means of obtaining subscriptions will be employed, and I should nothavementioned it now, but that I could not help thinking that this part of the subject had been too lightly treated,"this being, as I honestly believe, with many people the head nnd front of the Hospital Committee's offences, and that it has caused more ill-feeling than anything that has been done, or left undone, by them. As there is no intention on my pait to disparage the Hospital, or its Committee, and as the public have been promised that sooner or later an account in a statistical form will be furnished, showing the receipts and disbursements, and the benefits that have accrued therefrom since its erection, and all other useful and necessarv information relating thereto, I am perfectly willing to refrain from further comment until such return is made. After the promise made in Dr Giles's letter, we may all hope that it will be so full and satisfactory that, so far from its being the means of deterring any subscriber of a guinea or upwards from renewing such subscription when asked upon so to do, it will be the means of his increasing it, to forward the interests of what he then will clearly perceive must be a most desirable and useful institution.

Thanking you for again allowing me to occupy your space, I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, Another Subscriber. Dec. 7th, 1868.