There is no hardship involved in the suggestion, and there is nothing about it calculated to un duly pauperise the applicant, since it proceeds on the assumption that, save in exceptional cases, only such persons should have recourse to the hospitals as are unable to pay for medical assistance outside. In every popu lation there will always bo a large percentage of this element. The breadwinner, whose earnings of every day are a matter of vital concern to those dependent on him, but who is in no sense of the term a pauper, since ho works for his livelihood and wins ji-bpnestly when he is nqi. hft niji'cappod'lby-Bic!s l nccidg£ t ' "uMy make such a declaration SMhat suggested without any sacrifice of self-respect. The like is the case

with regard to members of his family, since many men aro able to maintain their dependents respectably under ordinary circumstances who are un able to meet the extra strain of the expenses incidental to sickness. The adoption of the simple plan proposed would at once draw a hard and fast line of demarcation between the applicants for whom hospitals are intended and those whose means place them above that class, and it would then rest with our hospital authorities to defend any departure they might make from what is currently under stood to have been the guiding irineiple in the establishment of lospitals in the first instance. The fact that fees are accepted from paying patients which bear no pro portion to the ordinary cost of medical attendance shows that at present the hospital authorities do not rigidly adhere to this principle. It may be urged in defence that the Bystem under which such patients are ad mitted is intended to meet those modifications of our civilisation which make appliances and aids and special treatment available in our modern hospitals under conditions which are not available in private houses under the most favourable ciroumstauces. This aspect of the question reminds us that the hospital as an institution

is not exactly on the same footing now as when it was first brought into existence as a charitable agency pure and simple. 