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£1000 per annum. From the opening of the establishment
to the end of March, 1835, the number of patients
amounted to 104,759. The Hardwicke Fever Hospital,
attached to the House of Industry, contains 144 beds.
The Westmorland Lock Hospital was opened in 1792,
for the reception of venereal patients of both sexes, and
was originally designed for the reception of 300 inmates;
but afterwards the number of beds was reduced to 150,
to which females only are admissible. The building,
situated in Townsend-street, consists of a centre, in
which are the officers’ apartments, and two wings,
with additional buildings for the reception of patients;
the centre and wings project a little, and the former
has a plain pediment. A Vaccine Institution was opened
in 1804, in Sackville-street, for the gratuitous vaccination
of the poor, and for supplying all parts of the
country with genuine matter of infection. There is an
infirmary for ophthalmic affections in North Cumberlandstreet,
and another in Cuffe-street, one for cutaneous
diseases in Moore-street, one for the diseases of children
in Pitt-street, and another in North Frederic-street.
Dispensaries are numerous, and generally attached to
hospitals and infirmaries. Among those unattached are
that in Cole’s-lane, for St. Mary’s parish, where the
poor are also in special cases attended at their own
lodgings; the Dublin General Dispensary, Fleet-street;
St. Thomas’s Dispensary, Marlborough-green; St. Peter’s
Parochial Dispensary, Montague-street; South Eastern
General Dispensary, Grand Canal-street, near Sir P.
Dun’s Hospital, to which is attached a Nourishment
and Clothing society; the Sick Poor Institution, in
a great measure similar, in Meath-street; St. George’s
Dispensary, Dorset-street; and the Charitable Institution,
Kildare-street.
ORPHANS AND DESTITUTE CHILDREN.
The associations for the relief and protection of orphans
and destitute children are numerous. The Foundling
Hospital, a very extensive establishment in Jamesstreet,
for the reception of infants of this description from
all parts of Ireland, for many years afforded an asylum
to 2000 deserted children within its walls, and to nearly
5000 who were kept at nurse in the country till of
age to be admitted into the central establishment;
these children were clothed, maintained, educated, and
apprenticed from the funds of the hospital, which were
assisted by annual parliamentary grants of from
£20,000 to £30,000. The internal departments were
wholly closed by order of government on the 31st of
March, 1835, and all the children who are not apprenticed,
amounting to 2541, are at present settled with
nurses in the country. There are also about 2800 apprentices
serving their time as servants and to trades,
who are still tinder the superintendence of the governors.
The buildings, which are very extensive, contain schoolrooms
for both sexes, dormitories, a chapel, and accommodations
for several resident officers, and attached to it
is a large garden, in the cultivation of which the older inmates
assist. In addition to the Blue Coat, Royal Hibernian,
and Royal Marine Institutions, already noticed
under the heads of their respective public establishments,
the following are peculiarly worthy of notice:—The
Female Orphan House was commenced in 1790 by Mrs.
Edw. Tighe and Mrs. Este, and, owing in a great measure
to the advocacy of the celebrated Dean Kirwan, who
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preached a succession of sermons for its support, was
opened in the present buildings on the North Circular
Road, which contain ample accommodations for 160
children and a large episcopal chapel. The candidates
for admission must be destitute both of father and
mother, and between the age of five and ten; the inmates
receive an education suited to fit them for the
higher class of domestic servants. Its funds are aided
by a parliamentary grant equal to the sum voluntarily
contributed. The Freemasons’ Orphan School, tinder
the patronage of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, provides
for the orphan daughters of deceased members of the
Society. Pleasants’ Asylum, Camden-street, opened in
1818 by means of a bequest of the late T. Pleasants,
Esq., receives 20 Protestant female orphans, who are
maintained and educated till they arrive at years of
maturity, when they are entitled to a respectable portion
on marrying a Protestant, approved of by the trustees.
The special objects of the Protestant Orphan Society,
founded in 1828, and the Protestant Orphan Union,
formed subsequently, appear from their names; the
latter owes its origin to the ravages of the cholera,
which also gave rise to three other societies for the reception
of children of every religious persuasion, who
had been deprived of their parents by that dreadful
scourge. Most of the places of worship in Dublin have
boarding-schools attached to them for boys or girls, or
both, into which orphans are admitted in preference.
In this department of charitable institutions may be included
the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb at Claremont,
near Glasnevin, which, from small beginnings, is
now adapted to the reception of more than 100 inmates,
who are wholly maintained, clothed, and instructed;
the boys, after school hours, are occupied in gardening,
farming, and other mechanical works; and the girls in
needlework, housewifery, laundry work, and in the
management of the dairy; a printing-press has been
purchased for the instruction of some of the boys in that
business, and for the printing of lessons adapted to the
use of the pupils. The building contains separate schoolrooms
for male and female pupils: attached to it are
about 19 acres of land. This institution is wholly
supported by subscription and private benefactions; it
has various branch establishments in different parts of
the country.
AGED AND IMPOTENT.
The House of Industry was established by act of parliament
in 1773, for the indiscriminate reception of paupers
from every part; but it has since been limited to destitute
paupers of the county and city, and to the relief of certain
classes of diseases. The establishment occupies 11 acres,
on which are two squares of buildings; one for the aged
and infirm, the other for the insane, together with detached
infirmaries for fever, chronic, medical, and surgical
cases, and a dispensary. The total number of aged and
impotent poor that have been admitted is 426,175, of
whom 1874 are now in the institution. It is under the
superintendence of a resident governor and seven visiters
appointed by the lord-lieutenant, and is maintained
by an annual grant of public money. Simpson’s Hospital,
in Great Britain-street, for blind and gouty
men, was opened in 1781, by means of a bequest of a
citizen of that name, who had himself laboured under
a complication of these complaints. It is a large plain
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