But previous to every other step, an application to Parliament for encouragement, and proper powers to carry this design into execution, seems necessary; for it will not be sufficient to open an Hospital for Inoculation, without offering something as an inducement to invite those who are proper objects to accept of the benefits intended. Amongst the lower classes of people in the metropolis, as well as in many other places, the voice of the generality is against Inoculation; prejudices are not easily removed; nor is it to be expected that the many will attend to the advantages that will result to their children, unless some present benefits were to be connected with them[[4]].
[4]. While the Empress was under Inoculation at Sarsco-celo, some of the poor of the adjoining village were also, on the encouragement she had given, inoculated.
I remember the Empress said to me, with that vivacity and liberality of sentiment for which she is remarkably distinguished, “If I was to order the poor of this neighbourhood to be inoculated, it would be complied with, and be beneficial to them; but I love to use persuasive means, rather than authority; on this account I have advanced a rouble (about four shillings) to each that would consent, and several have accepted it and recovered; but I find they now talk of raising the price to two roubles, which I must consent to as a further encouragement, for I wish the practice may be advanced by the mildest methods.”
If parish officers were obliged by Act of Parliament to apply to the Hospital for the admission of every man or woman who should either on their own account, or on behalf of their children, express a desire of being inoculated, and on their being taken in to supply each with two new shirts or shifts, and sign an obligation to provide decent new cloathing for every one on their receiving notice of their recovery and time of dismission, and also to give a small gratuity (suppose half a crown) to every person of the age of and to the parents of every child, on producing a certificate of their having behaved decently, and complied with the rules of the house, signed by the physician, it would probably be a sufficient inducement, and at the same time the fresh cloathing would effectually prevent the spreading the disease to others. And this could not be reasonably deemed a hardship, since some of the most respectable old Hospitals exact as much on admission of parish patients[[5]].
[5]. At St. Thomas’s Hospital, every patient on admission pays 2s. 6d. if clean, or 10s. 6d. if venereal; and the overseer or churchwarden of the parish signs an obligation that he will find clean body linen every week, and pay four pence a day so long as he continues in the Hospital, and receive him when discharged, or take away the body, or pay the burial fees to the steward of the Hospital, in case of death.
It is scarcely to be doubted but that Parliament would chearfully embrace a plan of this nature, which has for its object the preservation of the lives of the poor, and carrying them and their children safely through this terrible disease, without endangering their neighbourhoods.