Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/198

184 placed in workhouſes, where they are well cloathed, fed, lodged, and made to labor. Nearly the ſame method of providing for the poor prevails through all our ſtates; and from Savannah to Portſmouth you will ſeldom meet a beggar. In the larger towns indeed they ſometimes preſent themſelves. Theſe are uſually foreigners who have never obtained a ſettlement in any pariſh. I never ſaw a native American begging in the ſtreets or highways. A Subſiſtence is eaſily gained here: and if, by misfortunes, they are thrown on the charities of the world, thoſe provided by their own country are ſo comfortable and ſo certain, that they never think of relinquiſhing them to become ſtrolling beggars. Their ſituation too, when ſick, in the family of a good farmer, where every member is emulous to do them kind offices, where they are viſited by all the neighbors, who bring them the little rarities which their ſickly appetites may crave, and who take by rotation the nightly watch over them, when their condition requires it, is without compariſon better than in a general hoſpital, where the ſick, the dying, and the dead are crammed together, in the ſame rooms, and often in the ſame beds. The diſadvantages, inſeparable from general hoſpitals, are ſuch as can never be counterpoiſed by all the regularities of medicine and regimen. Nature and kind nurſing ſave a much greater proportion in our plain way, at a ſmaller expence, and with leſs abuſe. One branch only of hoſpital inſtitution is wanting with us; that is, a general eſtabliſhment for thoſe laboring under difficult caſes of chirurgery. The aids of this art are not equivocal. But an able chirurgeon cannot be had in every pariſh. Such a