Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 1.djvu/461

 board of the day might hesitate to allot it. To ensure the necessary provision for a claim so just and urgent, he devised the project of creating a special fund, from which retiring pensions should be supplied, proposing that the £600 surplus of the building fund should be devoted to this end; and, as he had designed for the infirmary a bequest of £200, stating his readiness to be his own executor, by paying in this sum to the governors for the pension fund. Expansive in his benevolence, influenced by that divine charity which makes no distinction where suffering humanity pleads for relief. Dr. Thackeray had often lamented the restrictions imposed on the admission of patients who could not substantiate a local claim. His heart panted to extend to all who were in need, the benefits of the charity which he administered. With this view he urged the governors to remove all limitation, by constituting the infirmary a general hospital. He advocated this on the ground of justice, as Bedfordshire men were relieved at other hospitals; on the score of policy, as a wider range of contributions would more than counterbalance increase of expense. The plea of humanity was too obvious to need its being insisted on. Reluctant, however, to incur risk, in attempts to realise his speculative views, he prudently assigned conditions on which the change should be made. A certain amount of contribution to the permanent fund of the hospital; a certain extension of annual subscriptions from those residing on the borders of the county, or within the counties adjoining, were the stipulations suggested. They were adopted; the stipulations were fulfilled, and in August, 1831,