Charity and kindness of heart are qualities that radiate from moral worth as truly as learning and refinement reflect intellectual superiority, and the benevolent institutions of a country deserve to be as great a source of pride as its schools and colleges. The establishment of hospitals, asylums, and other charitable organizations in Peru dates from the time of the Conquest; for, whatever may have been the evils of colonial rule, they did not include negligence of the duties of Christian charity. During the period of the viceroyalty, asylums for the gratuitous care of the sick and destitute were founded in Lima and other cities of Peru, the funds for their maintenance being derived partly from donations, and partly from the rents of property set aside to furnish a permanent and independent revenue for their use.

At the time of the Independence, Lima had many hospitals under the management of religious brotherhoods. Belem and San Juan de Dios received inmates at a fixed price of one dollar a day; and an English traveller, who was a patient in the San Juan de Dios hospital a century ago, has written a very favorable description of its cleanliness, good ventilation, excellent diet, and the kind attention given to patients. The hospital of San Andrés had accommodation for six hundred invalids and capacity for twice that number, and was beautified by a magnificent garden of rare botanical value. Santa Ana hospital, founded by an Indian princess, the Caciqua Catalina Huanca, was consecrated to the needs of her own people. Two hospitals, San Pedro de Alcantara and La Caridad, were for women exclusively; and the sick and suffering among the negro population were cared for in the hospital of San Bartolomé. By a law passed in 1825, all the establishments organized by public charity, and at that time in charge of the convents, were placed under the administration of a Junta de Beneficencia, or Board of Benevolence, which was later replaced by the Benevolent Societies, under whose control are all the charitable institutions of the republic. There are about fifty of these societies, each of which maintains and governs one or more charitable establishments, the annual expenditure for this purpose being two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling. Lima spends more than half of this amount in the support of its hospitals and asylums. The revenues are derived from grants of the national government and the departmental boards, from the rents of the societies’ various properties, from the profits of the public lotteries,—established during the viceroyalty, and, by the decree of the republic, devoted to charitable purposes,—and from the income derived from cemeteries, which are under the administration of the Benevolent Society. In Lima the lotteries provide a large fund for the purposes of charity, the annual income from this source amounting to from thirty thousand to forty thousand pounds sterling.

The Lima Benevolent Society is composed of a hundred members, from whose number a board of directors is elected annually, with authority to appoint two inspectors for each establishment of importance; one inspector is appointed for each minor organization and for the religious brotherhoods, whose incomes are administered by the society, the surplus of their rents, after deducting expenses, being applied to its purposes. The president of the board of directors is the general manager of the society, who bears the title of Director of Benevolence. The gentle heart of the Limeña is quickly moved to pity by the sight of suffering and distress, and generous contributions are made to many charitable institutions not included among those of the society, though the latter extends its benign protection over all the city, performing its noble task with great efficiency, through the aid of the pious Sisters of Charity, who form a devoted corps of nurses and guardians in its hospitals, asylums, and poorhouses. In Callao, Arequipa, Puno, Trujillo, and Cajamarca, as well as in the capital, the visitor to the institutions of charity meets these sweet-faced gentle ministers of mercy.

The most important hospital of Lima was constructed soon after the glorious victory of Callao in 1866, when the Spaniards were driven from the Pacific Coast, and it was named, in honor of that event, the Hospital Dos de Mayo. The Director of Benevolence at that time was Don Manuel Pardo, who planned the edifice in 1868 and presided at the inauguration of the hospital during his presidency, in 1875. It is a spacious and handsome building, and the wards of invalids are separated from the various departments of hospital service by beautiful gardens. A thousand patients can be accommodated in the institution, though the daily average is about six hundred men. The principal hospital for women, the Santa Ana, is the oldest in Peru, having been founded by the first Archbishop of Lima, in 1549. A new edifice has recently been constructed for the use of the hospital, having the latest modern conveniences. The maternity ward occupies a separate site, and serves as a practical school for obstetricians. The hospital of Santa Ana has a children’s clinic, and a clinic of ophthalmology. The new building is fitted up with twelve separate wards, having forty beds in each, and a special section for children.

The old hospital of San Bartolomé was converted into a military hospital after the establishment of the republic; it affords accommodation for three hundred patients, and its expenses are paid by the state, only the administration of its affairs being in charge of the Benevolent Society. There is a special ward in the military hospital for prisoners awaiting trial. The only conditions required of an applicant for admission to the hospitals of the Benevolent Society are that the illness shall be of a common nature, and that the poverty of the applicant must be proved. The question of nationality or religion is not considered. The society maintains an asylum for incurable invalids, to which are sent those cases declared chronic or incurable by the attending physicians.

The asylums maintained by the Benevolent Society of Lima accomplish great good among a class that is generally neglected. The Orphan Asylum has two branches, one of which is for the care and protection of foundlings, and the other for the education of orphan children of tender age. The first is located in a large building, which has a revolving cradle so arranged that, as soon as the infant is placed in it, a mechanism carries the cradle inside, the little one’s identity being completely lost as it passes from a world that offered no welcome to the shelter of a home that receives it as a sacred charge. About two hundred children live in the foundlings’ home, which is provided with nurses, doctors, and the usual service of a well-regulated household. The second branch of the Orphan Asylum gives practical instruction suitable for children who are to earn their living later. The boys are taught some trade, the workshops of the institution including those for the instruction of shoemakers, carpenters, tailors, and printers; the girls, as soon as old enough to learn, are sent to Santa Teresa to be instructed in sewing, embroidering, millinery, and other handiwork. Near the hospital of Santa Teresa is located the Asylum of Santa Rosa, supported out of the funds of the Benevolent Society, supplemented by the amounts received from the sale of embroideries, fine sewing, artificial flowers, and other articles made by the inmates. In the asylum of San Andrés, which in 1879 replaced the hospital of that name, both boarding and day pupils are included in the benefits of charity, the former numbering about a hundred children, and the latter three times as many, of both sexes, between three and eight years of age. Instruction is given in household work and in other practical subjects, the children, at the same time, learning to read and write. A crèche has been established where infants may be left during the day in charge of a corps of nurses, while the mothers are at work.

The Instituto Sevilla is one of the most important charities in Lima. It is named in honor of a philanthropic Peruvian, Don José Sevilla, who bequeathed a large sum to the Benevolent Society for the purpose of maintaining an asylum in which the inmates should learn occupations suited to their sex. A hundred girls are educated in this school free of charge, the period of apprenticeship lasting five years. In addition to those already referred to, the Society directs a number of branches, under various names, dedicated to the needs of the destitute. The “Little Sisters of the Poor,” the “Infants’ Shelter,” the “Olla (stewpan) of the Poor,” the “Ruiz Davila,” and others, not only provide comfort and protection, but give teaching of a practical kind. For the encouragement of economy and foresight, the society has established a savings bank, with a section for mortgages, in which deposits earn four per cent per annum interest. The Lazaretto is under the management of the Benevolent Society, though in times of epidemic, the municipality contributes half of the sum required for expenses. The care of the insane is one of the charges of the Benevolent Society, and in order to provide better accommodation for this class of unfortunates, a national asylum is being built near Lima, which will receive applicants from all parts of the republic. The asylum now has about four hundred inmates, under the direction of the inspector appointed by the Benevolent Society for this institution.

Among the important services performed by the society is that of directing the burial of the dead. The public cemetery of Lima, which covers an area of twenty acres, dates from the government of the Viceroy Abascal, who first abolished the custom of interring the dead in the church vaults. The present system of burial, known as the Columbarium Romano, which consists of walls in which niches are built one above the other, is familiar to all travellers in Latin countries. It was necessary to overcome great prejudice in the beginning, a cemetery not being looked upon as consecrated ground; but the interment there of the Archbishop of Lima in 1808 sufficed to inaugurate the new system successfully. The original construction of the Pantheon cost a hundred thousand dollars. It is one of the most notable in South America for its space and for the number and fine architecture of its mausoleums. The entrance faces an open circle, or plazoleta, in which stands a marble column crowned by a statue representing the Resurrection. On one side of the Pantheon is the Civil burial ground for Protestants, and on the other side is that reserved as a last resting place for the unbeliever.

In addition to the hospitals, asylums, and other institutions governed by the Benevolent Societies in all the principal cities and towns, there are numerous special charities supported by the departmental and municipal authorities of the different centres, or maintained by church societies and private philanthropy. The needs of the unfortunate receive increasing attention as the public administration extends its vigilance throughout the republic, and to the institutions already existing new ones are constantly being added. The government recently granted subsidies to the Benevolent Societies of Moquegua, Ayacucho, Huánuco, Huancavelica, Huancayo, Caráz, Aplao, and Yungay. The hospitals of Tarma and Moquegua have been enlarged and improved, and in the Amazon port of Iquitos a new hospital is being constructed according to modern ideas and plans. In the increasing progress and development of Peru, its benevolent charities have received greater attention than ever, the moral sentiment of the nation demanding that these institutions share in the general blessing of prosperity.