Chapter IX: Front Matter (9)

That they have been filled up long ago, and that on the site of the ancient house itself another great building has been erected, you may see to-day as we stand at the end of the long road leading to the entrance of "the people's park."

The abode of cruelty and bigotry has been replaced by one of the most truly representative of all our benevolent institutions. The graves of the martyred sisters might well take a new meaning if the spot could now be discovered in the broad and beautifully planted garden, where feeble men and women sun themselves into returning life and strength amidst the gentle summer air blowing straight across from the broad woods of Epping and Hainault miles away.

The people's playground is fitly consummated by the people's hospital. That the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, Victoria Park, might well be called "the people's," is shown, not because it is supported by state aid or by charitable endowment, on the contrary, it depends entirely on those voluntary contributions and subscriptions which have hitherto enabled it successfully to carry on a noble work, but yet have only just sufficed to supply its needs, "from hand to mouth." Yet it is essentially devoted to patients who belong to the working population. Like the park itself it attracts crowds of visitors, not only from the City, from Bethnal Green, Mile End, Poplar, Islington, Camden Town, and other parts of London, but even from distant places whence excursionists come to see and to enjoy it. This hospital receives patients from every part of London, and even from distant country places. There were seven inmates from York last year, as well as some from Somerset, Hereford, Derby, Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Norfolk, Suffolk, Huntingdon, Northampton, Wiltshire, and other counties; so that in fact the districts of Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, and Shoreditch, represented only a very small proportion of the 781 in-patients and the 13,937 out-patients, who were admitted to medical treatment during the twelve months. More than this, however, amongst the contributions which are made for the support of this hospital, there must be reckoned those collected by working men of the district in their clubs and associations, in token of the appreciation of benefits bestowed by such an institution to failing men and women, wives and shopmates and relatives, who being threatened or actually stricken down with one of those diseases which sap the life and leave the body prostrate, require prompt skill and medical aid, even if they are not in absolute need of nourishing food and alleviating rest.

Standing here, in front of this broad noble building, with its many windows, its picturesque front of red brick and white stone, its central tower, its sheltered garden-walks, and pleasant lawn, we may well feel glad to hear that the work done within its wards is known and recognised. What a work it is can only be estimated by those who remember how fell is the disease from which so many of the patients suffer, and how great a thing it has been, even where cures could not be effected, usefully to prolong the lives of hundreds of those who must have died but for timely aid. Nay, even at the least, the alleviation of suffering to those on whom death had already laid his hand has been no small thing; and when we know that of 240,000 out-patients who have received advice and medicines, and 10,400 in-patients whose cases have warranted their admission to the wards, a large number of actual cures have been effected since the establishment of this hospital, we are entitled to regard the institution as one of the most useful that we have ever visited together.

Let us enter, not by the handsome broad portico in the centre of the building, but at the out-patients' door, in order that we may see the two waiting-rooms, where men and women bring their letters of admission, or attend to see one of the three consulting physicians. Of these three gentlemen the senior is Dr. Peacock, of whom it may be said that he is the organiser of the hospital, the efficiency of which is mainly due to his direction. This is no small praise, I am aware, but there are so many evidences of thorough unity and completeness in all the details of management that, considering how great a variety of cases are included under "diseases of the chest," from the slow insidious but fatal ravages of consumption to the sudden pang and deadly spasm of heart disease, and the various affections of throat and lungs, it may easily be seen how much depends upon the adoption of a system initiated by long study and experience. The perfect arrangements which distinguish this hospital are doubtless rendered easier by ample space and admirable appliances. Plenty of room and plenty of air (air, however, which has been warmed to one even temperature before it enters the wards and corridors where the patients eat and drink, sleep and walk) are the first characteristics of the place, while a certain chaste simplicity of ornament, and yet an avoidance of mere utilitarian bareness, is to be observed in all that portion of the structure where decoration may naturally be expected.

The board-room, the secretary's room, and the various apartments devoted to the resident officers on the ground-floor, are plain enough, however, though they are of good size and proportions, the only really ornamental article of furniture in the board-room being a handsome semi-grand piano, the gift of one of the committee. This is a real boon to such of the patients as can come to practise choral singing, as well as to those who can listen delightedly to the amateur concerts that are periodically performed, either in the hospital itself or in one of the wards. For they have cheerful entertainments in this resort of the feeble, where, to tell the truth, food is often the best physic, and sympathy and encouragement the most potent alleviations.

As to the actual physic--the employment of medicines--it is only in some of the large endowed hospitals that we can see such a dispensary as this spacious room, with its surrounding rows of bottles and drawers, its two open windows, one communicating with the men's and the other with the women's waiting room, its slabs, and scales and measures, on a central counter, where 380 prescriptions will have to be made up to-day before the alert and intelligent gentleman and his assistants who have the control of this department, will be able to replace the current stock out of the medical stores.

These small cisterns, each with its tap, occupying so prominent a place on the counter, represent the staple medicine of the establishment, pure cod-liver oil, of which 1,200 gallons are used every year, and they are constantly replenished from three large cylinders, or vats, containing 800 gallons, which occupy a room of their own adjoining the dispensary and the compounding room, the latter being the place where drugs are prepared, and the great art of pill-making is practised on a remarkable scale.

Continuing our walk round the hospital, we come to the consulting-rooms, where the physicians attend daily at two o'clock, each to see his own patients, and the reception-room, where an officer takes the letters of introduction, and exchanges them for attendance cards. This is the door of the museum; and though we shall be admitted, if you choose to accompany me, it is, like other surgical museums, of professional more than general interest, and not a public portion of the hospital. Turning into the great main corridor, with its peculiar honeycombed red-brick ceiling and pleasant sense of light and air, we will ascend the broad staircase to the wards, those of the women being on the first floor, while the men occupy a precisely similar ward on the second. These wards consist of a series of rooms of from two to six, eight, and twelve beds each, so as to afford opportunity for the proper classification of the cases. A day-room is also provided for each set of wards, so that those patients who are well enough to leave their beds may take their meals there, or may read, play at chess, draughts, or bagatelle, or occupy themselves with needlework. These wards and their day-rooms all open into a light cheerful corridor, with large windows, where the inmates may walk and talk, or read and rest, sitting or reclining upon the couches and settees that are placed at intervals along the wall. All through these rooms and corridors the air is kept at a medium temperature of from fifty-five to sixty degrees, by means of hot-air or hot-water apparatus, the latter being in use as well as the former. You noticed, as we stood in the grounds, a large square structure of a monumental character;--that was in fact the chamber through the sides of which draughts of air are carried to channels beneath the building, there they are drawn around a furnace, to be heated, and to escape through pipes that are grouped about the entire building. In order to ensure the necessary comfort of patients requiring a higher temperature, each ward is provided with an open fire-place.

It is now just dinner-time. The ample rations of meat and vegetables, fish and milk, and the various "special diets," are coming up on the lift from the kitchens, and in the women's day-room a very comfortable party is just sitting down to the mid-day meal. Here, as elsewhere, greater patience and more genuine cheerfulness are to be observed among the women, than is as a rule displayed by the men, and there are not wanting signs of pleasant progress towards recovery, of grateful appreciation of the benefits received, and of a hopeful trusting spirit, which goes far to aid the doctor and the nurse. There are, of course, some sad sights. Looking into the wards, we may see more than one woman for whom only a few hours of this mortal life remain; more than one child whose emaciated form and face looks as though death itself could bring no great change. Yet it must be remembered that cases likely soon to terminate fatally are not admitted. The severity of the diseases and their frequently fatal character under any condition will account for the large proportion of sickness unto death which finds here alleviation but not absolute cure; though, of course, the sufferers from heart disease, who are on the whole the most cheerful, as well as those whose affections of the lungs can be sensibly arrested, if not altogether healed, are frequently restored to many years of useful work in the world. On this second storey, in the men's ward, there are some very serious cases, and some sights that have a heartache in them; yet they are full of significance, for many of them include the spectacle of God's sweet gift of trust and patience--the mighty courage of a quiet mind. Yonder is a courageous fellow, who, suffering from a terrible aneurism, had to cease his daily labour, and now lies on his back, hopeful of cure, with a set still face and a determined yet wistful look at the resident medical officer, or the nurse who adjusts the india-rubber ice-bag on his chest. Here, near the door, is that which should make us bow our heads low before the greatest mystery of mortal life. Not the mystery of death, but the mystery of meeting death and awaiting it. A brave, patient, noble man is sitting up in that bed, his high forehead, fair falling hair, long tawny beard, and steady placid eye, reminding one of some picture of Norseman or Viking. Lean and gaunt enough in frame, his long thin hand is little but skin and bone, but it is clasped gently by the sorrowing wife, who sits beside him, and glances at us through tearful eyes as we enter. One can almost believe that the sick man who is going on the great journey whither he cannot yet take the wife who loves him, has been speaking of it calmly, there is such an inscrutable look of absolute repose in that face. He is a Dane, and the doctor tells us has borne his illness and great pain with a quiet courage that has challenged the admiration of those about him--a courage born of simple faith, let us believe, a calm resting on an eternal foundation of peace. Here, in the corridor, is a party, some of its members still very weak and languid, who, having just dined, are about to take the afternoon lounge, with book or newspaper, and, leaving them, we will conclude our visit by descending to the basement, whence the chief medicine comes in the shape of wholesome nourishing food, of meat and fish, of pure farina, of wine, and milk, and fresh eggs, of clean pure linen, and even of ice, for ice is a large ingredient here, and several tons are consumed every year. The domestic staff have their apartments in this basement portion of the building, another division of which is occupied by the kitchens and storerooms, while lifts for coal and daily meals and every other requisite, ascend to the upper wards, and shoots or wells from the upper floors convey linen and bedding that require washing, as well as the dust and refuse of the wards, to special receptacles.

The kitchen itself is a sight worth seeing with its wide open range, where prime joints are roasting, or have been roasted, and are now being cut into great platefuls for the ordinary full-diet patients. In the great boilers and ovens, vegetables and boiled meats, farinaceous puddings, rice, tapioca, fish, and a dozen other articles of pure diet are being prepared, while a reservoir of strong beef-tea represents the nourishment of those feeble ones to whom liquid, representing either meat or milk, is all that can be permitted. We have little time to remain in the separate rooms, which are cool tile-lined larders, where bread and milk and meat are kept, but among the records of donations and contributions to the hospital it is very pleasant to read of the multifarious gifts of food and other comforts sent from time to time by benevolent friends. They consist of baskets of game, fruits, rice, tea, flour, books, warm clothing for poor patients leaving the hospital, prints, pictures, fern-cases, all kinds of useful articles, showing how thoughtful the donors are, of what will be a solace and a comfort to the patients, while not the least practically valuable remittances are bundles of old linen. Still more touching, however, are the records of gifts brought by patients themselves, or by their friends.

"I was a patient here four years ago," says a man who has made his way to the secretary's room, "and I made up my mind that if ever I could scrape a guinea together I should bring it, and now I have, and here it is, if you'll be so good as to take it, for I want to show I'm truly grateful."

"If you'll please accept it from us; my husband and I have put by fifteen shillings, and want to give it to the hospital for your kindness to our son, who was here before he died."

These are the chronicles that show this to be a people's hospital indeed, and that should open the hearts of those who can take pounds instead of shillings. In such cases the secretary has ventured to remind the grateful donors that they may be unable to afford to leave their savings, but the evident pain, even of the hint of refusal, was reason for accepting the poor offering. Poor, did I say? nay, rich--rich in all that can really give value to such gifts, the wealth of the heart that must be satisfied by giving.

There is one more adjunct to this great human conservatory which we must see before we leave. Down four shallow stone steps from the corridor, and along a cheerful quiet sub-corridor, is the chapel. A very beautiful building, with no stained glass or sumptuous detail of ornament, and yet so admirable in its simple architectural decoration and perfect proportions, that it is an example of what such a place should be. It is capable of seating three or four hundred persons, and visitors are freely admitted to the Sunday services when there is room, though of course seats are reserved for the patients, who have "elbows" provided in their pews, that they may be able to lean without undue fatigue. The chapel itself was a gift of a beneficent friend, and was presented anonymously. One day an architect waited on the committee, and simply said that if they would permit a chapel to be erected on a vacant space in their grounds, close to the main building, he had plans for such a structure with him, and the whole cost would be defrayed by a client of his, who, however, would not make known his name. The gift was accepted, and the benevolent contract nobly fulfilled. I should be glad to hear that some other charitable donor had sent in like manner an offer of funds to fill those two great vacant wards which, waiting for patients, are among the saddest sights in this hospital.

_HEALING THE SICK._

Amidst the numerous great charities which distinguish this vast metropolis, hospitals must always hold a prominent if not preeminent place. Helpless infancy, the weakness and infirmity of old age, and prostration by sudden accident, or the ravages of disease, are the conditions that necessarily appeal to humanity. The latter especially is so probable an occurrence to any of us, that we are at once impressed by the necessity for providing some means for its alleviation. Helpless childhood has passed, old age may seem to be in too dim a future to challenge our immediate attention; but sickness, sudden disaster, who shall be able to guard against these, in a world where the strongest are often smitten down in the full tide of apparent health; where, in the streets alone, fatal accidents are reckoned monthly as a special item in Registrars' returns, and injuries amount annually to hundreds?

The great endowed hospitals, therefore, those magnificent monuments of charity which have distinguished London for so many years, and the value of which in extending the science of medicine can scarcely be overrated, are regarded by us all with veneration. At the same time we ought to feel a certain thrill of pleasure, a satisfaction not far removed from keen emotion, when we see inscribed on the front of some building, large or small, where the work of healing is being carried on, the words, "Supported by Voluntary Contributions." One other condition, too, seems necessary to the complete recognition of such a charity as having attained to the full measure of a truly beneficent work--admission to it should be free: free not only from any demand for money payments, but untrammelled by the necessity for seeking, often with much suffering and delay, a governor's order or letter, by which alone a patient can be received in many of our otherwise admirable and useful institutions for the sick. It should be remembered that immediate aid is of the utmost importance in the effort to heal the sick, and that delays, proverbially dangerous, are in such cases cruel, often fatal, always damaging to the sense of true beneficence, of the extension of help because of the _need_ rather than for the sake of any particular influence. It would seem that we have no right to hesitate, or to insist on the observance of certain forms, before succouring the grievously sick and wounded, any more than we have to withhold food from the starving till ceremonial inquiries are answered, and certificates of character obtained. There are cases of poverty, and even of suffering, where inquiry before ultimate and continued relief may be useful, and personal influence may be necessary, but extreme hunger and nakedness, cold and houselessness, sudden injury or maiming, the pain of disease, the deep and touching need of the sick and helpless, are not such. Prompt and effectual measures for relief, and, if necessary, admission to the place where that relief can alone be afforded, will be the only means of completely meeting these wants. Free hospitals, freer even than workhouses, are what we need, and I am about to visit one of them to-day which rejoices in its name, "The Royal Free Hospital," now in its forty-seventh year of useful and, I am glad to say, of vigorous life.

To anyone acquainted with that strange neighbourhood which is represented by Gray's Inn Lane and all the queer jumble of courts and alleys that seem to shrink behind the shelter of the broad thoroughfare of Holborn, there is something consistent in the establishment of such a noble charity as this hospital in Gray's Inn Road. Its very position seems to indicate the nature and extent of its duties. Near the homes of poverty, the streets where people live who cannot go far to seek aid in their extremest need, it receives those who, breaking down through sudden disease, or requiring medical and surgical skill to relieve the pain and weakness of recurrent malady, have no resource but this to enable them to fulfil their one great desire "to get back to work." The causes of much of the sickness which sends patients thither may be preventable: they may be found in foul dwellings, impure water, insufficient clothing, want of proper food, alternate hunger and intemperance; but whatever may be its occasion, a remedy must be found for it. Till all that is preventable _is_ prevented, the consequences will have to be mitigated, the fatal results averted where it is possible; and when boards of health and sanitary measures have done, there will still be sick men to heal, failing children to strengthen, weak and wasting women to restore.

It is well, then, that this Institution should stand as a landmark of that free charity which takes help where it is needed most; and this qualification is the more obvious when we turn from the sick wards to the accident wards, and remember that three great railway termini are close at hand, and others not far off; that all round that teeming neighbourhood men, women, and even children, are working at poor handicrafts, which render them liable to frequent injuries, and that in the crowded streets themselves--from the great busy thoroughfare of Holborn, to the bustle and confusion of the approaches to the stations at King's Cross--there is constant peril to life and limb.

There is something so remarkable in the external appearance of the building, such a military look about its bold front, such a suggestion of a cavalry yard about the broad open area behind this tall wooden entrance gate, that you begin to wonder how such a style of architecture should have been adopted for a hospital. The truth is that like many--nay, like most of our noblest work--this great provision for healing the sick began by not waiting for full-blown opportunities. The need was there, and the means that came to hand were used to meet it. This building was originally the barracks of that loyal and efficient regiment, the "Light Horse Volunteers," and so excellently had those gallant defenders of king and constitution provided for their own comfort and security, that when in 1842 the premises were vacant, and the lease for sale, the governors of the Royal Free Hospital became the purchasers, the long rooms were easily turned into ample, cheerful, and well-ventilated wards, and the various outbuildings and offices were quickly adapted to the reception of patients.

But the hospital had at that date been working quietly and effectually for above fourteen years. Fourteen years before its inauguration in Gray's Inn Road, this "free" hospital, which was not then "royal," had been commenced in Greville Street, Hatton Garden, and the immediate incident which led to its foundation is so suggestive, so inseparable from the recollection of the want which it was designed to alleviate, and from its own generous recognition of the unfailing freedom of true charity, that it might well be the subject of a memorial picture. Alas! it would be a tragic reminder of those days before any provision was made for extending medical aid to sufferers who had no credentials save humanity and their own deep necessity. It would be a grim reminder to us, also, that some of our great charities established for the relief of the sick are still trammelled with those restrictions which demand recommendations, to obtain which the applicant is often condemned to delay and disappointment. It would show us that our hospitals are not yet free.

Those of my readers who can remember the entrance to the broad highway of Holborn nearly fifty years ago--stay, that is going back beyond probable acknowledgment,--let me say those of us who knew Smithfield when it was a cattle market, who had heard of "Cow Cross," and been told of the terrible purlieux of Field Lane; who had occasionally caught a glimpse of that foul wilderness of courts that clustered about the Fleet Ditch; had read of Mr. Fagin, when "Oliver Twist" was first appearing in chapters, and had dim recollections of nursery tales about Bartlemy fair and "hanging morning" at the Old Bailey; those of us who remember the cries of drovers, and the lowing and bleating of herds and flocks in the streets on Sunday nights; the terrible descent of Snow Hill; the confusion and dismay of passengers and vehicles on the steep incline of Holborn Hill; the reek of all that maze of houses and hovels that lay in the valley; those of us, in short, who can carry our memories back for a few years beyond the time when the new cattle market was built at Islington, the pens and lairs of Smithfield demolished, the whole Holborn valley dismantled, only a remnant, a mere corner, of Field Lane being left standing after the great viaduct was built--can imagine what the church of St. Andrew was like when, with its dark and dreary churchyard, it stood on the slope of Holborn Hill, instead of being as it now is in a kind of subway. That churchyard, with its iron gate, was reached by stone steps, which were receptacles for winter rain and summer dust, the straw from waggons, the shreds and sweepings from adjacent shops, the dirt and refuse of the streets.

On those steps a young girl was seen lying one night, in the winter of 1827--lying helpless, lonely, perishing of disease and famine.

The clocks of St. Andrew, St. Sepulchre, St. Paul, had clanged and boomed amidst the hurry and the turmoil of the throng of passengers; had clanged and boomed till their notes might be heard above the subsiding roar of vehicles, and the shuffling of feet, till silence crept over the great city, and more distant chimes struck through the murky air, tolling midnight. Still that figure lay upon the cruel stones, under the rusty gate of the churchyard, as though, unfriended and unpitied by the world, she waited for admission to the only place in which she might make a claim in death, if not in life.

Not more than eighteen years old, she had wandered wearily from some distant place where fatal instalments of the wages of sin had done their work. She had come to London unknown, unnoted, to die. That she had come from afar is but a surmise; she may have been a dweller in this great city, lost amidst the stony desert of its streets, friendless with the friendlessness of the outcast or the wretched, to whom the acquaintances of to-day have little care or opportunity to become the solacers of to-morrow; she may have crept to that dark corner by the churchyard gate, amongst the rack and refuse of the street, as a place in which she, the unconsidered waste and refuse of our boasted civilisation, could most fitly huddle from the cold. She was not left actually to die there, but two days afterwards she passed out of the world where she had been unrecognised. Not without result, however.

Among those who had witnessed the distressing occurrence was a surgeon, Mr. William Marsden, who for some time before had repeatedly seen cause to lament, that with all our endowed hospitals, our great medical schools, and the advance of scientific knowledge, the sick poor could only obtain relief by means of letters of recommendation and other delay, until the appointed days for admission. The sight that he had witnessed awoke him to fresh energy. He determined to establish a medical charity, where destitution or great poverty and disease should be the only necessary credentials for obtaining free and _immediate_ relief. His honest benevolent purpose did not cool; in February in the following year (1828), the house in Greville Street was open as a free hospital, and it was taken under the royal patronage of George IV., the Duke of Gloucester becoming its president.

King William IV. succeeded George IV. as the patron of this free hospital, and one of the earliest manifestations of the interest of our Queen in public charitable institutions was the expressed desire of her Majesty to maintain the support which it had hitherto received, and to confer upon it the name of the _Royal_ Free Hospital.

It need scarcely be said that the late Duke of Sussex took a very strong interest in this charity, and at his death it was determined to erect a new wing, to be called "the Sussex" wing. This work was completed in 1856; and in 1863, by the aid of a zealous and indefatigable chairman of the committee, above £5,000 was raised by special appeal for the purposes of buying the freehold of the entire building, so that it is now, in every sense, a free hospital, with a noble history of suffering relieved, of the sick healed, the deserted reclaimed, the sinful succoured, and those that were ready to perish snatched from the jaws of death.

Since the foundation of the modest house in Hatton Garden in 1828 above a million and a half of poor sick and destitute patients have obtained relief, and the average of poor patients received within its wards is now 1,500 annually, while 45,000 out-patients resort thither from all parts of London. The relief thus afforded costs some £8,000 a year, and this large sum has to be provided by appeals to the public for those contributions by which alone the continued effort can be sustained.

Standing here within the "Moore" ward, so called after the energetic chairman before referred to, I cannot think of any appeal that should be more successful in securing public sympathy than these two statements--First, that many of the inmates have been immediately received on their own application; and secondly, that, bearing in mind the sad story which is, as it were, the story of the foundation of the hospital, this ward is occupied by women. Many of them are persons of education and refinement, who yet would have no asylum if they had not been received within these sheltering walls, others may be poor, ignorant, and perhaps even degraded, but divine charity is large enough to recognise in these the very need which such an effort is intended to alleviate. Here at least is a peaceful retreat, where in quiet reflection, in grateful recognition of mercies yet within reach, in the sound of pitying voices, and the touch of sympathetic hands, the weary may find rest, the throes of pain may be assuaged.

Here are the two fundamental rules of the hospital, and they form what one might call a double-barrelled appeal not to be easily turned aside:--

IN-DOOR PATIENTS.

Foreigners, strangers, and others, in sickness or disease, having neither friends nor homes, are admitted to the Wards of this Hospital on their own application, so far as the means of the charity will permit.

OUT-DOOR PATIENTS.

All sick and diseased persons, having no other means of obtaining relief, may attend at this Hospital every day at Two o'clock, when they will receive Medical and Surgical Advice and Medicine free.

Even while I read the latter announcement the out-patients are assembling in the waiting-room, on the right of the quadrangle; the dispenser, in his repository of drugs, surrounded by bottles, jars, drawers, and all the appliances for making up medicines, has set his assistants to work, and is himself ready to begin the afternoon's duty; the consulting-physician of the day has just taken his seat in one plain barely-furnished apartment, the consulting-surgeon in another, while the resident house-surgeon has completed his first inspection of in-patients, and is ready with particulars of new cases.

These rooms, where patients assemble, and doctors consult, are on the right of the pleasant quadrangle, with its large centre oval garden plot, containing a double ring of trees; and here also is the reception room for "accidents" and urgent cases--a very suggestive room, with styptics, immediate remedies, and prompt appliances ready to hand, but like all the rest of the official portion of the building, very plain and practical, with evidence of there being little time to regard mere ease or ornament, and of a disregard of anything which is not associated with the work that has to be done. It is the same with other apartments, where it is obvious that no unnecessary expenditure is incurred for mere official show.

The business of the place is to heal by means of food, of rest, and of medicine, and there, on the left of the quadrangle, a flight of steps leads downwards to a wide area, where, in the kitchens, the domestic servants are busy clearing up, after serving the eighty-eight rations which have been issued for dinner--rations of fish, flesh, and fowl, or those "special diets" which are taken under medical direction. There is something about this kitchen, the store-rooms, and offices, with the steps leading thereto, and the cat sitting blinking in the sun, which irresistibly reminds me of the heights of Dover and some portion of the barrack building there; the old military look of the place clings to this Gray's Inn Road establishment still, and the visitor misses the wonderful appliances and mechanical adaptations of some more modern institutions, not even lifts to convey the dinners to the wards being possible in such an edifice.

There is some compensating comfort in noting, however, that the nursing staff is so organised as to secure personal attention to the patients, and that the arrangements are touchingly homely, not only in regard to the simple furniture, the few pictures and engravings, and the little collection of books that are to be found in the wards, but also in the matter of sympathetic, motherly, and sisterly help, which is less ceremonious, but not less truly loving, than is to be found in some places of higher pretensions.

Here, on the ground floor, the twenty-two beds of the men's severe accident ward are always full, and some of the cases are pitiable, including maiming by machinery, railway accidents, or injury in the streets. The "Marsden Ward," adjoining is devoted to injuries of a less serious kind, so that there many of the patients can help themselves. In the women's accident ward there are three or four children, one of whom, a pretty chubby-faced little girl of five years old, has not yet got over her astonishment at having been run over by a cab the day before yesterday, picked up and brought into this great room where most of the people are in bed, only to hear that she is more frightened than hurt, and is to go home tomorrow. There are some other little creatures, however, suffering from very awkward accidents, and they seem to be petted and made much of, just as they are in the women's sick ward above, where a delicate-faced intelligent girl, herself improving greatly under prompt treatment for an early stage of phthisis, is delighted to have a little companion to tea with her at her bed-side, the child being allowed to sit up in a chair, and the pair of invalids being evidently on delightfully friendly terms. There is a lower ward, with half a dozen little beds devoted solely to children, who are, I think, all suffering from some form of disease of the joints. Alas! this class of disease comes of foul dwellings, of impure or stinted food, of want of fresh air and water; and it brings a pang to one's heart to note the smiling little faces, the bright beaming eyes, the pretty engaging grateful ways of some of these little ones, and yet to know how long a time it must be before the results of the evil conditions of their lives will be remedied at the present rate of procedure; how difficult a problem it is to provide decent dwellings for the poor, in a city where neighbourhoods such as that which we have just traversed have grown like fungi, and cannot be uprooted without pain and loss which social reformers shrink from inflicting. Thinking of this, and of all that I have seen in this Royal Free Hospital, I am glad to carry away from it the picture of this child's ward and its two young nurses, though I could wish that the walls of that and all the other wards were a little brighter with more pictures, that a fresh supply of books might soon be sent to replenish the library, and that the flowers, that are so eagerly accepted to deck the tables of those poor sick rooms, and carry thither a sense of freshness, colour, and beauty, may come from the gardens and greenhouses of those who can spare of their abundance. To keep the eighty-eight beds full requires constant dependence on public contributions, and yet when we think of the work that is going on here, not the eighty-eight only, but the whole number of 102 should be ready for applicants, who would, even then, be far too numerous to be received at once in a hospital which, with a royal freedom of well-doing, sets an example that might be hopefully followed by other and wealthier charities for healing the sick.

_WITH THE PRISONER._

What is the first greeting which a convict receives when he or she is discharged from prison?

Imagine, if you can, the shivering, shrinking, bewildered feeling of the man or woman who, after, undergoing a term of penal servitude, some of it passed in hours of solitary confinement, has all this great city suddenly opened again, with its wilderness of streets, its crowd of unfamiliar faces, its tremendous temptations, its few resources for the friendless and the suspected, its great broad thoroughfares, where on every side may be seen evidences of wealth and plenty; where the tavern and the gin-shop offer a temporary solace to the wretched; and where, also, in every neighbourhood, there are evil slums in which vice finds companionship, and the career of dishonesty and crime can be resumed without difficulty or delay.

Those who have stood outside the walls of Clerkenwell or Coldbath Fields prison, and have watched the opening of the gates whence prisoners emerge into a freedom which is almost paralysing in its first effects, will tell you how the appearance of these poor wretches is greeted in low muttered tones by silent slouching men and women who await their coming. How, after very few words of encouragement and welcome, they are taken off to some adjacent public-house, there to celebrate their liberation; and how, almost before a word is spoken, the male prisoner is provided with a ready-lighted pipe from the mouth of one of his former companions, in order that he may revive his sense of freedom by the long-unaccustomed indulgence in tobacco.

I should be very sorry to cavil at these marks of sympathy. They are eminently human. They do not always mean direct temptation--that is to say, they are not necessarily intended to induce the recipient to resume the evil course which has led to a long and severe punishment. That the result should be a gradual, if not an immediate, weakening of that remorse which is too frequently sorrow for having incurred the penalty rather than repentance of the sin that led to it, is obvious enough; but what else is to be expected? Not many men or women come out of gaol with a very robust morality. Without entering into the question how far our present system of prison discipline and management is calculated to influence the moral nature of culprits who are under punishments for various crimes, scarcely ever classified, and never regarded in relation to the particular circumstances under which they are committed or the character and disposition, the social status, or the mental and moral condition of the offender, it may be broadly and barely stated that our penal legislation is not effectual in promoting the reclamation of the criminal.

Even if some determination to begin life anew, to avoid associations that have led to infamy and disgrace to accept any labour anywhere in order to obtain an honest subsistence, has been working in the mind of a convict during the period of imprisonment, and under the advice and remonstrance of the chaplain and the governor, what is to sustain such half-formed resolutions? Supposing even that the discharged prisoner has been so amenable to the regulations of the gaol that he or she has had placed to the credit account that weekly "good-conduct money," which, when the term of punishment has ended, amounts to a sum sufficient to provide for immediate necessities, where is employment to be looked for? In what quarter is the owner of a few shillings--which may have to last a week or more--to seek a lodging and a meal, and that companionship which must be one of the keenest longings of the newly-released and yet solitary and half-dazed creature, who is ready to receive with grateful avidity any friendly greeting that promises relief from the long monotony of the gaol?

Surely, then, there can be few conditions which appeal more forcibly to Christian beneficence than that of the captive who is released after having undergone a sentence of penal servitude, part of which has been passed in solitary confinement. Whatever may have been the impressions made upon the mind during the period of punishment, and the influence exercised by instruction or exhortation, the very fact of regaining liberty, the excitement of freedom, and the uncertainty of the first steps a man or woman is to take outside the prison walls, will always involve a danger, before which a very large proportion of released convicts will succumb.

What, then, is being done in order to extend a helping hand to these, who are among the most destitute and unfortunate; who, even if they have relatives, may be ashamed to seek their aid, or are doubtful of the reception that awaits them, while the only companionship which they can claim at once, and without question, is that which will surround them with almost irresistible incentives to a lawless life?

In the very centre of this vast metropolis, at the point where its great highways converge, and yet in a modest quiet house standing a little back from the roar and turmoil of the main street, we shall find what we seek. Here, on the doorpost of No. 39, Charing Cross, is the name of "The Discharged Prisoners' Aid Society," and in two or three offices on the first floor--one of which is, in fact, a reception-room for the discharged prisoners themselves--the work for which there is such a constant and pressing need is steadily carried on, under the direction of a very distinguished committee, of whom the treasurer is the Hon. Arthur Kinnaird, and the first honorary secretary, Mr. W. Bayne Ranken, who is assisted by Mr. S. Whitbread and Mr. L. T. Cave. In looking at the names of the gentlemen who are concerned in this admirable effort, you will have noticed that some of them are also associated with other charitable organisations which we have visited together, and notably with those of that Soho district where we last joined in the musical diversions of the Newport Market Refuge. As we enter this front office at Charing Cross, we have a pleasant reminder of that occasion, for we are welcomed by the indefatigable performer on the cornet, who, when we last met him, was making "the hills resound" in the upper room of the old slaughter-house, and carrying all his juvenile military band with him in one resonant outburst of harmony that awoke the echoes as far as Seven Dials. To-day he is carrying out his ordinary secretarial and managerial duties, as officially representing the Society, about which he can give us some information worth hearing.

But there are other visitors for whom preparation has already been made in the next room--men dressed decently, and yet having a certain furtive, unaccustomed bearing, as though they were not at the moment quite used to their clothes or to public observation. Some of them are not without a truculent half-defiant expression lurking beneath their subdued demeanour; others have an open, keen outlook; and a few others, again, both in the shape of their head and the peculiar shifty expression of eye and mouth, and one might also say of hand, would at once be characterised by the experienced observer of London life as men who had "been in trouble" more than once. On the table of the front office the object which has at once attracted our attention is a perfectly new carpenter's basket containing a decent set of tools, and the man for whom it is intended will be here for it by-and-by to take it away, just as the shoemaker who has just gone out has carried with him "a kit," with which, in addition to a little stock of money, he is about to begin the world afresh, under the auspices of his friends, one of whom--either a member of the committee, or the secretary, or one of the visiting agents--will keep him in view, and give him an occasional encouraging call while he remains in the metropolitan district. If a situation should be found for him in the provinces, either the clergyman of the district, or some other friend of the Society, is informed of his previous history, and has a sincere interest in his well-doing. In no case have the London police anything whatever to do with watching or inspecting discharged prisoners under the care of the Society; and, on the other hand, it is a standing rule that where situations are found for these men and women, the employers are informed of their previous history, though any recommendation of the Society may be regarded as a strong inference that their _protégé_ is trying to redeem lost character.

It must be remembered that a report of each of those who are under the care of the Society is made at the office once a month, either by the man or woman in person, or by one of the visiting agents or correspondents of the committee of management; and that, though the police are forbidden to interfere with them, except on strong suspicion that they are about to commit a crime, the most accurate and careful record of their mode of life and conduct is kept at the offices of the Society. Should they fail to observe the regulations which the Society demands, they are liable to police surveillance instead of friendly, encouraging, and confidential visitation; and it needs scarcely be said that this liability is often of itself sufficient to make them desire to retain the aid and protection which has been extended to them.

From a long and tolerably intimate observation of the lower strata of the London population, and of the results of various methods adopted to check the progress of crime, I am convinced that what is called police surveillance, as it is conducted in this country, is altogether mischievous in relation to any probable reformation of the offender. Even if it be denied (as it has been) that it is a practice of police-constables to give to persons employing a discharged prisoner, information conveyed in such a way as to lead to the loss of employment and despair of obtaining an honest living, it is quite certain that the constant dread of being branded as a returned felon, and the hopeless dogged temper which such a condition produces, must be enormous obstacles to true reclamation. The man who could really surmount them must, whatever may have been his casual crime, be possessed of a hardy and indomitable desire for virtue which should challenge our profound respect.

But, apart from what may be called legitimate surveillance of convicts by the police, it is unfortunately notorious that members of "the force," who occupy positions as detectives, or "active and intelligent officers," employ agents of their own to bring them information, and that these agents, being men of bad character--frequently thieves--are interested for their own safety's sake in providing "charges," or "putting up cases," by conveying information of suspected persons. This is according to the old evil traditions that have descended to constables from the time of Jonathan Wild, and probably earlier; but it is obvious that where such nefarious tools are employed for obtaining evidence which will suffice to sustain a charge and convict a prisoner, there is constant danger to those who, having been once sentenced for crime, are not only peculiarly liable to be drawn into fresh offences, but are, from their position, easily made the victims of cunningly-laid traps for their re-arrest, on a suspicion that is readily endorsed, because of their previous conviction and the knowledge of all their antecedents.

It is the removal of discharged prisoners from this probability, and from the kind of interposition that forbids their return to the paths of honesty, and so actually produces "a criminal class," that is, in my opinion, the best distinction of a Society like this.

Some of the volumes of interesting records which are preserved here would probably doubtless confirm this view. Let us refer to one only, where a nobleman residing in London had engaged a butler who went to him with a very excellent character, and in whom he had the greatest confidence. Happening to have occasion to employ a detective constable on some business, his lordship was dismayed at receiving from that astute officer the intelligence that his trusted servant had once been sentenced to five years' penal servitude for some dishonest act, but had been liberated on a ticket-of-leave. Puzzled how to proceed, the nobleman had the good sense to apply for advice to this Society, where it was discovered that the representation of the detective was true enough, and that the man had been recommended to a situation by the Society itself, an intimation of his antecedents being given to the employer. In that situation he had remained for several months, without the least fault being brought against him, and he then applied for and obtained the vacant and more lucrative appointment in the family of his lordship, who, though he acknowledged he should not have engaged him had he known of his previous fault and its punishment, kept his secret, and retained him in his service, where he remained at the time of the last report, respected by the household, and faithfully fulfilling his duties.

Probably this was one of those cases where, yielding to sudden temptation, a man incurs for a single crime punishment that awakens moral resolution; and it must be remembered that there are many convicts who, while in prison they are practically undistinguished from the habitual or the repeated criminal, or from the convict of brutalised, undeveloped, or feeble moral nature, are in danger of being utterly ruined because of a single and perhaps altogether unpremeditated offence, of which they may bitterly repent. The feeling of shame, of humiliation, of doubt as to any but a cold and deterrent reception by former friends, the dread of scorn, derision, or abhorrence, may lead such men or women to abandon as hopeless any expectation of resuming their former avocations, or even of once more attaining a respectable position. To such as these the Society offers such aid as may keep them from the despondency that destroys; and in every case, even in that of the wretch who has been convicted again and again, it holds out some hope of reformation. That there is some such hope may be learned from the fact, that even thieves--"habitual criminals"--do not, as a rule, bring their own children up to dishonesty, and are often careful to conceal from them the means by which they live. The ranks of crime are not so largely augmented from the children of dishonest parents (though, of course, evil example bears its dreadful results) as from the neglected children of our great towns.

But let us see what are the means adopted by the Society for helping discharged prisoners. Of course the procedure must begin with the prisoners themselves, in so far that they must express their willingness to accept the aid offered to them, and make known their decision to the governor of the prison where they are confined, and where the rules and provisions of the Society are displayed and explained.