ld have had a chance to do were
it not for the recreation rooms. It is within the writer's knowledge
that the medical staff of the hospital, on being consulted as to the
"bed value" of the recreation rooms, unanimously agreed that their
existence reduced the average sojourn of the hospital's inmates by a
definite "per day" ratio: that ratio, so far from showing a bed-space
waste, worked out at a per-annum gain of bed-space equivalent to a
ward--if such a colossal ward could conceived!--of upwards of 300 beds.
So much for a point which might not appear to be worth detailed
explanation, but which has here been glanced at in order that critics
(for, unbelievable though it sounds, there have been curmudgeons to
growl of spoiling the wounded by too much pleasure) may be answered in
advance. The recreation rooms are a paying investment both to the
hospital and to the State. This is our trump card in any "spoiling the
wounded" controversy--though I dare say that most of us would not, in
any case, care twopence whether the concerts and films and billiards
were an investment or an extravagance: nothing would stand in the way of
our ambition to provide the now proverbial "good time" for all the
guests of the 3rd London.

Scores of concerts of an excellence which would have been noteworthy
anywhere have been presented to our assemblages of wounded in the Old
Rec. Singers, musicians, actors and actresses have come and given of
their best. Miss Hullah's Music in War Time Committee (that delightful
body), and Mr. Howard Williams's parties, are perhaps our greatest
regular standbys. Certain sections of the public know Mr. Howard
Williams's name as a famous one in other fields of activity: to
thousands of soldiers it is honoured as that of the man who tirelessly
organised scrumptious tea-parties, pierrot shows, exhibition boxing
contests, nigger troupe entertainments--a list of jollifications,
indoors in winter and in the open air in summer, infinite in variety and
guaranteed never once to fall flat. A curious Empire reputation, this of
Mr. Williams!

Yesterday, for instance, a nigger troupe visited the hospital. To be
exact, they were the Metropolitan Police Minstrels ("By Permission of
Sir E.R. Henry, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., C.S.I., Commissioner"); but no member
of the audience, I imagine, could picture those jocose blackamoors, with
their tambourines and bones, as really being anything so serious as
traffic-controlling constables. That