hospital which the Duchess has established in Woburn Abbey
itself. Here the old riding-school, tennis-court, and museum, which form a
large building fronting the abbey, have been turned into wards as
attractive as bright and simple colour, space, flowers, and exquisite
cleanliness can make them. The Duchess is herself the Matron in charge,
under the War Office, keeps all the records, is up at half past five in
the morning, and spends her day in the endless doing, thinking, and
contriving that such a hospital needs. Not very far away stands another
beautiful country house, rented by Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid when they
were in England. It also is a hospital, but its owner, Lord Lucas, not a
rich man, has now given it irrevocably to the nation for the use of
disabled soldiers, together with as much land as may suffice a farm colony
chosen from among them. The beautiful hospital of 250 beds at Paignton, in
North Devon, run entirely by women of American birth now resident in Great
Britain, without any financial aid from the British Government, was
another large country house given to the service of the wounded by Mr.
Singer. Lady Sheffield's hospital for 25 beds at Alderley Park is an
example of how part of a country house with all its green and restful
surroundings may be used for those who have suffered in the war, and it
has many fellows in all parts of England. Altogether about 700 country
houses, large and small, have been offered to the War Office.

But money and houses are the very least part of what the old families,
the rich manufacturers, or the educated class generally have offered to
their country in this war. Democracy has gone far with us, but it may
still be said that the young heir to a great name, to estates with which
his family has been connected for generations, and to the accumulated
"consideration" to use a French word in a French sense, which such a
position almost always carries with it--has a golden time in English
life. Difficulties that check others fall away from him; he is smiled
upon for his kindred's sake before he makes friends for his own; the
world is overkind to his virtues and blind to his faults; he enters
manhood indeed as "one of our conquerors"; and it will cost him some
trouble to throw away his advantages. Before the war such a youth was
the common butt of the Socialist orator. He was the typical "shirker"
and "loafer," while other men worked; the parasite bred from the sweat
of the