y strange surroundings as the average poor man
or woman. (Children get on much better.) Very likely he has never been
alone, has never slept away from some relative or friend, the whole of
his life. The unfamiliarity and precise routine of hospitals, the faces
and ways all strange, are capable not only of greatly intensifying a
man's sufferings, but even of retarding his recovery.

Hospitals must necessarily be governed by two main conditions:--(1) The
need of doing the greatest good to the greatest number; (2) The
advancement of medical science and experience. Under (1) the
overpressure on medical skill and time is bound to diminish tact and
sympathy. Under (2) the serious or interesting cases are apt--as
everyone who has mixed with hospital staffs knows very well--to receive
attention not disproportionate to the nature of the malady, but
disproportionate to the bodily, and particularly to the mental,
suffering. The poor man can appreciate sympathy better than skill. He
may not know how ill he is, but he knows how much he suffers. He is
quick to detect and to resent preferential treatment. From the point of
view of the independent poor, hospitals are far from what they might
be. They are last straws for drowning men, useful sometimes, but best
avoided.[17]

[17] I trust I make it plain that these statements imply no
general disparagement of hospitals. Whether or no they do the
best possible under the circumstances is not to be discussed
shortly or by the present writer. Since penning the above, it has
fallen to me to take a patient to the out-department of one of
the great London hospitals. We had some time to wait, with very
many others, on long wooden benches. I cannot express the almost
unbearable depression, the sense of ebbing vitality, the feeling
of being jammed in a machine, which took possession of me, who
was quite well. And I wish I could adequately express my
admiration of the visiting surgeon's manipulation of his delicate
instruments and his management of the patient.

[Sidenote: _JACKS THE RIPPER_]

Jacks is a very energetic young country surgeon. He is keen on his work
and will procure admission to the hospital for any operative case. But
he finds it by no means easy to get his patients there; for he is so
keen on his work that he treats their feelings carelessly; hustles them
through an operation; pooh-poohs their fear of anaes