He came to himself only outside the London terminus at which he had to
arrive, when the train drew up, and a man came along for the collection
of tickets. In a half-dazed condition (which the ticket-collector
probably considered intoxication), he surrendered his ticket without a
word, and then the train went on, and presently he was on the platform,
stumbling out of the station on his way home, but no more in touch with
the people and things he passed among than a man in a dream.
What had he done? What had he done? To what a depth of misery and infamy
had he cast himself? It was impossible to sound the black bottom of it.
"_I have slain a man to my wounding; a young man to my hurt._"
The old words rose in his mind unbidden--rose and sank, rose and sank
again. He felt that the young man must be lying crushed across those
rails. And it was his doing: he had not warned the young man of his
danger; he had consented to his death, and, therefore, he had killed
him! Oh, the horror! Oh, the pity of it!
When he reached his lonely lodging it was late, and he was dull and
tired. He was conscious of having walked a long way round, and to and
fro, but where he did not know. The strain was now off his nerves, and
dull, dead misery was upon him. He mechanically undressed, and went to
bed and sank to sleep at once; but his sleep was unrefreshing: it was
troubled all the night through with alarms and terrors, with screeching
and roaring trains, and falling bodies; and when in the morning he was
fully awake, his misery settled upon him like a dense fog of death.
The morning postman brought a letter from his wife. She was in good
spirits, and the boy was improving rapidly. Then tears--bitter, bitter
tears!--came to his relief, and he sobbed in agony. What had possessed
him? What fiend of anger and hate had entered into him to make him
commit that deed? He was aghast at the atrocious possibilities of his
own nature. He felt as if he could not look in the face of his wife
again, or again venture to take her in his arms. Would she not shrink
from him with horror when she knew? And would not his boy--his little
Jim!--when he grew up (if he ever grew up) be ashamed of the father who
had so dishonoured his name?
"Oh, my God!" he cried in his misery and grief. "Let me bear the utmost
punishment of my sin, but spare them! Punish not the innocent with the
guilty! Let my dear wife and child live in peace and honour before
Thee!"
He could not eat a morsel of breakfast--he had scarcely tasted food or
drink for two whole days--and he could not rest in the lodgings. He
wandered out with his load of misery upon him. He was a man who seldom
read the newspapers, and he did not think of buying one now, nor did it
even occur to him to scan the contents-bills set outside the
newsvendors' shops. He merely wandered on and round, revolving the
horrible business that had brought him so low, and then he wandered back
in the afternoon faint with exhaustion.
When he entered the sitting-room he saw a letter set for him on the
mantelpiece. It was from his friend at Upton, and it declared with
delight that, after the stirring debate on Thursday evening, he (Murray)
had been "unanimously elected" minister. That was the most unlooked-for
stroke of retribution! To think that he had committed his sin--nay, his
crime!--in headlong wantonness! To think that at the very moment when he
had committed it he was being elected to the place which he had believed
the young man had been chosen to fill! Bitter, bitter was his punishment
beginning to be; for, of course, he could not, with the stain of crime
on his soul if not on his hands, accept the place--not even to save his
wife and child from want!
The writer further said that it was desired he (Murray) should occupy
next Sunday the pulpit which was henceforward to be his. What was to be
done? Clearly but one thing: at all costs to occupy the pulpit on Sunday
morning, to lay bare his soul to the people who had "unanimously"
invited him, and to tell them he could never more be minister either
there or elsewhere.
He sat thus with the letter in his hand, when the door opened and his
wife came in with the boy asleep in her arms: he had omitted to write to
her since Wednesday. He rose to his feet, and stood back against the
fire-place.
"Oh, my poor dear!" she cried, when she saw him. "How terribly ill you
look! Why didn't you tell me? I felt there was something wrong with you
when I had no word." She carefully laid the sleeping child on the couch
and returned to embrace her husband.
"Don't, Mary!" said he, keeping her back.
"Oh, James dear!" she said, clasping her hands. "What has gone wrong?
You look worn to death!"
"Everything's gone wrong, Mary!" he answered. "My whole life's gone
wrong!"
"What do you mean?" she asked in breathless terror. "What have you in
your hand?"
He held out to her the letter, and sat down and covered his face.
"Oh, but this is good news, James!" she exclaimed. "You are elected
minister at Upton!"
"I can't go, Mary! I can no longer be minister there or anywhere!"
"James, my darling!" She knelt beside him, and put her arms about him.
"Something has happened to you! Tell me what it is!" But he held his
peace. "Remember, my dear, that we are all the world to each other;
remember that when we were married we said we should never have any
secret from each other! Tell me your trouble, my dear!"
He could not resist her appeal: he told her the whole story.
"My poor, dear love!" she cried. "How terribly tried you have been! And
I did not know it!"
[Illustration: "DON'T, MARY!"]
"And you don't shrink from me, Mary?" said he.
"Shrink from you, my dear husband?" she demanded. "How can you ask me?
Oh, my darling!"
She kissed his hands and his face, and covered him with her love and
wept over him.
They sat in silence for a while, and then he told her what he proposed
to do. She agreed with him that that was the proper thing.
"We must do the first thing that is right, whatever may happen to
ourselves. Write and say that you do not feel you can take more than the
morning service. I'll go with you, and you shall do as you say--and the
rest is with God."
Thus it was arranged. And on Sunday morning they set off together for
Upton, leaving the boy in the care of the landlady. They had no word to
say to each other in the train, but they held close each other's hand.
They avoided greetings, and introductions, and felicitations save from
one or two by keeping close in the vestry till the hour struck, and the
attendant came to usher the minister to the pulpit. He went out and up
the pulpit stairs with a firm step, but his face was very pale, his lips
were parched, and his heart was thumping hard, till he felt as if it
would burst. The first part of the service was gone through, and the
minister rose to deliver his sermon. He gave out his text, "_And Cain
said unto the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear!'_" and
glanced round upon the congregation, who sat up wondering what was to
come of that. He repeated it, and happening to look down, saw seated
immediately below the pulpit, looking as well and self-satisfied as
usual, the young man whom he had imagined crushed in the tunnel! The
revulsion of feeling was too great; the minister put up his hand to his
head, with a cry something between sob and sigh, tottered, and fell
back!
There was a flutter and a rustle of dismay throughout the congregation.
The minister's wife was up the pulpit stairs in an instant, and she was
followed by the chairman and the young Mr. Lloyd. Between them they
carried the minister down into the vestry, where a few others presently
assembled.
"Will you run for a doctor, Mr. Lloyd?" said the chairman.
Hearing the name "Lloyd," and seeing a man in minister's attire, Mrs.
Murray guessed the truth at once.
"I think," said she, "there is no need for a doctor, my husband has only
fainted. He has been terribly worried all the year, and the last week or
two especially has told on him."
"I thought the other night," said the chairman, "that he looked ill."
"He has not been well since," said she; and she continued, turning to
Mr. Lloyd, "I believe he was the more upset that he thought an accident
had happened to you in the train, Mr. Lloyd."
"Oh," said the young man, "it was nothing. It really served me right for
leaning against a door that was unlatched. I picked myself up all
right."
The chairman and the others stared; they clearly had heard nothing of
that.
"He is coming round," said the wife. "If someone will kindly get me a
cab, I'll take him home."
* * * * *
That is the story of the unconfessed crime of the minister of Upton
Chapel, who is to-day known as a gentle, sweet, and somewhat shy man,
good to all, and especially tender and patient with all wrong-doers.
[Illustration]
_At the Children's Hospital._
[Illustration: CONVALESCENT HOME, HIGHGATE.]
"We want to move Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a
place set up on purpose for sick children; where the good doctors and
nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, touch
none but children, comfort and cure none but children."
Who does not remember that chapter in "Our Mutual Friend" in which
Charles Dickens described Johnny's removal--with his Noah's Ark and his
noble wooden steed--from the care of poor old Betty to that of the
Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond-street? Johnny is dead--he
died after bequeathing all his dear possessions, the Noah's Ark, the
gallant horse, and the yellow bird, to his little sick neighbour--and
his large-hearted creator is dead too; but the Hospital in Great
Ormond-street still exists--in a finer form than Dickens knew it--and
still receives sick children to be comforted and cured by its gentle
nurses and good doctors.
And this is how the very first Hospital for Children came to be founded.
Some fifty years ago, Dr. Charles West, a physician extremely interested
in children and their ailments, was walking with a companion along Great
Ormond-street. He stopped opposite the stately old mansion known as No.
49, which was then "to let," and said, "There! That is the future
Children's Hospital. It can be had cheap, I believe, and it is in the
midst of a district teeming with poor." The house was known to the
Doctor as one with a history. It had been the residence of a great and
kindly man--the famous Dr. Richard Mead, Court Physician to Queen Anne
and George the First, and it is described by a chronicler of the time as
a "splendidly-fitted mansion, with spacious gardens looking out into the
fields" of St. Pancras. Another notable tenant of the mansion was the
Rev. Zachary Macaulay, father of Lord Macaulay, and a co-worker with
Clarkson and Wilberforce for the abolition of slavery.
Dr. Charles West pushed his project for turning the house into a
hospital for sick children with such effect that a Provisional Committee
was formed, which held its first recorded meeting on January 30, 1850,
under the presidency of the philanthropic banker Joseph Hoare. As a
practical outcome of these and other meetings, the mansion and grounds
were bought, and the necessary alterations were made to adapt them for
their purpose. A "constitution" also was drawn up--which obtains to this
day--and in that it was set down that the object of the Hospital was
threefold:--"(1) The Medical and Surgical Treatment of Poor Children;
(2) The Attainment and Diffusion of Knowledge regarding the Diseases of
Children; and (3) The Training of Nurses for Children." So, in the
February of 1852--exactly nine-and-thirty years ago--the Hospital for
Sick Children was opened, and visitors had displayed to them the curious
sight of ailing children lying contentedly in little cots in the
splendid apartments still decorated with flowing figures and scrolls of
beautiful blue on the ceiling, and bright shepherds and shepherdesses in
the panels of the walls--rooms where the beaux and belles of Queen Anne
and King George, in wigs and buckle-shoes, in frills and furbelows, had
been wont to assemble; where the kindly Dr. Mead had learnedly discussed
with his brethren, and where Zachary Macaulay had presided at many an
anti-slavery meeting. It was, indeed, a haunted house that the poor sick
children had been carried into--haunted, however, not by hideous spirits
of darkness and crime, but by gentle memories of Christian charity and
loving-kindness.
For some time poor people were shy of the new hospital. In the first
month only eight cots were occupied out of the ten provided, and only
twenty-four out-patients were treated. The treatment of these, however,
soon told upon the people, and by and by more little patients were
brought to the door of the Hospital than could be received. The place
steadily grew in usefulness and popularity, so that in five years 1,483
little people occupied its cots, and 39,300 passed through its
out-patient department. But by 1858 the hearts of the founders and
managers misgave them; for funds had fallen so low that it was feared
the doors of the Hospital must be closed. No doubt the anxious and
terrible events of the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny had done much
to divert public attention from the claims of the little folk in 49,
Great Ormond-street, but the general tendency of even kindly people to
run after new things and then to neglect them had done more. It was then
that Charles Dickens stood the true and practical friend of the
Hospital. He was appealed to for the magic help of his pen and his
voice. He wrote about the sick children, and he spoke for them at the
annual dinner of 1858 in a speech so potent to move the heart and to
untie the purse-strings that the Hospital managers smiled again; the
number of cots was increased to 44, two additional physicians were
appointed, and No. 48 was added to No. 49, Great Ormond-street.
From that date the institution prospered and grew, till, in 1869,
Cromwell House, at the top of Highgate-hill (of which more anon) was
opened as a Convalescent Branch of the Hospital, and in 1872 the first
stone of the present building was laid by the Princess of Wales, in the
spacious garden of Number Forty-Nine. The funds, however, were
insufficient for the completion of the whole place, and until 1889 the
Hospital stood with but one wing. Extraordinary efforts were made to
collect money, with the result that last year the new wing was begun on
the site of the two "stately mansions" which had been for years the home
of the Hospital. With all this increase, and the temptation sometimes to
borrow rather than slacken in a good work, the managers have never
borrowed nor run into debt. They have steadily believed in the excellent
advice which Mr. Micawber made a present of to his young friend
Copperfield, "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen
nineteen six: result, happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure twenty pounds ought and six: result, misery"; and, as a
consequence, they are annually dependent on the voluntary contributions
of kind-hearted people who are willing to aid them to rescue ailing
little children from "the two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness."
But, in order to be interested in the work of the Hospital and its
little charges, there is nothing like a personal visit. One bitterly
cold afternoon a little while before Christmas, we kept an appointment
with the courteous Secretary, and were by him led past the uniformed
porter at the great door, and up the great staircase to the little
snuggery of Miss Hicks, the Lady Superintendent. On our way we had
glimpses through glass doors into clean, bright wards, which gave a
first impression at once cheerful and soothing, heightened by contrast
with the heavy black cold that oppressed all life out of doors. By the
Secretary we were transferred to the guidance of Miss Hicks, who has
done more than can here be told for the prosperity of the Hospital and
the completion of the building. She led us again downstairs, to begin
our tour of inspection at the very beginning--at the door of the
out-patients' department. That is opened at half-past eight every
week-day morning, and in troop crowds of poor mothers with children of
all ages up to twelve--babies in arms and toddlekins led by the hand.
They pass through a kind of turnstile and take their seats in the order
of their arrival on rows of benches in a large waiting-room, provided
with a stove, a lavatory, and a drinking-fountain, with an attendant
nurse and a woman to sell cheap, wholesome buns baked in the Hospital;
for they may have to wait all the morning before their turn arrives to
go in to the doctor, who sits from nine to twelve seeing and prescribing
for child after child; and, if the matter is very serious, sending the
poor thing on into the Hospital to occupy one of the cosy cots. All the
morning this stream of sad and ailing mothers and children trickles on
out of the waiting-room into the presence of the keen-eyed, kindly
doctor, out to the window of the great dispensary (which stretches the
whole length of the building) to take up the medicine ordered, on past a
little box on the wall, which requests the mothers to "please spare a
penny," and so out into the street again. There are two such out-patient
departments--one at either end of the great building--and there pass
through them in a year between eighteen and nineteen thousand cases,
which leave grateful casual pennies in the little wall-box to the
respectable amount of £100 a year. It does not need much arithmetic to
reckon that that means no less than 24,000 pence.
[Illustration: DAISY.]
Leaving that lower region (which is, of course, deserted when we view it
in the afternoon) we re-ascend to look at the little in-patients. From
the first ward we seek to enter we are admonished by our own senses to
turn back. We have barely looked in when the faint, sweet odour of
chloroform hanging in the air, the hiss of the antiseptic-spray machine,
and the screens placed round a cot inform us that one of the surgeons is
conducting an operation. The ward is all hushed in silence, for the
children are quick to learn that, when the big, kind-eyed doctor is
putting a little comrade to sleep in order to do some clever thing to
him to make him well, all must be as quiet as mice. There is no more
touching evidence of the trust and faith of childhood than the readiness
with which these children yield themselves to the influence of
chloroform, and surrender themselves without a pang of fear into the
careful hands of the doctor. Sometimes, when an examination or an
operation is over, there is a little flash of resentment, as in the case
of the poor boy who, after having submitted patiently to have his lungs
examined, exclaimed to the doctor, "I'll tell my mother you've been
a-squeezing of me!"
We cross to the other side and enter the ward called after Queen
Victoria. The ward is quiet, for it is one of those set apart for
medical cases. Here the poor mites of patients are almost all lying weak
and ill. On the left, not far from the door, we come upon a pretty and
piteous sight. In a cot roofed and curtained with white, save on one
side, lies a little flaxen-haired girl--a mere baby of between two and
three--named "Daisy." Her eyes are open, but she does not move when we
look at her; she only continues to cuddle to her bosom her brush and
comb, from which, the nurse tells us, she resolutely refuses to be
parted. She is ill of some kind of growths in the throat, and on the
other side of her cot stands a bronchial kettle over a spirit-lamp,
thrusting its long nozzle through the white curtain of the cot to
moisten and mollify the atmosphere breathed by the little patient. While
our artist prepares to make a sketch, we note that the baby's eyes are
fixed on the vapours from the kettle, which are curling and writhing,
and hovering and melting over her. What does she think of them? Do they
suggest to her at all, child though she is, the dimness and evanescence
of that human life which she is thus painfully beginning? Does she
wonder what it all means--her illness, the curling vapour, and the
people near her bed? Poor Daisy! There are scores of children like her
here, and tens of thousands out of doors, who suffer thus for the sins
of society and the sins of their parents. It is possible to pity her and
them without reserve, for they have done nothing to bring these
sufferings on themselves. Surely, then, their parents and society owe it
to them that all things possible should be done to set them in the way
of health.
And much is certainly done in this Hospital for Sick Children. We look
round the ward--and what we say of this ward may be understood to apply
to all--and note how architectural art and sanitary and medical skill
have done their utmost to make this as perfect a place as can be
contrived for the recovery of health. The ward is large and lofty, and
contains twenty-one cots, half of which are for boys and half for girls.
The walls have been built double, with an air space in the midst, for
the sake of warming and ventilation. The inner face of the walls is made
of glazed bricks of various colours, a pleasant shade of green being the
chief. That not only has an agreeable effect, but also ensures that no
infection or taint can be retained--and, to make that surety doubly
sure, the walls are once a month washed down with disinfectants. Every
ward has attached to it, but completely outside and isolated, a small
kitchen, a clothes-room, a bath-room, &c. These are against the several
corners of the ward, and combine to form the towers which run up in the
front and back of the building. Every ward also has a stove with double
open fireplace, which serves, not only to warm the room in the ordinary
way, but also to burn, so to say, and carry away the vitiated air, and,
moreover, to send off warm through the open iron-work surrounding it
fresh air which comes through openings in the floor from ventilating
shafts communicating with the outer atmosphere. That is what
architectural and sanitary art has done for children. And what does not
medical and nursing skill do for them? And tender human kindness, which
is as nourishing to the ailing little ones as mother's milk? It is small
reproach against poor parents to say that seldom do their children know
real childish happiness, and cleanliness, and comfort, till they are
brought into one of these wards. It is in itself an invigoration to be
gently waited upon and fed by sweet, comely young nurses, none of whom
is allowed to enter fully upon her duties till she has proved herself
fond of children and deft to manage them. And what a delight it must be
to have constantly on your bed wonderful picture-books, and on the tray
that slides along the top rails of your cot the whole animal creation
trooping out of Noah's Ark, armies of tin soldiers, and wonderful woolly
dogs with amazing barks concealed in their bowels, or--if you happen to
be a girl--dolls, dressed and undressed, of all sorts and sizes! And,
lastly, what a contrast is all this space, and light, and pure
air--which is never hot and never cold--to the low ceilings and narrow
walls, the stuffiness, and the impurity of the poor little homes from
which the children come. There, if they are unwell only, they cannot but
toss and cry and suffer on their bed, exasperate their hard-worked
mother, and drive their home-coming father forth to drown his sorrows in
the flowing bowl: here they are wrapped softly in a heavenly calm,
ministered to by skilful, tender hands, and spoken to by soft and kindly
voices: so that they wonder, and insensibly are soothed and cease to
suffer. Until he has been in a children's hospital, no one would guess
how thoughtful, and good-tempered, and contented a sick child can be
amid his strange surroundings.
But we linger too long in this ward. With a glance at the chubby,
convalescent boy, "Martin," asleep in his arm-chair before the
fire--whom we leave our artist companion to sketch--we pass upstairs to
another medical ward, which promises to be the liveliest of all; for, as
soon as we are ushered through the door, a cheery voice rings out from
somewhere near the stove:--
"Halloa, man! Ha, ha, ha!"
[Illustration: MARTIN.]
We are instantly led with a laugh to the owner of the voice, who
occupies a cot over against the fire. He is called "Freddy," and he is a
merry little chap, with dark hair, and bright twinkling eyes--so young
and yet so active that he is tethered by the waist to one of the bars at
the head of his bed lest he should fling himself out upon the floor--so
young, and yet afflicted with so old a couple of ailments. He is being
treated for "chronic asthma and bronchitis." He is a child of the slums;
he is by nature strong and merry, and--poor little chap!--he has been
brought to this pass merely by a cold steadily and ignorantly neglected.
Let us hope that "Freddy" will be cured, and that he will become a
sturdy and useful citizen, and keep ever bright the memory of his
childish experience of hospital care and tenderness.
Next to "Freddy" is another kind of boy altogether. He has evidently
been the pet of his mother at home, as he is the pet of the nurses here.
He is sitting up in his cot, playing in a serious, melancholy way with a
set of tea-things. He is very pretty. He has large eyes and a mass of
fair curls, and he looks up in a pensive way that makes the nurses call
him "Bubbles," after Sir John Millais' well-known picture-poster. He has
a knack of saying droll things with an unconscious seriousness which
makes them doubly amusing. He is shy, however, and it is difficult to
engage him in conversation. We try to wake his friendliness by
presenting him with a specimen of a common coin of the realm, but for
some time without effect. For several seconds he will bend his powerful
mind to nothing but the important matter of finding a receptacle for the
coin that will be safe, and that will at the same time constantly
exhibit it to his delighted eye. These conditions being at length
fulfilled, he condescends to listen to our questions.
Does he like being in the Hospital?
"Yes. But I'm goin' 'ome on Kismas Day. My mother's comin' for me."
We express our pleasure at the news. He looks at us with his large,
pensive eyes, and continues in the same low, slow, pensive tone:--
"Will the doctor let me? Eh? Will he let me? I've nearly finished my
medicine. Will I have to finish it all?"
We reluctantly utter the opinion that very likely he will have to
"finish it all" in order to get well enough to go home. And then after
another remark or two we turn away to look at other little patients; but
from afar we can see that the child is still deeply pondering the
question. Presently we hear the slow, pensive voice call:--
"I say!"
We go to him, and he inquires: "Is Kismas in the shops? Eh? Is there
toys and fings?"
We answer that the shops are simply overflowing with Christmas delights,
and again we retire; but by and by the slow, pensive voice again
calls:--
"I say!"
Again we return, and he says: "Will the doctor come to me on Kismas
morning and say, 'Cheer up, Tommy; you're goin' 'ome to-day?' Will he?
Eh?"
Poor little boy! Though the nurses love him, and though he loves his
nurses, he longs for his mother and the "Kismas" joys of home. And
though he looks so healthy, and has only turned three years, he has
incipient consumption, and his "Kismas" must be spent either here or in
the Convalescent Home on the top of Highgate-hill.
[Illustration: CHARLIE, ROBIN, AND CARRIE.]
It is impossible, and needless, to go round all the little beds; it is a
constant tale of children innocently and cheerfully bearing the
punishment of the neglect, the mistakes, or the sins of their parents,
or of society. Here is a mere baby suffering from tuberculosis because
it has been underfed; there, and there, and there are children, boys and
girls--girls more frequently--afflicted with chorea, or St. Vitus'
dance, because their weak nerves have been overwrought, either with
fright at home or in the streets, or with overwork or punishment at
school; and so on, and so on, runs the sad and weary tale. But, before
we leave the ward, let us note one bright and fanciful little picture,
crowning evidence of the kindness of the nurses to the children, and
even of their womanly delight in them. Near the cheerful glow of one of
the faces of the double-faced stove, in a fairy-like bassinette--a
special gift to the ward--sit "Robin" and "Carrie," two babies decked
out as an extraordinary treat in gala array of white frocks and ribbons.
These gala dresses, it must be chronicled, are bought by the nurses' own
money and made in the nurses' own time for the particular and Sunday
decoration of their little charges. On the other side of the stove sits
Charlie, a pretty little fellow, on his bed-sofa.
And so we pass on to the surgical wards; but it is much the same tale as
before. Only here the children are on the whole older, livelier, and
hungrier. We do not wish to harrow the feelings of our readers, so we
shall not take them round the cots to point out the strange and
wonderful operations the surgeons have performed. We shall but note that
the great proportion of these cases are scrofulous of some order or
other--caries, or strumous disease of the bones, or something similar;
and, finally, we shall point out one little fellow, helpless as a dry
twig, but bold as a lion, at least if his words are to be trusted. He
has caries, or decay, of the backbone. He has been operated upon, and he
is compelled to lie flat on his back always without stirring. He could
not have tackled a black-beetle, and yet one visitors' day the father of
his neighbour having somehow offended him he threatened to throw him
"out o' winder," and on another occasion he made his comrades quake by
declaring he would "fetch a big gun, and shoot every man-jack of 'em!"
But, for all his Bombastes vein, he is a patient and stoical little
chap.
[Illustration: EVA.]
There are here altogether 110 cases in five wards (there will be 200
cots when the new wing is finished), and a few infectious fever and
diphtheria cases in an isolated building in the grounds; and the cases
treated and nursed in the course of the year average 1,000. But the most
obstinate cases, we are told, are now sent to Highgate, to keep company
with the convalescents, because of the constant urgency of receiving new
patients into Great Ormond-street. To the top of Highgate-hill,
therefore, to Cromwell House, we make our way the following afternoon.
Frost and fog hang black and cold over densely-peopled London; but, as
we ascend towards Highgate, it brightens, till we reach the top of the
hill, where the air is clear, and crisp, and bracing. No finer spot than
this could have been chosen within the metropolitan boundary for a
convalescent branch of the Children's Hospital.
We are received by Miss Wilson, the Lady Superintendent of Cromwell
House, in her cosy little sitting-room; and, before we set out on our
round of the wards, we sit and hear her relate some of the legends
connected with the noble old house. It is no legend, however, but
historical fact, which connects it with the name of Oliver Cromwell. The
house was built by Cromwell for his daughter, whom he gave in marriage
to General Ireton, and it still bears evidence of the Ireton occupation.
About a house so old and associated with so formidable a name, it must
needs be there are strange stories. Miss Wilson tells us, for instance,
that immediately behind her where she sits is a panel in the wainscot
which was once movable, and which admitted to a secret staircase leading
down to an underground passage communicating with another old mansion
across the way--namely, Lauderdale House, built by an Earl of
Lauderdale, and once tenanted by the famous Nell Gwynne. Moreover,
Cromwell House contains a veritable skeleton closet, from which a
genuine skeleton was taken when the Hospital entered upon occupation. We
are promised that we shall see the outside of the closet, but no more;
because the door has been nailed up.
So we set out on our round of the Wards. It is Thursday, and therefore
there is considerable bustle; for on that day regularly come the
convalescents from Great Ormond-street. They come to stay for from three
to eight weeks, and to run wild in the large garden, and to grow fresh
roses on their cheeks, blown by the fresh air of Highgate-hill. The
average stay is six weeks, though one or two tedious cases of recovery
have been allowed to remain seven months. Difficult cases of scrofula,
however, frequently gain admittance to the Sea-Bathing Infirmary at
Margate.
The first little ward we enter (all the wards are little here: they
contain from ten to a dozen cots) is one of difficult and obstinate
cases. But here, by the fireplace, stands convalescent one of these with
her nurse--a child named "Eva," stout and ruddy, but with her head tied
up. She has had a wonderfully delicate operation performed upon her. She
had what the doctors term a "mastoid abscess" pressing upon her brain in
the neighbourhood of her ear. It was within her skull, that is to say,
but the surgeon cleverly got at it by piercing behind the ear, and so
draining it off through the ear. Some other obstinate "cases" that are
well on the way to recovery are sitting about the room in their little
arm-chairs, playing with toys or reading story picture-books. But
several obstinate ones are so obstinate that they must stay in bed. Here
is one boy who has endured excision of the hip-joint, but who is lively
enough to be still interested in the fortunes of the outside world. He
has a weight hung from his foot to keep him rigidly extended; but, as we
pass, he begs Miss Wilson to raise him for an instant that he may see
the great fire that a comrade by the window has told him is raging
across the way. She yields to his appeal, and carefully lifts him in her
arms. It is only a big fire of brushwood in Waterlow Park, but he
exclaims:--
"Oh! it's as big as a house, ain't it? They'd better get the firemen!"
And down he lies again to think how he should like to see the
fire-engine come dashing up, and to run helter-skelter after it. Poor
boy! There'll be no more running for him in this world!
Close by him is a very interesting personage, a kind of infant Achilles.
That we say, not because of his robust or warlike aspect, but because
disease has found him vulnerable only in the heel. He suffers from what
the doctors call "oscalsus."
Thus we might go round pointing out that this girl has paraplegia, and
that boy empyema; but these "blessed" words would neither instruct, nor
amuse, nor touch the heart. Let us note, however, before we pass on,
that here are two champions in their way: the champion stoic, who
absolutely enjoys being operated upon, and the champion sufferer--the
boy "Cyril"--who has endured almost as many ailments as he has lived
months, but who yet fights them all, with the help of doctor and nurse,
patiently and cheerfully.
[Illustration: CYRIL.]
And so we pass on into the other little wards, and then downstairs into
a sitting-room where the greater number of convalescents are assembled.
This room was probably the dining-room of the mansion in Cromwell's
days, and here, about the table and the fire where the children sit,
must have gathered grave and austere Puritans, and soldiers in clanking
jack-boots from among Cromwell's invincible Ironsides. Over the
fireplace is still to be seen in complete preservation General Ireton's
coat-of-arms, and between the windows are mirrors of the same date. But
we have little more than crossed the threshold when all thought of
Puritans and Ironsides is banished by a cry not unlike the laugh of a
hyena.
Our guide points out to us the utterer of the cry--a little boy sitting
up at the head of a couch against the fireplace. He is one of the very
few children who are afraid of a doctor, and he sees men there so seldom
that every man appears to him a doctor: hence his cry. We consider him
from afar off, so as not to distress him unduly; and we learn that he is
commonly known as "Dotty," partly because he is small and partly because
his wits are temporarily somewhat obscured. His chief affliction,
however, is that he has curiously crooked feet which the surgeon is
trying to set straight. Over against him, on the couch, sits a Boy of
Mystery. He is called "Harry" (there is nothing mysterious about that),
but some months ago he swallowed an old copper coin, which he still
keeps concealed somewhere in his interior. The doctors are puzzled, but
the Boy of Mystery sits unconcerned. With one final glance round and a
word to a girl who is reading "The Nursery Alice" to a younger girl, we
turn away, and the door closes upon the children.
[Illustration: DOTTY AND HARRY.]
But we cannot leave them without a final word to our readers. Of all
possible forms of charitable work there is surely none better or more
hopeful than that which is concerned with children, and especially that
which is anxious about the health of children. More than one-third of
the annual deaths in London are the unnatural deaths of innocent young
folk. "The two grim nurses, Poverty and Sickness," said Dickens in his
famous speech, "who bring these children before you, preside over their
births, rock their wretched cradles, nail down their little coffins,
pile up the earth above their graves." Have we no duty towards them as
fellow-citizens? If we pity their hard condition, and admire the
patience and fortitude with which they endure suffering, then let us
show our pity and our admiration in such practical ways as are open to
us.
[Illustration: THE GARDEN ENTRANCE: CROMWELL HOUSE.]
_Fac-simile of the Notes of a Speech by John Bright._
This month we present our readers with a curiosity--the fac-simile notes
of John Bright's famous speech on Women's Suffrage, in the House of
Commons, April 26, 1876. Mr. J. A. Bright, M.P., to whose kindness we
owe them, believes that no others by his father are extant, so that the
interest of the present is unique. To allow the reader to compare the
speech, as spoken, with the notes, we add an abstract of the _Times_
report next morning.
[Illustration]
Mr. Bright said it was with extreme reluctance that he took part in this
debate.... The Bill seemed to him based on a proposition which was
untenable, and which, he thought, was contradicted by universal
experience. (Cheers.) In fact, it was a Bill based on the assumed
hostility between the sexes. (Hear.) ... Men were represented as ruling
even to the length of tyranny, and women were represented as suffering
injustice even to the length of very degrading slavery. (Hear.) ... This
was not said of women in savage nations, but it was said of women in
general in this civilised and Christian country in which they lived. If
he looked at the population of this country, that which struck him more
than almost anything else was this--that at this moment there were
millions of men at work, sacrificing and giving up their leisure to a
life of sustained hardship, confronting peril in every shape, for the
sake of the sustenance, and the comfort and the happiness of women and
children. (Cheers.) ... The avowed object of this Bill was to enable the
women of this country to defend themselves against a Parliament of men.
(Hear.) ... There might be injustice with regard to the laws which
affected the property of married women; but was there no injustice in
the laws which affected the property of men? Had younger sons no right
to complain? (A laugh.) ... But there was another side to this question.
He would take the question of punishment. There could be no doubt
whatever that, as regards the question of punishment, there was much
greater moderation or mercy dealt out to women than to men. (Hear.) ...
In all cases of punishment judges and juries were always more lenient in
disposition to women than they were to men. He would point out to some
of those ladies who were so excited on this matter, that in cases of
breach of promise of marriage the advantage on their side seemed to be
enormous. (Laughter and cheers.) ... They almost always got a verdict,
and very often, he was satisfied, when they ought not to have got it.
(Laughter.) ... Women servants were not taxed, and men servants were
taxed.... There was an argument which told with many, and that was the
argument of equal rights.... He supposed the country had a right to
determine how it would be governed--whether by one, by few, or by many.
Honourable members told us that unless this Bill passed we should have a
class discontented.... But the great mistake was arguing that women were
a class. (Hear.) Nothing could be more monstrous or absurd than to
describe women as a class. They were not like the class of agricultural
labourers or factory workers. Who were so near the hearts of the
legislators of this country as the members of their own families?
(Cheers.) It was a scandalous and odious libel to say women were a
class, and were therefore excluded from our sympathy, and Parliament
could do no justice in regard to them. (Cheers.) ... Unfortunately for
those who argued about political wrongs, the measure excluded by far the
greatest proportion of women--viz., those who, if there were any special
qualification required for an elector, might be said to be specially
qualified. It excluded married women, though they were generally older,
more informed, and had greater interests at stake. Then it was said that
the Bill was an instalment, that it was one step in the emancipation of
women.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
If that were so, it was very odd that those most concerned in the Bill
did not appear to be aware of it, because last year there was a great
dispute on that matter.... Last year he saw a letter, signed "A Married
Claimant of the Franchise," in a newspaper, who said that a married
woman could not claim to vote as a householder, but why should she not
pay her husband a sum for her lodgings, so as to entitle her to claim
the lodger franchise? (Laughter.) ... If that Bill passed, how would
they contend against further claims? (Hear, hear.) ... And what were
they to say to those women who were to have votes until they married?
The moment the woman householder came out of church or chapel as a wife
her vote would vanish, and her husband would become the elector. (A
laugh.) It seemed to him that if they passed that Bill and went no
further, what Mr. Mill called "the subjection of women" was decreed by
the very measure intended to enfranchise them, and by the very women,
and the very party in that House, who were in favour of that Bill.
(Hear, hear.) Then again, if all men being householders had a right to
be elected, on what principle were women not also to have a right to be
elected? (Hear, hear.) Those who opposed that Bill had a right to ask
these questions, and to have an answer to them. If they were to travel
that path, let them know how far they were going, and to what it led....
If they granted that every woman, married or unmarried, was to have a
vote, the hon. member for Lincolnshire had referred to what would happen
in every house where there was a double vote. If the husband and wife
agreed, it would make no difference in the result of the election; but
if they disagreed, it would possibly introduce discord into every
family; and if there were discord between man and wife, there would
certainly be discord between the children.... In that House they had one
peculiar kind of knowledge--namely, of the penalties they paid for their
constitutional freedom.... Was it desirable to introduce their mothers,
wives, sisters, and daughters to the excitement, the turmoil, and, it
might be, the very humiliation which seemed in every country to attend a
system of Parliamentary representation? (Hear, hear.) Women were more
likely to be tainted in that way than men were. There had been some
instances of it, ever since the Municipal Act gave them votes. He knew a
place in his neighbourhood where scenes of the most shocking kind had
occurred.... In another borough in Lancashire, at an election, women--by
the hundred, he was told--but in great numbers--were seen drunk and
disgraced under the temptation offered them in the fierceness and
unscrupulousness of a political contest.... The hon. member for
Warwickshire had referred to priestly influence. On that he would only
say that the influence of the priest, the parson, and the minister would
be greatly raised if that Bill were passed. (Hear, hear.) ... Well, they
were asked to make that great change and to incur all those risks--for
what? To arm the women of this country against the men of this
country--to defend them against their husbands, their brothers, and
their sons. To him the idea had in it something strange and monstrous;
and he thought that a more baseless case had never been submitted to the
House of Commons. (Hear, hear.) If all men and women voted, the general
result must be the same; for, by an unalterable natural law, strength
was stronger than weakness, and in the end, by an absolute necessity,
men must prevail. He regretted that there should be any measure in
favour of extended suffrage to which he could not give his support; but
women would lose much of what was best in what they now possessed, and
they would gain no good of any sort, by mingling in the contests of the
polling-booths. He should vote for that measure if he were voting solely
in the interests of men; but he would vote against it with perfect
honesty, believing that in so doing he should most serve the interests
of women themselves. An honourable member who voted for the Bill last
year, in a conversation with him the next day, told him that he had very
great doubts in the matter, for he found wherever he went that all the
best women seemed to be against the measure. (Laughter and cheers.) If
the House believed that they could not legislate justly for their
mothers, their wives, their sisters, and their daughters, the House
might abdicate, and might pass that Bill. But he believed that
Parliament could not, unless it were in ignorance, be otherwise than
just to the women of this country, with whom they were so intimately
allied; and with that conviction, and having these doubts--which were
stronger even than he had been able to express--doubts also which had
only become strengthened the more he had considered the subject--he was
obliged--differing from many of those whom he cared for and loved--to
give his opposition to that Bill.
[Illustration]
_A Passion in the Desert._