The weekly Anglo-African., 1859-09-24
A HOSPITAL HERO.

1t was a cold night in December, and the
wind blew along the slushy London streets;
the blazing lights in the butchers shops of
Glare Market waved about like internal
banners. The policemen stood stifly up
in the door-ways for shelter, and we, who
were snugly ensconced in the house sur
geon's room of old ST. Barnabas, were
perhaps the only people perfectly comfort
able in the parish of ST. Clement Danes.
Our party consisted of Brown, well call
him Brown of myself, and small, thin
man called Jourdan. How small and
fragile he looked, as he sat on the arm
of the old horsehair sofa, discussing with
Brown and myself question in physiol-
ogy. How red the spots grew over his
cheek bones, and how his cough ratified as
he called Muller, and Koliker, and Schroe-
der Van der Kolk to witness that he was
right and we two signally and miserably
wrong.
"Well, so be it," said l, at last. GLOW
the wind bowls. 1t must matter but lit
tie to those poor neighbors of ours under
the Adelphi archs whether their sensory
nerve fbres can be traced upward from
the posterior columns of the cord or not.
For my own part, don't believe a.
"What p shrieked Jourdan, when
Wagner has demonstrated that $3.50 i'4
"Oh please, sir" said a nurse, bounc-
ing into the room, & that man in the Top
Ward has got out of bed, and is jumpin'
mad"
"Well, make him. go back again" iH.
81 can't. sir He's got the crutch from
the patient in the next bed, and I daren't
go near him."
Heigh-ho p said Jourdan, " it's always
thus in our profession. We just taste oc-
casionally the sweets of the scientific dis
cussion, when we have to leave them for
the disgusting practical applications.
Up stairs we went, past wards where
the sufferers were forgetting in sleep the
distresses to which they would presently
awake All was quiet in the old hospital
save the howl of the wind and Jourdan's
cough. "Confound the pedantic little
chap" thought to myself, he'll waken
that operation case" One more stair to
climb, and we reached the Top-Wa 4,
where there was unusual excitement ae
patients sitting up in their beds-the poor
fellow with heart disease, the consumptive,
the dropsical patient, all watching a tall,
stalwart figure standing in flannel night
gown, with his back to the fire, leaning
with his chin on a crutch, and evidently in
deep thought. Directly he saw us, he
shouldered the said piece of timber, if not
to show how fields were won, to give us as
good a representation as circumstances
would allow of how he intended winning
the field on the prefent occasion. Whisk
came the handle over my head, as ducked
and escaped the blow.
MY good man." said Brown, now do
go into bed. Is there anything p
Whisk, came the crutch again over our
heads, and as we ducked the maniac leap
ed rapidly past us from bed to bed, gained
the door, and ere we had time to intercept
him was in the passage.
In the ceiling of the passage, just out
side this door, was trap which led out
upon the roof; it was not far from the
floor. With the activity of madness, he
leaped, caught the edge of the trap, and
was upon the roof. We looked at each
other
"Here's business" says Brown; he'll
be down into the street in twinkling, for
he'll never stand against this wind"
"What a mess ne shall get into" was
my selfish thought.
We got a pair Of steps, and getting
them, put our heads out of the trap. The
moon was shining bright, butthe wind was
shrieking through the old stacks of Chin
neys; and now and then tile detached
would slide down the roof and dropi into
the street.
"By Jove p says Brown, he must
have fallen; l can't eehim anywhere. Let
me look. All, there! Good heavens
how could he have got there, right at the
end of this pointed old roof, covered with
slippery tiles?"
Across this, in the moonlight. we could
see long shadow, and what 1 at first took
to be a chimney stalk was the mad man,
standing gazing at the moon. At each
gust of the fierce wind his body swayed as
though he would fall; but there he stood
in all the sublimity and strength of mania,
gazing at that planet whose supposed in.
huence over such unfortunates as himself
has given its name to the most awful OF
maladies. What could we dol The
nurses, the porters were assembled at the
foot of the steps. Our feeling of response
bility was intensely painful. An exclama-
ton, a sudden noise, might send that poor
wretch tumbling into the street. What