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impossible to them in their own narrow dwellings.

All hospitals began with Christ, and belong to Christianity. The Greeks looked with contempt upon physical weakness, and other nations of antiquity thought it beneath them to make provision for the sick and infirm. But the Nazarene and His dis-

horrible spot on the pavement baptized by the blood of a man who has fallen from a scaffolding aloft, out of a window, or through one of the trap-doors by which goods are hoisted into the lofts of the stores. "Give him air!" some cry, but the crowd hedges him in with morbid curiosity, only a few of the weaker ones turning aside with pale

A STREET ACCIDENT.

ciples taught men to compassionate suffering, and as the Church increased in wealth and influence, hospitals were founded—in the first place as houses for the shelter or refreshment of travellers, especially pilgrims, according to the Latin meaning of their name; and it was only with the multiplication of inns that they assumed their distinctive character as refugees for invalids.

The second of the two beginnings to the hospitals of New York that we spoke of above is in an episode with which all who walk the city streets must be familiar. There is a crash, a scream, a dull thud, and a crowd that momentarily chokes the traffic of the busy thoroughfare, the cause being an accident. The crowd presses around the

faces. He lies there huddled up and deathly white, as though all the bones in his body were broken; his eyes are filmed and opaque, and his mouth is rimmed with blood. A telegram sent from the nearest police station brings an ambulance, which dashes up to the spot from the nearest hospital. The surgeon quickly binds the fractured limbs between splints; and while the crowd gapes with wonder and admiration at the dexterity and system, the sufferer is gently lifted into the vehicle and driven away. Such is the practical and beneficent beginning of the New York hospitals to the hapless thousands who are annually maimed in the turmoil of the city streets.

For the purposes of ambulance service

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PRIVATE PATIENT'S ROOM, NEW YORK HOSPITAL.

the city is divided into three police telegraph districts, an independent wire connecting all the precincts with the hospitals that are provided with ambulances. These are the New York and Roosevelt hospitals on the west side, and the Bellevue Hospital on the east side. The New York has two ambulances, one stationed at the House of Relief in Chambers Street, and the other at the hospital in Fifteenth Street; the Roosevelt has one, stationed at the hospital in Fifty-ninth Street; and the Bellevue has several. When an accident is reported at a police station, it is immediately announced by telegraph to the hospital of the district, and an idea of what usually happens then may be gleaned from the following account of our personal experience.

We were loitering one morning last January in the apothecary's shop of the New York Hospital, which, besides the long rows of shelves filled with glass jars and bottles, contains a dial instrument, whose imperative tinkling suddenly put an end to our conversation. "The ambulance is wanted in Eighteenth Street," the surgeon in charge explained; and though his name was Slaughter—an obviously unfortunate one for an Esculapian—he proved himself to be one of the tenderest men that ever touched a wound. The apothecary's shop is in the basement, and from it a door opens upon a court-yard, at one side of which is a stable. A well-kept horse was quickly harnessed to the ambulance; and as the surgeon took his seat behind, having first put on a jaunty uniform

cap with gold lettering, the driver sprang on to the box, where we had already placed ourselves, and with a sharp crack of the whip we rolled off the smooth asphalt of the courtyard into the street. Our speed was only pardonable in view of its object. As we swept around the corners and dashed over the crossings, both doctor and driver kept up a sharp cry of warning to the pedestrians, who darted out of our way with haste, or nervously retreated to the curb, looking after us with faces expressive of indignant remonstrance, until they discovered by the gilt lettering on the panels what our vehicle was. The surliest car-drivers and the most aggressive of truckmen gave us the right of way, and pulled up or aside to afford us passage. People in a hurry stopped to look after us, and strove on tiptoe to discover whether or not we had a passenger. We rattled over the uneven cobble-stones of West Eighteenth Street, and at No. 225, where there is an iron gate before an alley-way with a small house at the end, an old man appeared and hailed us. We alighted, and followed him into the front-room on the ground-floor, the doctor carrying his instruments under his arm.

The case was not very serious. The occupant of the tenement, an old laborer, had slipped in entering, and fractured his leg a short distance above the ankle. The room served as kitchen and parlor for him and his wife, who began to whimper as soon as she saw the doctor, and refused to be comforted, with a determination worthy of a

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diately necessary, Mary smiled at last, and tidied her husband's dress before he was lifted by two burly policemen on to the stretcher, which had been brought from the ambulance into the outer room.

The stretcher, like all the appliances of the ambulance, is mercifully ingenious, and devised with the object of giving the sufferer the least possible pain in transportation. It consists simply of a strip of canvas about three feet wide and seven feet long, with a tube at each side, through which the wooden poles for carrying it are slipped. The poles are braced at each end of the canvas by iron cross-bars, which are easily detached; and the beauty of the whole arrangement is that it obviates the necessity of disturbing the patient again on his arrival at the hospital, the stretcher being put upon the bed and the poles being withdrawn.

A light mattress and several blankets were spread over the canvas, and the old man was tucked in as snugly as a baby in a crib. "Good-by, Mrs. Murphy," he cried to a neighbor who had come in as the police-men were bearing him to the ambulance.

"Good-by, Mr. Sullivan, and it's sorry I am to see ye l'avin' in this way," whereupon the wife burst into fresh tears.

The ambulance had been backed up to the curb, and the tail-board removed. We now discovered that it had two bottoms, and the upper one, which was softly padded, had been drawn off on caster wheels so that it slanted from the end of the vehicle to the sidewalk. The padding was luxuriously yielding, and when the stretcher had been placed upon it, it was pushed into the ambulance, and the tail-board closed upon it. The doctor took his seat behind, and, as we drove off, a voice came from the blankets: "May I ta-ake another draw, doctor?" Assent being given, the blue wreaths of Mr. Sullivan's tobacco rolled upward from the blankets until we trotted under the archway of the hospital and pulled up before the door of the receiving ward, where two orderlies drew the stretcher out and deposited it on a bed in the manner previously described, while Dr. Slaughter reported the case to the house surgeon, who was thence responsible for it.

All cases of casualty are received at the New York Hospital and treated gratuitously if the patient's circumstances require it, although a small sum per week for board is usually expected and paid. The hospital building is probably the most luxurious one in the world, and its administration is as nearly perfect as is possible. It is seven stories high, with a Mansard-roof, and has accommodations for about two hundred patients with their attendants. It has a frontage on Fifteenth Street of 175 feet, and it extends through the block to Sixteenth Street, Sixth Avenue bounding it on the

west and Fifth Avenue on the east. Stone, iron, and red brick are prominent materials in the façade, the many windows of which look out upon ornamental balconies. The rear is formed by the old Thorn mansion, one of the largest and handsomest dwelling-houses in the city, which is now used as a residence for the superintendent, a library, and an office, the library containing some 15,000 volumes, besides an important general collection of specimens and a fine pathological cabinet. The water used is partly supplied by Croton pipes and partly by an Artesian well. The heating is done by steam. Near the roof there is a large fan, driven by steam, which compels a draught of fresh air through the building, and, when necessary, the air can be warmed before circulation by passing over hot pipes in the basement. All the kitchens and laundries are in the uppermost stories above the wards, and non-absorbent materials have been used in the walls and floors, with a view to the prevention of the poisons generated by some diseases. The whole structure is as nearly fire-proof as possible; the only wood-work is in the doors and windows; the floors are made of tiles laid in cement on iron girders, and the wainscoting is marble. All parts are connected by the inarticulate speech of electric signal bells, and two elevators run from basement to attic. It is avowed that while no attempt at magnificence has been made, the utmost care has been taken to make every part complete, substantial, and harmonious; but the directors are too modest in this: their establishment is magnificent in itself, in its worth, and in its aims.

As we entered the anteroom to the superintendent's office a mournful old Irishwoman was making an application for the admission of her husband, the driver of a coal cart, who had fallen from his seat and been crushed under the wheels. Several other faded and shabby women, all of them Irish, were waiting for an audience, some shedding tears and moaning with the fusion of grief that characterizes their race. Indeed, were it not for the never-ending misfortunes of the Irish, most of the hospitals would have many empty wards, as that nationality contributes a majority of the cases treated.

"There's not wan thing in the building that is not good enough for a church," said the orderly—he, too, was Irish—who became our guide. And as we went along the spacious corridors and through the lofty wards, the disclaimer of magnificence seemed unreasonable. Even such minor details as the designs of the tiles and the gas-fixtures are artistic, and the sunlight streams in every where and carries its golden cheer and revivifying warmth to the pale faces and wasted bodies set in the little cots along

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179

ty, the semi-criminal, starving, unwelcome
class, who suffer and die unrecognized, and
to whom charity at the best is cold and me-
chanical. This is a large and increasing
constituency in New York city, where the
word panoper is acquiring the dread signifi-
cance and suggestion of hopeless misery
that it has in Great Britain; and the wards
are filled with wasted souls drifting through
the agonies of disease toward unpitied and
unremembered deaths, with no tenderer
hand to clasp at the parting than that of
the strange nurse, who has grown callous
through long familiarity with such experi-
ences. Many of the patients lie for months
without receiving one friendly call except
from the colporteur, the priest, or the ladies
of the Flower Mission—lie and wait with the
carelessness of result that makes the days
blank and the future a matter of indiffer-
ence. There is no luxury here; not much
gentleness. The building was built for an
almshouse or prison some fifty years ago,

Twenty-seventh streets, and covers the
whole block between them, First Avenue,
and the East River. The river ebbing and
flowing, shining and rippling in the sun,
and bestirred by traffic, cheers the situa-
tion, and a few trees and a patch of grass—
all that is left of the wide fields that once
swept up to Murray Hill—soften the granite
austerity of the eastern front. But Belle-
vue is still forbidding. A high brick wall
isolates it from the thoroughfares. There
is one medical college just within the
boundaries, and another just outside. The
windows of the dissecting-rooms shine until
late hours in the night, for there is no scar-
city of subjects in colleges which reap the
harvest of a charity hospital. And at one
end of the dispensary for the out-door poor,
which is under the college within the
grounds, two downward steps lead into a
low-roofed building, over the entrance of
which hangs a dingy lamp inscribed with
black letters, "The Morgue." The room

A GAME OF DOMINOES, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.

and its ponderous dull gray mass of granite
is sullen-looking and unadapted to its uses.
The New York Hospital, with its sunny win-
dows facing the south, and its pleasant sur-
roundings, is less than a mile away; but to
reach Bellevue we have to cross a district
of tenement-houses, plentifully dotted with
shabby little stores and corner groggeries,
where the garbage is piled up in the streets,
the men are idle, the women slatternly, and
the children as nearly nude as the weather
permits. It is between Twenty-sixth and

within contains five marble slabs behind a
glass partition, with sprays of water falling
over them. The dead-house is close by,
and several times a week the funereal little
steamer bears the unlettered coffins away
to Potter's Field. It was a cold November
morning when we last saw her leave the
wharf, and the fog in which she was soon
hidden symbolized the unrecorded lives,
the cheerless deaths, and the unattended
graves of her load. Suspicious-looking men
and untidy women haunt the neighborhood,

180

attracted to it by the morbid curiosity of their diseased minds, and it may occur to them that if they do not die in prison, their death-beds will be here, or in the Charity Hospital on Blackwell's Island, which is visible from the grounds of Bellevue.

The lawn is a favorite resort of the convalescents, who hobble about the paths on crutches in fair weather, or sun themselves on the benches, and even venture to cast a line into the river with the hope of insnaring the fish. Each floor of the main building is traced by a light iron balcony; and here too, when the wind is not bleak nor the atmosphere moist, the better patients gather—the men smoking their pipes, and the women sewing or reading. The movement of the river is soothing and restorative; the sailing vessels trading in Long Island Sound glide to and fro, and the big white passenger steamers plough majestically by like moving palaces.

The activity at Bellevue has no end. The keeper of the lodge at the entrance is continually besought for admission, and so worried by impossible requests that one can pardon his shortness of temper. Young doctors and older professors enter unchallenged; the white ambulances are constantly busy, rolling out on summons, and quickly coming back with new cases; a woman begs to see her sick husband, and has brought some little delicacy with her, but it is after the visiting hour, and because she can not be admitted she goes away weeping, with a dull heart that speaks in her homely face; other visitors, who are more fortunate, are promenading the flags under the gloomy front of the hospital, and supporting the invalids they have come to see—here a pale old man, the human counterpart of a broken reed, is clutching the hand of his little granddaughter, as though life with all its pains is precious to him while that responsive grasp remains; a crippled workman leans heavily on the arm of his wife, who looks anxiously into his face at every step to gauge his suffering; a mother helps her sick daughter along, and a poor fellow who has lost both legs watches them with curiously wistful face, as though he was pining for the day that would bring him his visitors. The picture has many changes, no reverse: it is pain, anguish, or death always. If the spectator is cynical, his morbidity is enlarged; but if, without being an optimist, he can look at it with clear eyes, its gloom and sadness are relieved by a glimpse of the tenderness that blossoms in the hearts of the commonest poor.

Some steps lead to the main entrance, and underneath them is a passage by which the ambulance cases are admitted, a groan telling us that one is at the portals the moment we ascend. The wide hall is flagged and whitened. The warden's office is at one

side, with the bright, horribly suggestive surgical instruments stored in glass cases against its walls, and at the other side is the room of the Medical Board, where one of the college classes is assembled. The professor is one of the most eminent surgeons in the world, and is relating some amusing incidents of his early career previous to making the round of the wards. He is a great favorite with the students, and a very prominent member of the faculty. Some thirty-five or forty years ago he came to the metropolis from Kentucky, a rough-and-ready lad, at whom the college authorities looked doubtingly. To-day a small diary carried in his breast pocket is overrun with engagements, and distinguished people travel hundreds of miles to consult him. He works the year round, sparing himself only one week's recreation in the Maine woods at midsummer; but with all his powers of endurance and industry of habits, he can not find time to treat all who would be benefited by his wonderful skill. Prodigious fees are offered to him by the wealthy, and if he worked for gain alone, a little labor would bring him a large income. But he is not regulated by the inhuman supply and demand doctrine. Two cases are presented to him: one, acute, of a charity patient, offering him next to nothing in pecuniary reward, and the other, not dangerous, of a rich man, offering him a splendid fee. If he can not attend to both, he gives his services where they are most required. Physically he is huge of bulk and loud in voice, with a manner striking for its bonhomie. Inspiration is carried to the sick-room by his voice, brusque as it is, and his presence is a stimulant to the pining cripple, bringing with it the invigoration of a southern breeze. The most objectionable thing about him is the grip he gives one's hand in greeting, making the fingers, the palm, and the whole length of the arm quiver for half an hour afterward with such agony that whenever a fellow-member of the faculty sees him approaching, he dives his hands into his pockets and imploringly cries, "Oh, don't, doctor, don't!" It would be unreasonable to say of such a man that he is not proud of himself, his work, and his methods; on the contrary, he talks of them freely, and he is never more entertaining than when he is doing so, or uttering fierce denunciations of "old women" in their practice of surgery and therapeutics. The class is in a roar of laughter over some joke when we enter; but the doctor's cigar is almost burned out, and that means more serious matters.

We pass with the class from ward to ward and from cot to cot, the doctor treating the patients with a heartiness that forces an evanescent smile to the saddest faces, and explaining the cases and operations to the class with so much perspicuity and sim-

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181

plicity that the thickest-headed student
would have unimaginable difficulty in not
understanding. A mite of a boy is sitting in
a big chair by himself, a Tiny Tim of a boy,
with large, liquid eyes, the whitest of faces,

the doctor, whose hands are almost as large
as the child's body; he is a sufferer from an
obscure disease of a joint, and was brought
to the hospital as an incurable case. The
doctor's specialty is diseases of the joints,

TAKING AN AIRING, BELLEVUE HOSPITAL.

and the sunkenest of cheeks. "How are
you to-day, Sir?" the doctor inquires, in a
tremendous tone, that makes the piping
answer sound ridiculously small. "Pretty
well, thank you, Sir." "Can you walk?"
"I guess so, Sir;" and the second answer is
in a still shriller key, for the voice has not
yet recovered from the exhaustion of the
first. Tiny Tim is lifted out of his chair by

and by that pre-eminent skill which has
cheated death many a time he has saved
the child's life. Tim limps across the floor
and back again, the longest journey that he
has made out of the nurse's arms for some
months; a faint flush and a smile of satis-
faction lighten his face as he climbs into the
chair again. He is out of breath, but when
the doctor asks if the exertion hurt him,

182

he readily answers, "Not a bit, Sir." "Now, gentlemen," says the doctor to his class, taking the repaired limb in his hand, "this is a very—" But we are not reporting the doctor's lectures. We stand by the bedside of a woman whose life is ebbing away under the strain of a cancer, and here our good Samaritan speaks more cheering words—the most he can do, for the case is irremediable. One of the white-capped nurses of the training school is watching the patient; she is a fair, wholesome-looking girl, intelligent, neatly dressed, and agreeable in manner. We ask her if there is much extreme suffering in the ward. "That is our worst case," she says, pointing to the woman by whom the doctor and his class are standing; "the poor thing has been here eighteen months without any hope of recovery. No one has been to see her—no relative or friend—in all that time." "Can she last much longer?" "Not more than three months; she is anxious for death, and prays for it." At this moment we feel that the glassy eyes of the sufferer are bearing upon us; her face is colorless, and her lips are pursed as though she desired to hold back the low moan that escapes them. Is not the sight enough to convert one to the doctrine of legalized suicide by proxy, or any scheme of euthanasia? On the next bed a wrinkled and very thin old woman is muttering deliciously and sometimes inaudibly; she is over seventy years of age, and hers too is a fatal case. The nurse is young, pretty, and blooming, and her appearance of health and cheerfulness in the midst of pallid disease seems almost out of place. Is it a consecrated life, the sacrificial impulse of religious fervor? No; her motive is the earning of a livelihood, and she is the pupil of an institution which has opened a new and practicable field of work for American women.

The Training School for Nurses, which now possesses a substantial brick building as a residence in Twenty-sixth Street, opposite the hospital, was opened in May, 1873, to instruct intelligent women in hospital and private nursing. It began with a lady superintendent and a staff of six nurses, whose number has now increased to fifty-six, thirty-eight being actively employed at Bellevue, and three at the Emergency Hospital. Many difficulties were experienced at the start, and though the committee in charge advertised and applied to physicians for aid, four women only were found capable of acting as head nurses, one of whom was soon discharged for inefficiency. Out of seventy-three applicants for admission to the school many were totally unfitted by mental incapacity, others by physical weakness, and a large number withdrew because they would not spend two years in learning the profession. Accepting twenty-nine probationers, the committee was com-

pelled to dismiss three on account of ill health, five on account of inefficiency, and two on account of family claims upon them, leaving nineteen, who succeeded, and proved the advantages of the school to themselves in affording them profitable employment, and to humanity generally in fitting intelligent women to become positive helps in the hospital and sick-room. The requirements of the committee are exacting. Pupils must be from twenty-one to thirty-five years of age, unmarried, obedient, amiable, steadfast in purpose, in good health, having no kind of infirmity, neither deafness nor dimness of vision, and quick in observation. The candidates having assured the committee of their excellence in these virtues, are admitted to the school on probation for one month, being boarded and lodged without expense, but not paid, and at the expiration of that period they engage themselves for a two years' course of instruction and service, with salary, provided they are satisfactory. The course includes lectures on the diseases of children, obstetrics, eruptive fevers, ventilation and bathing, hemorrhages and the circulation of the blood, arteries, respiration and temperature, superficial anatomy and uterine appliances—all of which are given by able physicians and surgeons. Lessons also are given in bandaging, in general ward work, in the management of a sick-room, and in physiology. At the end of the first year an examination of the pupils is held, and at the end of the second year diplomas are issued to those entitled to them. The primary object of the founders was to improve the nursing in public hospitals, and no one can say that improvement was unnecessary, or that it has not been effected. Previous to the opening of the school, Bellevue was a very much mismanaged institution; three patients sometimes slept on two beds, five patients on three beds, and it happened now and then that they slept on the floor. During two weeks of January, 1876, there was no soap in the hospital, and not enough clothing; many patients had neither pillows nor blankets, and forty-eight per cent. of the amputations made proved fatal, owing, no doubt, to the poison in the walls. But the worst feature was the character of the nurses, who were profane, ignorant, careless, heartless, and in most cases utterly unfitted for their positions. We look back with extreme pity to the patients who were immured in the hospital, and dragged through their illness to a long-deferred recovery, or hurried to an avertable death, at that period. The introduction of the young, intelligent, kindly nurses of the training school into the female wards, and a closer supervision of the orderlies in the male wards, have brought about a change for the better, however, and it is now possible to

HOSPITAL LIFE IN NEW YORK.

183

visit the hospital without having our in-
stincts of humanity shocked. Instead of
the untidy and often brutal creatures of
old, such women as she to whom we spoke,
gentle in manner and good to look upon,
minister to the sufferers, who, paupers
though they are, have claims that are elo-
quent from their helplessness. The ivy
weaving its disks of green around the win-
dows, the illuminated mottoes on the walls,
the little odds and ends for diversion and
recreation visible where the patients are
most loathsome or least interesting, are
testimony of the beneficence of the new era.

But the doctor has gone with his class,
and we do not find him again until the clin-

the walls. As often as the nurse moves, the
children who are up follow her and cling to
her skirts, or take her hand with demonstra-
tions of the greatest affection—something
that was probably never seen in Bellevue
before the training school began to send its
pupils there. But the air is not sweet, and
we seek the outer space, where the shadows
are falling upon the lawn, and the river is
shining and tossing in rebellion against the
traffic. What we have seen seems like a
dream, but it is as great a reality as the
granite mass which contains it and looms
above us.

Not the least interesting thing about
Bellevue is the number which it accommo-

MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL.

ic is over, and he is discussing with the stu-
dents in a familiar but earnest manner some
of the cases that they have seen. Many
picturesque incidents appeal to us as we
trace him through the wards and the close
corridors, which show the unsuitability of
the building for hospital purposes, the walls
being thick enough for a prison, the roof
low, and the ventilation insufficient. The
door of the private room of one of the house
staff is open, and several young physicians
within, stretched out on lounges or easy-
chairs, and obscuring themselves in tobacco
smoke, are in debate about one of the morn-
ing operations; it is a very pleasant little
apartment, with plenty of books, pictures,
and possibly a skeleton in a closet. Some
men with empty sleeves, bandaged heads,
and pale faces are playing dominoes at a
long table in one of the wards, but even so
slight an exertion seems too much for them,
and they sigh wearily; and in one of the cots
a man whose large frame has lost flesh and
strength is propped up with pillows, and is
writing a letter home with palsied fingers.
Christmas is not yet quite over in the chil-
dren's ward; toys are lying on the floor, and
the evergreen festoons are still hung against

dates. In 1876 the total number of patients
admitted was 5165, the total number dis-
charged was 4313, and the total number of
deaths was 698. Subdivided by national-
ity, 2215 patients—the greatest number—
were Irish, 1680 Americans, 595 Germans, 256
English, and 56 French. The mortality for
1876 was at the rate of twelve and one-half
per cent. The hospital is under the direc-
tion of the Commissioners of Charities and
Correction, who also control a Reception
Hospital at Ninety-ninth Street, with a ca-
pacity for 20 beds; the Charity Hospital, on
Blackwell's Island, with a capacity for 790
beds; the Fever, Epileptic, and Paralytic
Hospital on Blackwell's Island, with 70 beds;
the Incurable Hospital, with 180 beds; the
Homœopathic Hospital on Ward's Island,
with 650 beds; the Hart's Island Hospital
for Convalescents, with 326 beds; the Nurs-
ery Hospital, with 208 beds; and the In-
fants' Hospital on Randall's Island, with 450
beds. All of these are free, and their total
capacity is for 4986 patients.

The most we can do within the limited
space of a magazine article is to select for
description those hospitals which are rep-
resentative; and thus, as the New York is

184

noteworthy for its magnificence, and Belle-
vue for its extent, St. Luke's projects itself
as the one having the most home-like quali-
ties. The principle under which it is gov-
erned gives it a unique position, the charac-
ter of a family being maintained as far as is
possible in a public institution. There is
a house father, or superintendent, a house
mother, or matron, and a Protestant sister-

riam of lost relatives, a gift of $5000 endow-
ing a bed in perpetuity, and $3000 endow-
ing one during the life of the donor.

The building is situated in the aristó-
cratic Fifth Avenue, at the northwest corner
of Fifty-fourth Street, in the midst of fash-
ionable dwellings, and within a stone's-
throw of Central Park. The front faces
the south, and is separated from the streets

SHAKING HANDS WITH THE HOUSE FATHER AT ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL—CHILDREN'S WARD.

hood, the members of which act as nurses,
and are supported by their order independ-
ently of the hospital funds, while the rela-
tions between physicians, surgeons, and pa-
tients are much the same as they would be
in any private household. The founder
of the hospital and the originator of the
scheme was the late Rev. Dr. Muhlenberg,
who, until his death, was the house father
and an untiring devotee of the institution,
spreading its reputation by his many kind-
nesses, and making it a great success,
though it began with so small a collection
as thirty dollars, made one Sunday in his
Church of the Holy Communion. In ambu-
lance cases the sufferer is allowed to choose
a hospital, and a large proportion favor St.
Luke's. Seven dollars a week are charged
for board when the beneficiary can afford
it, but of the 1134 cases treated in 1876-77,
891 were gratuitous, 492 were American,
290 Irish, 181 English or Scotch, and 157
Germans or citizens of other countries.
Many of the beds are endowed by church
societies and private individuals in memo-

by an inclosed garden, with an ample lawn
and some large shade trees and shrubbery.
The material is brick painted a modest
drab, and the architectural design includes
a central chapel, with wards and corridors
extending longitudinally from it. The
chapel is abundantly lighted and venti-
lated, and becomes a reservoir of fresh air,
which flows into the corridors, wards, and
stairways, and circulates through the house.
There are six wards—one for boys, one for
men's medical cases, one for men's surgical,
one for women's medical, one for women's
surgical, and one for children. The chil-
dren's ward is very pretty, and not unpleasant
to visit, despite the wan faces of its little
occupants, and the history it gives of
pain blighting life in its very infancy. The
sunshine floods the long room; bright green
vines twine lovingly around the windows;
autumn leaves have been combined in taste-
ful designs on the walls by women's hands,
which have left their dainty impress in all
the wards; the cheering words of the New
Testament are emblazoned in illuminated

HOSPITAL LIFE IN NEW YORK.

185

letters over the cots, and toys are scattered
on the floor in an enviable profusion—toys,
"the alphabet of life, through which chil-
dren learn what poetry, what passion, and
what property mean," as a clever anony-
mous writer has said. The picturesqueness
of the effect is heightened by the gay
little jackets worn by the patients—the
scarlets, blues, and pinks, which must
make some of the poor little creatures
vain for the first time in their lives. A
good sister is reading the marvellous
history of "Jack and the Bean-Stalk,"
illustrated with gorgeous chromo-litho-
graphs, to a tiny cripple, who lies in
his cot with his eyes dilating and his
hands clutched as his mind intently
follows the growth of the bean-stalk
and the intrepid mountaineering of the
hero who climbed it. A Gothic castle
is springing up in the middle of the
floor from the industry of two young
builders, who are so white and frail

are all white, the bodies all tremulous, and
the eyes all pensive. A little carriage is
wheeled up to us by a small invalid, who
has as much as she can do to propel it; a
victim of hip-disease is seated inside, and
the disease has left a terrible record of its

The Churchman Cot
Embroided by Children

June 1876.

"THE CHURCHMAN COT," ST. LUKE'S HOSPITAL.

that their structure needs no mortar to be
as strong as they are; and there, at the side
of another cot, a care-worn man sits and
holds the hand of his child and bends over
the sad face, which stares vacantly at the
ceiling. The ward may be never so sunny,
and the effort made to divert and recreate
its inmates never so generous, but the faces

ravages in the cadaverous cheeks, the pinch-
ed features, and the emaciated frame of the
sufferer. The two have come to shake
hands with Mr. Baker, the present house
father and pastor, who courteously took us
through the wards; indeed, the affectionate
confidence manifested by the little ones in
their guardians at St. Luke's, and at all the