and three beggars bear her off to the
doors that stand ever open, close by, for the
victims of accident or heavy sickness.

Saint Bartholomew's Hospital now stands
just where it stood centuries ago, in days
when Smithfield was the scene of holiday
makings and executions; of tilts and
tournaments before kings and princes at one
time, and of death agonies of political criminals
and religious martyrs at another. The
present building has no remnant of the old
one in its construction; indeed, the hospital
has grown to five times its original extent.
Patients now-a-days are admitted at a gate
under the colonnade, where proper persons
wait night and day to receive sufferers by
accidents and other urgent cases; and to this
gate the victim of a Smithneld ox is brought.

The handle of the bell hangs near, and one
pull brings a porter to the gate. The words
"An Accident," are enough to open the portal
without further parley, and the old woman in
a few more minutes has been examined by
the house surgeon of the night, and—her injuries
being severe—is placed in a kind of sedan,
and carried off to a bed in the female ward,
allotted to such cases. Following her, brings
us into the square of the hospital, and whilst
she is being tenderly borne across it, and up
the noble wide oak stairs that lead to the
wards, let us stay to notice the peculiarities
of the place.

The buildings of the Hospital, abutting on
Smithfield, give no idea of the real character, or
exact extent of the place. They are, indeed,
a kind of outworks to the main structure,
placed where they are, partly to give increased
accommodation, but chiefly to occupy a space
formerly covered by tradesmen's tall houses,
which some years ago, shut out the air and
light from the main body of the Hospital.
These were pulled down to let in the air from
the open space of Smithfield for it must be
remembered that the market has its quiet
hours, and that plenty of indifferent air
is better than a scarcity of air altogether.
To look at the main building, then, to which
these more recent structures have been added,
we stand within a quadrangle. In the centre
of the enclosed space there is an ugly circular
pump, which looks like a slice of a worn-out
steam boiler with a lamp on the top, whilst
on each side rises a large and handsome
stone building, many stories in height, with
long rows of windows, and each side having a
central door and hall of entrance, from which
oak staircases ascend. Each floor is divided into
two wards, usually one medical and one surgical,
and each ward has its little body of
resident officers under the command of a
matronly woman, called the " Sister." All
the wards are christened; some after benefactors
of the Hospital, some after the names
of the virtues, some after the characters of
Bible history. Indeed, it may be said, there
are wards with Christian names, and wards
with mercenary names the one given from
pious motives, the others from pecuniary ones.
The names are all written on the sides of the
doors, just as lawyers put up their cognomens
on the sides of dingy portals in the
Temple or Lincoln's-Inn. There, on one side
we see written "Darker," "Sitwell," "Harley,"
and " Kenton" wards, named after persons
who have done service to the place; whilst on
another the Christian side we have"
Lazarus," "Job," "Luke," "Hope," "Faith,"
and " Charity." The resident officer of each
of these is named after her ward—the captain,
as it were, is christened after the ship—and
we hear nothing of Mrs. Jones or Mrs. Smith,
but only " Sister Darker," and " Sister Sitwell,"
"Sister Hope," " Sister Job," " Sister
Luke," " Sister Faith " and " Sister Charity."
Many of these women are models in their
way; full of patience, experience, kindness,
and firmness, having withal the modes of
good management requisite for preserving
order, cleanliness, quiet, and an air of comfort
in places where disease in its worst forms,
and with its most unpleasant accompaniments,
is ever present. Each sister has a little box
perhaps more like a little ship's cabin than
anything else fixed up in one corner of the
ward. This is her sanctum, having its tiny
fire-grate; its bed and table, and chairs. To
this Sister Hope can retire to speak with the
doctor, or to take her quiet cup of tea, and
from this she issues to rule over her little
kingdom of sick patients, and hard working
nurses, and to keep all under her sway in as
much comfort as their condition will permit.
Each ward has its bath and other conveniences;
and each its speaking-pipes, through
which orders are given and received from
the hall; each has also three nurses, in addition
to the sister, with the power of calling
for additional aid when requisite, from the
well-filled ranks of servants attached to the
place. This female staff has ordinarily twenty-six
patients under its care; and day and
night there is always one nurse at least on
duty, to attend to the needs of the sick.
The nurses, indeed, have their watches like
seamen in a ship, the night nurse going on
duty at eleven o'clock, and being on watch
till six in the morning, when the hospital life
of the day is commenced by the medicines
being given to those patients who are to
receive physic more than once in twenty-four
hours. Soon after the clock strikes six, there
is a great shaking of bottles, and a great array
of wry faces amongst the five hundred sick
people who tenant Bartholomew; and within
the next half-hour how many pounds' weight
of pill, and how many quarts of "house
physic " are swallowed, we may know more
about by-and-bye, when we come to look into
the Apothecary's proceedings.

Having described thus far the special staff
of one ward, we have only to multiply by
twenty, and the whole hospital may be, thus
far, understood. One ward may be