burglary committed upon their own bodies,
when mortal pain was stolen from them as
they sweetly slept.

There is the representation of a woman
who seems to have been devoted from her
youth up to the nourishment of that huge,
pale pumpkin growing from her neck;  there
are casts of hands sprouting with super-
numerary fingers.  Here are models of fearful
faces in wax, which call to mind Madame
Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors.  Next comes
a skeleton almost tied up into a knot by
disease;  above our head is a shelf devoted
to a whole infant population, not constituted
exactly according to pattern.  "But what is
all this boiled tripe for?" says the visitor.
Boiled tripe, my visitor!  These are the real
valuables of the Museum, and each bottle has
its separate and absorbing history posted on
that great blood-red ledger.

The mere curiosities of the place are to be
found in this glass case. There you see the
half-sovereign that stuck in Mr. Brunel's
windpipe: a present from its late proprietor,
who was doubtless as glad to get rid of it as we,
the public, were to learn that he had done
so;  for Mr. Brunel is not a man whom we
can, on any terms, afford to lose. There
is a long tube filled with the very best Japan
ink  (for so it seems),  taken out of a tumour.
Pence that have lain perdu for months in the
stomach, and knives that have made the grand
tour without inconvenience, lie side by side;
and here is a packet of needles that came out
simultaneously all over a young lady's body.
Do you see that hide? Take off your hat, for
you owe it some reverence; the pretty girl
you love, but for the late occupant of that
skin, might have been a loathsome fright.
That is the hide of the sacred cow from
which Jenner took the first vaccine matter.

But what are they doing in that little room
beyond; opening Goldner's Canisters?  No,
no; there sit the curator and his assistant
putting up  "preparations."  Why is he
interested so much about that bit of cartilage?
Why does he so carefully put away that piece
of fractured bone?  What mystery lies in that
little soft grey mass, that he should scrutinise
it so narrowly with the microscope, adjusting
and re-adjusting the screws with such nervous
eagerness?  These are the hieroglyphics
which must be deciphered ere the great
hidden language of disease can be discovered;
these are the painstaking labours by which
science creeps on from point to point.

The next door leads to the Blue Beard's
chamber of the establishment, which we will
not explore.  Another step takes us into
the Post Mortem Theatre. There, upon that
cold slab underneath the sheet, you trace
that dread mysterious outline, which appals
more than the uncovered truth. It has been
brought from the ward above to answer some
enigma, which has baffled the questioning
of the physician for months;  and here, in
the face of his class, his judgment and skill
will speedily be tested, and the knife will
show us what has brought to a stand still
the curious and delicate machinery of life.
Think not, however, that nature yields up
her secrets without, sometimes, exacting a
terrible retribution upon those who would pry
into her innermost workings. The faintest
puncture upon the surgeon's hand, the least
abrasion of the cuticle with the knife that
has drunk the venom of the body, has been
known to kill as surely as the most subtly
concocted poison ever administered by Italian
revenge.

But let us return to the ground-floor wards.
These wards, right and left, are consigned to
the surgeons: you see, as you pass, the long
perspective of "accidents," to which the
ground-floor is mainly devoted, on account
of its proximity to the street.

But that room filled with such decent-
looking persons—what are they doing there,
ranged round the wall?  These are the out-
patients; the sickly troop that flocks day by
day for relief. Do you wish to know how
terrible the sufferings, how fearful the
struggles, of "respectable poverty?" Go,
then, and listen to the questions the physician
puts to them one by one, and you will come
out saddened and astonished. There is one
disease which haunts that room to which he
cannot minister, one quiver from which issue
unseen the arrows of death, which he cannot
avert.  Listen whilst he questions that neatly
dressed young woman: "How have you been
living?" She hangs her head, fences with
the query, and is silent; pressed kindly, she
confesses, a little tea and bread have been her
only nourishment for months. Wait a few
minutes until the men are called in, and you
shall hear that wasted giant, in the adjoining
room, make still the same reply; "tea and
bread for months" have dragged his herculean
frame to the ground.  They do not complain;
they take it as a matter of course.

As we leave the Hospital the clock strikes
three, the "seeing hour" of the poor patients
in the wards; the crowd of visitors who have
been waiting outside the doors press in, and
throng up the vestibule. The burly porter,
however, posts himself in front, and dodges
about like a boy who heads a flock of bolting
sheep. Now he pounces upon an old fish-
woman who tries to rush past him. What is
he about?  Flat pick-pocketing, by all that is
sacred!  Is he going to rob the woman of her
seed-cake?  Scarcely is she past, than he
dives into the capacious pocket of the second,
and comes up with half-a-dozen oranges; a
third is eased of a two-ounce bottle of gin;
a fourth, in evident trepidation, gives up a
pound of sugar; a fifth—to her he gives a
low bow, and she passes on in "maiden
meditation, fancy free."  She, be sure, is one of
the "Governors."  This momentary suspension
of his powers, makes him a very tiger
after " trash and messes;" a fresh onslaught
is commenced, and scarce a person but is