AN HOUR IN THE HOSPITAL. "The sick are in a better case than the whole." НЕЕВЕЕТ.

ONE of my class at the Sunday School having been an inmate of the General Hospital for some weeks, I determined to pay her a visit, and my sister accompanied me. Ann has a younger sister in my class also, and she had told me the visiting hours-two to four on Sundays and Thursdays-and the forbidden things which she supposed I should be likely to take in, if not prevented; another girl volunteering the information that her brother was "welly clammed at the hospital; they would not let them take pastry, nor sucks, nor nothin' as was nice." I understood tea, sugar, and butter were admissible, but, fearful of transgressing rules, I ventured upon nothing eatable, and only bought a cheap Bible and some pretty little books. The one, experience had taught me to be the only solace in real affliction, the other I hoped would prove a slight relief from what I had always believed to be the severity and monotony of hospital life.

After the noise and bustle of the street there was something quieting and far from dismal in the bit of lawn and gravel, and the rather handsome though dingy face of the gray, substantial building, as we passed through the outer door. Two doctors were just driving away, to their comfortable, late dinners, no doubt, and would soon forget the subdued or passionate cries of the poor suffering fellow-creatures on whom they had been operating, in home scenes of very different character; but surely how thoughtful must such a pursuit make a man-a man, not a butcher.

Crowds of people are pouring in to see their sick friends, most of them with baskets or small parcels, of which they will presently be eased by the portly lady just waiting to welcome them into a little side room, for the purpose of searching their pockets. It is marvellously like the Douane, but she says her "Avez vous quelque chose à déclarer" in anything but an objectionable way, smiling as she fingers any protuberance of attire, as though she rather liked her business, and looking withal so good tempered as to mollify even that outwitted lady, who is half inclined to be offended at the temporary confiscation of some heavy paste cakes she has secreted, though assured she shall have them when she returns." Outside is a Bumble-like functionary performing a similar office on the men, much to his own satisfaction evidently. It must

be a rather droll occupation now and then, and Bumble looks quite warm with the exertion of turning pockets inside out; no detective ever had such fun for two hours running twice a week, I'll venture to say.

"Yes, that way, mum; up them steps, then turn to your left, then up a flight of stairs, on and on a'most to the top, and you'll soon find number 0."

Across the nice open hall, past the chaplain's door, and up, up, up, a good woman going to a near number offering suggestions; along the low stone steps with their leaden carpeting, and peeping on the landings into rooms full of sick; one, oh! such a lovely child, opposite an open door, sitting up in bed, her golden hair all showering round her, and beside her a brother-visitor, a rough lad of eleven, in a Scotch cap, holding up a plaything. ́ Cheerful voices issue; tidy women, with baskets and bundles of clothes, sit on beds talking low and sympathizingly. Can this be that gloomy thing, the hospital? Is this Pain, in her holiday garb of rest?

Up, to a long floor of numbered wards— 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8- "Oh! teacher?"

For on her bed, in sight of the door, sits poor Ann; her face-a pretty, clear-complexioned one-lit up with fine blue eyes is one glow of pleasure. She seizes me, and holds me tight. "I thought you'd come, I thought you would. I've thought of you such a deal."

I sit down on the bed beside her; she is dressed; her poor print gown is patched, but clean, and her hair neatly braided and smooth. She lies outside on the counterpane, as do all the others; nice red counterpanes, comfortable sized beds. The floors are brown and rather slippery, but bright brown boards have charms untold to a country person, and my thoughts are off on a voyage to our large, rambling old home of years ago, and recollections of a servant we had whose fate once sent her, when she was ill near Birmingham, to the General Hospital. Poor thing, she could not see any comfort in the place, and had disagreed with the nurse, for she was rather fretful, and very proud, and hated living on charity; she,--whose parents had supported themselves so respectably in that respectable old county of aristocrats and independence, Herefordshire, she could not swallow the bitter pill, and had not been happy here; and thus my preconceived idea of the place, derived from her gloomy view, was anything but favourable. That girl's name was Ann, too; there is not much in a name, good Bard of Avon (one feels a sort of claim

to his remarks sometimes in Warwickshire), for what different Anns, for instance, we know; and look at the Charleses and Maries and Johns; how impossible to fix on two of the same name and the same idiosyncrasies, and never were two Anns more diverse than my two. Here was one with an incurable contraction of the foot, caused by a fit when an infant, and this was her second stay of months in the sick ward. Only on Saturday had she undergone a painful operation, the cutting of some tendon in a most sensitive part of the foot, and she was smiling and chatting merrily with us, not a shade of impatience and distress upon her pleasant face.

"Was it very bad, Ann, to bear?" said I, sitting on the bed. I do not know what Miss Nightingale would have said, but it seemed more cosy to be quite near her, and she had drawn her arm through mine.

"Yes, teacher, it was sharp, but he says he shall make a cure of it, he thinks, and he is so very kind."

"Did you cry much?"

"Teacher, I could not help crying some, but the doctor he patted me on the back after, and said as I was a very good girl, and as he expected I should a' cried out a deal more than that."

She turned up her gown, and showed me the drawn, distorted foot, bandaged lightly

up.

"Across that passage is the room where they operates. Oh! they calls out dreadful sometimes; I didn't go in there; they does any little operation like mine here where

we are."

Aye, comparison!-that's how we may learn to bear our woes lightly. Her pain, she thought, was nothing weighed against what she had witnessed; so it acted on a healthy mind however, and so it should act with us all. This also seems to me another benefit arising from hospital attendance at home the poor sufferer would brood too engrossingly over 66 my troubles;" here is called out that heavenly grace of sympathy, the blessed bond that links man to man throughout all the world.

I remarked on the pleasant singing of the bright copper tea-kettle, large and suggestive of the best meal of the day.

"Yes, teacher, it is a big one, and we has our tea when we likes; the nurse she's very good; that's her, miss, ironing in the corner; and that clock, teacher, isn't it a beauty? That was presented, that was, and one for each of the wards." Ann spoke with a kind of pride in the institution, very pleasant to see. "And that cupboard holds

books, but I've read 'em all over 'n over; I was in before, you know."

I inquired what was the matter with the poor girl on the next bed. A man sat on the foot of it, looking somewhat nonchalant, I thought (and yet I might be judging wrongfully), and a woman beside it. The invalid was deadly pale, nursing one arm with the other, and rocking, but talking with a quiet, resigned smile, first to one, then the other; in her lap curled a kitten. Most of the wards had a kitten or a cat, Ann said, and the patients petted them. So it would seem no bad lot to be an hospital kitten.

"There's very little hopes of her arm," whispered Ann, fearfully; "they keep taking little bones out of it, and perhaps it will be amputated altogether; and then it's like enough she won't be able to bear it. She suffers dreadful."

Near the fire was a very merry group; they were having tea between two beds; the invalids were an old woman and a very lame girl, with a crutch, a pretty pale face, and a low laugh that was sweet to listen to; and one of their visitors was a little girl in a white frock, who seemed to be eating an unlimited supply of bread and butter, and occasionally tumbling over on the slippery floor. They were spending a happy hour, no question. At our left was a poor old creature dreadfully burnt, her arms an neck tied up, and looking very ill; he visitor presented the strongest contrast, being immensely stout and rubicund, and apparently patronizing. I overheard her racy description of the way she had smuggled things into the wards, "in spite of the searchin', and how she never should forget her feelin's when them two horanges bust in her boosom!" Oranges are among the forbidden things, and from the time of the apple downwards, fruit seems to be a notto-be-withstood temptation to ladies of every age.

Beyond her crouched a girl with red hair, and a pained look on her face, which, however, cleared up considerably as a stifflymade man, with something soldier-like in his bearing, appeared. He kissed her kindly, and produced some clothing, and for a little time the sun shone; but perhaps some allusion to home, or God knows (ah! yes, He does know, poor souls!) God knows what brought on a torrent of bitter weeping. The nurse drew near, and they talked to and condoled with and advised the child, for she was about fourteen, perhaps. I believe she felt with Job, "No doubt but ye are the people;" she had got her pain to

bear, and "miserable comforters were they all.' The nurse moved away, and, stemming the current of sobs, they talked quietly again; but alas! it was but a sunshine of last June, the showers came again, and in very great wrath the stern father got up and walked stiffly off, tête-levé, not even giving her a parting kiss. I felt very angry, and said to myself, "So like a man! selfish creature!" My consolation was, he would suffer for it if he had any latent feeling, for I subscribe to the couplet,

"More offend from want of thought,

Than from any want of feeling;"

or offend from want of temper, as in this instance. "Yes, he will suffer, for, long as he will to see his little lass, no one will be admitted again until next Sunday; it will be a good lesson for him." I am a severe disciplinarian!

little joke to teaze her, and she was not to mind it. The doctor would have told her if he meditated such a dreadful thing.

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They said as I wasn't to mention it to the doctor," added poor Ann, very much relieved, and gradually relapsing into a smile, "and very likely you're right, teacher," (with evident appreciation of my sagacity,) "for they're allays up to their games; sometimes he'll bring as many as eleven or twelve of 'em up, to teach "em you know, miss, but they're in general very kind, that one as dresses my foot is. I'm very glad it is only jokes, though." No wonder, poor soul!

another.

All these little observations I made while listening to and chatting with Ann; it was such a different little world to the world of

every day. Oh! would it not be better for some of our sisters, and for the poor, if such a world were visited oftener by them? And I could not help recalling the words of my country friends, "What can you see in the town?" Bonar answers well such questions, and his melodies suit well with this quiet, thoughtful place:

"Thou art no child of the city!

Hadst thon known it as I have done
Thou would'st not have smiled with pity,
As if joy were with thee alone.
With thee, the unfettered ranger

Of the forest and moorland free;
As if toil, and gloom, and danger,
Could alone in a city be.
The wonders of life and gladness,

All the wonders of hope and fear,
The wonders of death and sadness,

All the wonders of time are there."

my arm

But Ann had some secret to whisper me. With very round eyes and a timid clasp on "One of the young gentlemen as dressed her foot had said something about cutting it off! Did I think they'd do anything of the sort? It kept in her head." Now I have the pleasure of knowing a few of the race termed "medical students,' and I am fully aware they are as mischievous as puppies, though very rarely would they harm, in reality, a suffering fellow-being, even if their half-formed wise-teeth had the power; so I thought it best to tell Ann it was very likely only a

"And

oh!" kissing me earnestly, "do, do come again, teacher; and how are they all in my class? And thank you. Good bye."

I gave a little book to the other poor girl, still in tears. "What is it you suffer from "An abscess, but it is better, I'm going on very well," evidently sorry to seem the only complaining one, and pleased to be spoken to. With her one poor hand she was threading beads, which seemed determined to escape the needle, as she helplessly poked after them.

I spoke to the pale girl with the kitten. She took my tract smiling; but that strange quiet on her face!-they must have whispered no hope," and she has heard it, and, ah! it is better so.

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as

Another nod and smile to Ann, and we trudged away, past Bumble, who had just secured a gooseberry tart, "and a variety of other articles too numerous to mention,' the auction bills say, from the pocket of an imbecile-looking old fellow; imbecile, indeed, to think of cheating such a man as Bumble. His appearance can only be expressed by the word "small;" he positively seemed collapsed on the spot.

We turned out of the sunny path and the quiet, to the din and noise of the street, with a very different sentiment as to one charity of the town, and a sincere wish to help it forward. For my own part, when I sum up the various advantages connected with an hospital, and when I read in the weekly paper that during the past week, of in-patients alone, one hundred and ninety have been relieved, -and how judiciously and skilfully, let the patients themselves tell,-besides the out-door attendance of

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two thousand four hundred and four, with or without recommendation, I thank God for putting it into the hearts of his servants to "help the poor" in this wonderful manner. "I travel a great deal by rail,' thought I, and in case of meeting one of those awful accidents so calmly perused in the papers when none dear to us are involved in them, I do think my first direct impulse, were life spared, would be to gasp out, if I had the power of breath left, Take me to the General Hospital.'"

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

1.-ABYSSINIAN LADIES. THE Women of Abyssinia are dressed quite as decently as any women in the world, without having a particle of the trouble of the ladies of more civilised nations. There is a distinguishing costume for young girls, and for those who, from being married or otherwise, are no longer considered such. The dress of the former is indeed rather slight, though far more picturesque than that of the latter. In one part of the country (about Shiré) the girls merely wear a piece of cotton stuff wrapped round the

waist and hanging down almost to the knee, and another (or the end of the former, if it be long enough) thrown over the left shoulder, so as to leave the right arm and breast exposed. In other parts of Tigrè, a black goat-skin, ornamented with cowries, is often substituted for this latter. An ordidary woman wears a large loose shirt down to the feet, with sleeves made tight towards the wrist. This, with a 66 quarry" similar to those of the men, but worn rather differently, and a parasol when out of doors, is a comple suit. A fine lady, however, as in our engraving, has a splendid "mergeff quarry," and her shirt is made probably of calico from Manchester, instead of the country fabric, and richly embroidered in silk of divers colours and various patterns round the neck, down the front, and on the cuffs. She will also, of course, own a mule; and then may choose to wear trousers. These are made of calico, and rather loose, but getting gradually tighter at the ankle, where they are embroidered like the shirt.

The fair sex all over the world are fond of ornaments. In Abyssinia they wear a profusion of silver, in the shape of chains, bracelets, &c., or, to be more explicit, a well-dressed lady will hang three or four