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off, and bleeding profusely from a wound in the shoulder.

I asked what the matter was. As usual, nobody answered. Probably every one imagined that verbal explanation was unnecessary, seeing that the cause was so patent. However, I insisted upon an answer, so a big boy stepped forward and said: 'Please, sir, Quayle Major wanted to see what young Bear-I mean Dolomski-was up to in his desk. Dolomski wouldn't let him. Quayle made a dash with his arm, and young Bear chopped into it with a knife.'

Fully aware that my young protégé had received far greater provocation than was stated in the words of the ingenuous speaker, and with half an inclination to remark that it served Quayle Major right for interfering with the business of other people, I of course felt that such a state of affairs could not be tolerated in an English school. If Dolomski had caught Quayle a blow with his fist, there would have been a fight then or afterwards, and an end to the whole affair; but when knife-using began, something not far short of murder might be the result.

I sent Quayle off to the matron, and told Dolomski to follow me up to my desk.

'Ivan,' I said, 'don't you know that this sort of thing can't be allowed in an English school?' 'Don't they know that a boy's desk is his private property?' he answered. What harm was I doing to them? If any of them were writing a letter home, should I go and look over to see what they were saying? No. Very well. I've served Quayle Major out. I've stood a lot from him, and I wouldn't stand any more; and the next time I'll strike harder, and in another place.'

A murmur of disgust from the boys assembled round my desk followed this declaration. Dolomski smiled at it, and added: 'Just any of you try it on, that's all.

'Come, come,' I said sternly, 'that will do. Don't make matters worse.' And I led him from the room amidst a perfect storm of yells and hoots and hisses.

The story of course reached the head-master's ears; the result being, after a long consultation between us, that the only course open was to have Ivan removed as soon as possible.

On the day of his departure, he came to me, and holding out his hand, said: Mr Cormell, you've been the only friend I've had amongst this crew of savages. You think I'm a brute; but I shan't forget your kindness. Perhaps you may want a friend some day; perhaps I shall be your friend some day.'

The carriage came. Madame and Olga were in it. Olga was crying; probably at the disgraceful termination to her brother's school career. Because she would not see me again, I flattered myself. At any rate, my parting with Madame and her daughter and Ivan was of the most tender description. Madame, who spoke but indifferent English, said: "Good-bye, Meester Cormell. You have been one good, kind friend to my poor boy here. I feel-Olga here feel dat we are say Good-bye to an old friend. I cannot know if we sall meet again. Perhaps yes; perhaps no. But if you do find you in St Petersburg at any day, do you make a call chez

Colonel Dolomski, Nevski Prospect, and you sall see how glad we sall be to see you.'

Olga did not say anything, but sobbed bitterly. As for me, I murmured out a few commonplaces about only having done my duty and so forth, and stood fidgeting like a great booby, filled with an insane desire to jump into the carriage and go off with them. Then Ivan shook hands with me, actually with tears in his eyes; the carriage sped away, and I felt that I was alone in the world, separated from all I held most dear in it.

There was a rush to see the interior of Ivan's desk after he had gone. I didn't know what the boys expected to find; but they raised the lid as carefully as if they were opening an infernal machine; and after all, there was nothing but a scrap of newspaper describing the attempt to blow up the steamer Mosel in Bremen harbour, a treatise on the Hidden Forces of Nature, a tattered chemical book, and a few bits of iron and steel.

SOME INDIAN HERBS AND POISONS. No country is better supplied with medicinal as well as poisonous herbs than India. Along waysides and ditches, harmless-looking plants flourish abundantly, yet possessing, some strange, and some the most deadly qualities. It is one of the mysteries of creation how side by side with plants and cereals the most valuable and necessary to life, nature has also scattered abundantly plants so deadly; as if along with an element of good, there must also be one of evil. But it is only during a long residence in the country that the ordinary Anglo-Indian grows into acquaintance with this feature of the vegetable world around him, which previously he has only recognised as rank, troublesome weeds, intruding where not wanted, and having to be cut down and cast away. Many if not all of these become convertible, however, according as they are used, into some medicinal purpose or other; as if, after all, even the most seemingly useless or noxious have their value, if properly treated.

One of the most common plants by ditch-side or cactus-hedge is the datoora, with its large white flower, and leaves resembling the hollyhock, and now well known as a valuable medicine for asthma, for which its leaves are used in the shape of cigars or 'tobacco.' The seeds, on the other hand, are a subtle and powerful poison, in small quantities causing temporary insanity, and in large, either permanent injury to the brain or death. By an accident, I became aware of the peculiar properties of the datoora. A robbery occurred in a neighbouring village, and an alarm spread that this had been effected through the agency of datoora-poisoning by an organised gang of robber-poisoners. It seemed the gang had put up at the village the night before in the guise of travellers, and succeeded in getting on friendly terms with one of the wealthiest families there, whom they entertained to a feast of sweetmeats-the only eatable in which different castes may join. As night advanced, the family allowed them to put up in their veranda; and when the village was sunk in sleep, the effects of the poisoned sweetmeats gradually placed the house and all it contained at the mercy of the

robbers. Next morning, when the hue and cry arose in the village, and native inspectors, thannahdars, and constables had arrived from far and near to investigate the case-and turn to what profit they could the opportunity-they found the family of eight lying helpless and dangerously ill, semi-idiotic, and unconscious of what had occurred or was going on around them. The house had been ransacked, and money dug out of the ground (the natives' purse) amounting to about thirty thousand rupees; and the suspicion of datoora-poisoning was confirmed. No trace of the gang could be found, in spite of the official raids made by the police, and the levy of blackmail on those who could afford to 'pay' to escape suspicion. The family gradually recovered to find themselves almost penniless, the time they had been under the poison being a blank to them.

A sad case of datoora-poisoning occurred some time after this. My gardener's child, a fine little fellow of two years, whom I had often seen in the garden, had swallowed a few datoora seeds while playing with some children by the roadside. This was first suspected by his parents from some of the seeds being found in his hand; and after being taken home, the fatal result too soon confirmed their fears. From being in perfect health, in a few hours he was a memory of the past; and one of the saddest sights was the distracted grief of the parents for their only son. Sadder if anything was the fact of the body being kept for three days in the hot weather under the shade of a large sacrificial banyan tree close by, covered only with a light cloth and some leaves, waiting till the thannahdar of the nearest station could find leisure to come and report on it before burial, while the mother was rushing off at all hours of the night and day to take another look at her dead child.

Though the plant is to be found everywhere, this is the only case I know of accidental poisoning from datoora. The native belief, however, is that it is commonly used by professional robbers instead of the terrible roomat (handkerchief-strangling) of the old Thugs.

Another plant, called the madar, from two to four feet high, grows in isolated groups along roadsides and in open sunny places. It is soft and branching, with broad, thick, dark-green leaves covered with down, and large white waxen flowers faintly tinged with pink towards the centre. The first time I discovered it to have a curative value was on getting a sprained thumb through an upset out of my dogcart, causing swelling of the whole hand with severe pain. While trying in vain the ordinary home resources, my bearer, Jhoti, who stood a stoical witness of the ejaculations and contortions which the pain and failure of remedies elicited, at length suggested the madar leaf. Glad of any chance, though placing little faith in his nostrum, I agreed readily enough; and he soon appeared with a madár leaf, which he applied hot to the hand and tied firmly round. The relief seemed almost to begin from the moment of application; and in a quarter of an hour the pain had nearly subsided, while the hand felt more elastic with the rapid decrease of the swelling. In an hour or two there was no perception of pain left, and the hand felt much like the other, except for a little stiffness.

Keeping on the leaf, by his advice, for twentyfour hours, with one or two fresh changes during that time, there appeared afterwards a minute crop of watery pustules, which itched for a day or two, and then disappeared. No trace of pain or swelling remained. After such an experience, my incredulity in native remedies was somewhat shaken, and the plant, which had hitherto seemed but a useless weed, now rose into new interest. The hurry of the native for his madar leaf, his neem-tree leaf or bark for poultices, his castorleaf, &c. for sprains and swellings, now savoured less to me of native simplicity, and inspired a desire to test their remedies before condemning them. On other occasions I have used the madar leaf with the same result, often wondering whether its efficacy were known to our medical faculty, or ever tested for employment in a wider and more scientific sense.

But it is the milk of the madar which, like the poppy, contains its strangest and most powerful property, and exudes abundantly on the slightest scratch of its succulent leaf or stem. When dried in the sun, the milk becomes hard and brittle. The natives profess to use it for any obstinate sore, especially in the nostril, and it was when used for this ostensible purpose, that I witnessed its effects among my servants, caused either from absorption in the blood or accidental swallowing. Finding the khansamah absent one evening from duty at dinner, and the masalchie arrayed in his pugri officiating for him, I learned that he was in a very bad way, from accidentally swallowing some of the madär milk, which he had applied to a sore in his nostril. With some fear, from the description given, that he might be poisoned, and as he was an old and valued servant, I left dinner and went to see him. He was sitting in front of the cooking-house, with his face buried in his hands in an attitude of the deepest dejection, from which nothing could rouse him or elicit a word of answer to my inquiries. In eight or ten minutes, the first change I noticed was a slight movement of the head to one side and a distinct leer at his fellow-servants who were standing by. This was repeated in a few seconds, and again at lessening intervals, accompanied by sounds of suppressed chuckling, as if the whole affair were a grand joke which he was playing at the expense of those present. Shortly, the leers, which expressed the most intense mirth, developed into bursts of laughter loud and ecstatic, with looks of indescribable enjoyment, and I began to doubt whether, after all, we were not being fooled. The 'blowing-up,' however, which I began to give him received no notice-if anything, it seemed but to increase his merriment; but while I yet stood by, the fits of laughter grew less violent, the merriment decreased, soon ceased altogether, and the fit of dejection supervened. This lasted for about a quarter of an hour, and then the hilarious mood gradually came on as before, but always of less duration than the depressed mood. The paroxysms continued for some hours, till at last the man fell into a deep sleep. Next morning, he was at his work as usual, none the worse, looking fresh as ever, but without any recollection of his exhibition the night before.

As on several occasions I had found one or

other of the servants in the same state, I began
to wonder whether it was sores in the nostril,'
or whether the drug had not been taken to pro-
duce the effect I had witnessed. The inquiries I
made brought no confirmation of the suspicion,
or showed that the drug was known or used for
that purpose.
However that may be, the frequent
recurrence of the accident with the same indivi-
duals, and on so improbable a pretence, forced the
inference that the madar was used as an intoxicant.
One peculiarity of it was that highly exciting or
intoxicating though it seemed, there was no visible
reaction of nervous depression, disordered stomach,
&c., as in the case of intoxicating liquors. The
terrible effect of larger quantities on the brain,
on which it seems specially to act, may be
imagined.

It is stated by the natives as a familiar fact, that if a probe is formed from a mixture of the madar milk with a pounded ruttee-seed-a recognised weight of the country used by jewellersdried and hardened in the sun, and if the skin be pricked with this and the point left, death will follow imperceptibly and painlessly in two or three days, leaving no trace of the cause medically or otherwise but the faintest speck like a mosquito bite where the skin was probed.

so low as to use the common ganja of the ditches. True enough, one day I saw a large supply of the dried leaf on a shelf, which he had inadvertently left behind. He was an active writer, however, and must have used the drug abstemiously, as it neither interfered with his work nor showed the usual signs of havoc in the face. Whether the continued use of the ganja incapacitated him from discriminating between his own property and another's, I cannot say, but for this reason I had to part with him, which also accounted for his losing his previous situation.

Another of his class whom I was unfortunate enough to have later in the same post, so yielded to the allurements of the drug, that latterly he rarely appeared except in a semi-muddled, dreamy state; his shrivelled yellow face, blear eyes as of a film drawn over them, and cracked voice, though he was a young man, showing the lengths he was going and the terrible havoc it was making of him. Premature age had already come upon him, the excitement and visions of a few years of the ganja having condensed into them the measure of a lifetime. I had also to part with him from incapacity caused by his habit.

The next of those around me whom I discovered to be a worshipper of the weed was the gardener. He had been with me at the same time as the latter baboo, and had turned a secluded corner of the garden to account to supply both his own and the baboo's needs in the way of ganja, with perhaps a surplus for the bazaar. He was an old, tall, lean man, with shrivelled face, but clear strong eyes, and wiry and strong, with an amount of activity in him which got him over as much work in an hour as took many younger men three. Whether the ganja had anything to do with his long-sustained energy is doubtful, but he used to assert that it was it that gave strength to his old age and enabled him to work as he did.

The wild ganja grows profusely wherever it is permitted, and somewhat like the home nettle without the sting, its flower is small and insignificant. Though very different in appearance from the cultivated ganja-the Canabis Indica of the pharmacopoeia and famous hashish of the East-its intoxicating effects are nearly similar, except that the ganja proper is less injurious to the system, and is therefore correspondingly prized. This difference between wild and cultivated plants is seen to a stronger extent even among cereals. The wild rice, or that which has sown itself from a previous crop, if in good ground, looks like the cultivated in every respect, rich and heavy, and is really equally good; but the moment it is touched with the hook, the grains shed themselves Once I had occasion to use the ganja mediinto the water in which it has grown, and are cinally in the shape of some of the extract, lost. A different peculiarity is found in the kodo sent to me by a bachelor friend, prepared by —a small grain like turnip-seed, much grown in him-as he said—according to a well-known dry soil, and with a peculiar pleasant flavour-pharmacopoeia. The dose I took was ten drops, the self-sown or wild crop of which, though easily gathered, and undistinguishable in appearance from the cultivated, yet causes giddiness when used for food, and is often fraudulently mixed with the cultivated. In noting this difference between wild and cultivated grains, one realises indeed that the bread we live by must be toiled for. The cultivated ganja is somewhat like the caraway plant, but stronger and more leafy; and while the wild ganja has a strong pungent smell, the cultivated is odourless. Being a government monopoly, it is subject to a high duty, is rarely grown, and owing to its expense, the wild ganja is often made to do duty for it. At the same time, the ganja proper can always be bought at the rural bazaars, while a good deal is understood to change hands sub rosa, which accounts for its reaching the poorer classes.

A confirmed ganja-smoker was a Bengali baboo (English bookkeeper) I had, whose weakness came to my knowledge through a quarrel he had with the Persian accountant. The latter mentioned as an instance of the baboo's moral degradation that not only was he a ganja-smoker, but had fallen

just before setting out for a neighbouring bungalow where I was expected to spend the evening. During dinner, I became aware of an increasing risibility at the merest trifles, causing surprise especially to some young ladies present, who I could see put it down to the sparkling lager-beer. This tendency increased as the evening advanced; and though conscious of the figure I was making, I felt powerless to exercise the necessary control. After bidding adieu to my friends, as I mounted my horse in front of the veranda, suddenly the whole place, the familiar bungalow, walks, shrubberies, all seemed changed, and only the voices of my friends remained the same. The transformation was even greater as I rode homewards through the woods and quiet villages asleep in the moonlight. Now I seemed to be in Spain, acting the hero of the Romance of War; then I seemed to be shooting over the moors of Scotland; and from one part of the world to another was but the flash of a moment. Now the pale moonlight showed all the vegetation crisp and sparkling with hoar-frost, or covered with snow; while the moon herself appeared a dull yellow speck in the

heavens. The whole way home I found myself for ever diverging from the well-known road into bypaths; and it was only after the syce, who trotted beside me, had brought back the horse for the twentieth time, that I saw the necessity of taking his advice and dropping the reins on the horse's neck, to trust to the surer guidance of his instinct. At times, with a strong effort, I endeavoured to recall my whereabouts; but it was only for an instant, and the memory was gone, to be replaced by the unreal. At length, after a period that seemed an age, though only extending over a ride of four miles, I reached my bungalow, the sight of which was the first thing that began to bring back reality. Getting into an easy-chair, with the lamplight swimming dim and yellow before me, I began to reflect with some alarm that I was suffering from an overdose of ganja. Though drowsy, I dreaded to sleep; so, drinking off a strong cup of tea, I resolved to keep awake till the effects wore off. Reading and staring at the lamp in turn was all I remembered, till I awoke next morning quite well, and without the least reaction from the night's experience. Considering the different scenes I was transported to, all of a gorgeous and fairylike nature, and minutely remembered, I could easily understand the prevalent belief that it was the ganja that gave birth to the Arabian Nights' Entertain

ments.

The natives chiefly use ganja spiced for the hookah, or as an infusion for drinking, and much more so than appears on the surface. From long continuance or excess, it is a frequent cause of insanity, which may pass away on discontinuing it, or leave more or less permanent imbecility. Medicinally, it does not seem to be used by the natives, though the wild ganja is used as a medicine for cattle.

Akin to the ganja is the poppy, whose sheets of white flower surrounding every village in the cold season form one of the prettiest features of the landscape; and which, being a government monopoly, supplying a large share of the revenue, is extensively cultivated in India. The richest portions of land-namely, those closest to the houses-are always allotted to it; and though a most laboured crop from beginning to end, in the careful weedings and incisures and gatherings of the opium from each separate bulb-from which the milk or opium exudes it is, even at the fractional price fixed by government, by far the most paying crop to the native. Like the ganja, it is much more used than is superficially seen, especially in towns and by Moslems (of both sexes) of the upper class, though there prevails among natives generally a sort of dread of it, and stigma attaching to the eaters, as if its dangers were fully known and appreciated. The facility of obtaining it illegally where it is universally cultivated is obviously great. Here and there, a prematurely sharpened and haggard face, unintelligible to others, may owe its cause to this. Opium-eating, however, among the dense population of India is not so great as to mark a national evil, and is not used in the systematic way, or nearly to the stupefying extent, that it is in China. It does not appear to be much employed by them curatively beyond the use of the seedhusks-used also for smoking-externally for sprains or tumours. Unlike the datoora, whose

seeds are its poison, the seeds of the poppy are harmless, are used in native confectionery, and their oil in cooking-besides being a well-known article of commerce and adulterative of olive oil; whereas the milk of the poppy is its active principle, a poison, narcotic, or valuable medicine, according as it is used.

Least hurtful of narcotics, the tobacco-plant, largely grown wherever the soil is rich enough, is universally used over India, and though indigenous to the country, is consumed in much milder forms than at home. In the shape of a paste of mixed spices and charcoal-by some Europeans considered fragrant it is prepared for the hookah, which, like the calumet of the Red Indians, is socially passed round by the natives while discussing their village news and gossip as they sit circled near their doorways in the evening. But it is more constantly used for eating; a bit of the dry leaf being powdered in the hand as required, along with a little moist quicklime the size of a pea, is deftly conveyed to the mouth by a jerk of the wrist, and swallowed. In smoking and eating, it is used in a much milder form than even the lightest home tobacco; the water of the hookah purifies and mellows the smoke; the leaf as eaten is so dry and crisp, that half its strength is gone; while the accompanying quicklime is considered counteractive of any harm from the tobacco.

With regard to the medicinal herbs and cures of the natives, they are endless. Hardly a weed grows but they find some virtue in it for some ailment or other. The large leaf of the castor-oil plant heated and applied externally is used for allaying local inflammation and pain; the leaf and bark of the neem tree a well-known and similar valuable appliance; a small weed like clover gathered among the grass is applied to the temples to allay headaches, or otherwise as a counter-irritant, as we use mustard; the chireita, also a well-known tonic and fever preventive; the milk of the chutuan tree for tooth-stuffingthough little needed in a country where toothbrushing, like a part of their religion, precedes and follows every meal, and pearly-white teeth are the result, despite the free use of sweetmeats.

During a long residence in the country, I have on many occasions observed and experienced the value of native herbs and medicines. The mention of these to medical men, however, have received but little notice beyond an incredulous smile, or a contemptuous allusion to such 'crude cures.' One out of those coming under my personal notice I may mention. A child of one of my servants that appeared to be dangerously ill of incipient smallpox was given to the old gardener before referred to, to be treated for the disease, a bargain having been struck for a fee payable only on the child's recovery. There was every symptom of a severe attack; the child's breath was fetid, skin parched, lips and nose seamed and bleeding. The gardener commenced by smearing the child's body over with fresh herbs pounded in goats' milk, and then wrapping him up in a blanket, watched him the whole night, now and again reapplying the herbs and carefully guarding him against cold. The result of his treatment was that in twelve hours

all the dangerous symptoms had disappeared, the child had complete ease, and there was no relapse from rapid convalescence. The free rush of spots that came out soon faded and disappeared. I could hardly imagine that nature, unless aided by these herbs, could work so rapid a change. At the same time, it may be added that, had government taken the home precaution of vaccination, the treatment would probably never have

been needed.

in and is rescued, that he might just as well have been left to drown, for he is quite as certain to die, though not perhaps so swiftly, from swallowing some of the filthy water and noxious gases which have converted what was once a trout-stream into a fetid sewer.

Talk of London fogs! Bad though these be, they are at any rate not surcharged with impurities to the same extent as in these manufacturing towns, where a fog has almost the feeling of solidity, and from whose effects eyes and throat smart unbearably, as though syringed with a

CLOUD AND SUNSHINE IN LANCASHIRE. weak solution of vitriol.

IN TWO PARTS.-PART I.

WE wonder if those who have never visited our Lancashire manufacturing towns can possibly, even in imagination, realise the nature of the surroundings amidst which thousands of millhands'-boys and girls, men and women-are condemned to pass their lives. The bitter cry of outcast London has stirred the nation to its depths; the voiceless groanings of prosperous yet squalid Lancashire, should they ever find an utterance, would have about them the genuine ring of utter despair. In the metropolis, there are at least light, sunshine, and air, which to one from the cotton districts seems deliciously and, for a town, almost impossibly, pure. The parks with their leafy verdure; the river, flowing grandly by the spacious Thames Embankment; the stately piles of architecture which lie around on every side; museums, picture-galleries, cheap river steamboats-all these facilities for seeing much that is beautiful in nature and art, make the life of a well-to-do metropolitan workman something very different from aught which can be attained by his fellows in our northern manufacturing towns.

Imagine street after street, each uglier than its neighbour, lined with tiny houses in hideous unending uniformity; the only variation being caused by some gigantic many-storied mill with its rows upon rows of windows, and the continuous roar of its mighty machinery; to crown all, a chimney towering high into the air, and belching forth volumes of thick black smoke, which, aided by contributions from scores of similar chimneys, covers the whole place with a gloomy pall, through which the sun's rays but dimly penetrate, Sunday being the only day when blue sky can be seen. In such a town as we are thinking of, the Act which provides for and compels the consumption of smoke is to all intents and purposes a dead letter; and any one who has lived in one of these places-there are many such-knows full well that it is rarely if ever put into operation so far as regards the worst offenders. On rare occasions, some one is made a scapegoat of, to the extent of having to pay a modified penalty; but this practically acts as a license to others, who, knowing that appearances have so far been kept up, feel tolerably safe for some time to come. Put a piece of clean white paper out of doors, and in five minutes it will be black with soot. The very river flowing through the town, and which, rising in the breezy hill-country, should be a pure and healthgiving stream, is so polluted by the waste from different chemical works built along its banks, that it is a common saying, when any one falls

Then, too, these fogs

are by no means confined to the winter months. We retain vivid recollections of having to light the gas by half-past five on some June evenings; days which in the country would be radiant with sunshine, but whose brightness was hidden from us by the heavy, impenetrable veil of smoke. How, with so much to contend against, any man or woman manages to keep even a semblance of decency either in house or person, has sometimes struck us as being little short of miraculous. And yet some of them do this to a really wonderful extent, so that you may see the factory lasses going to their work by six o'clock in the morning, looking clean and fresh in their white aprons, with bright-coloured shawls worn over the head and pinned closely about the chest. This, the universal work-aday headgear in these districts, though to a southerner it has at first a poverty-stricken appearance, is in reality much more sensible than either a bonnet or hat would be, and forms a perfect protection from the biting winds which sweep from across the moors, and are apt to be felt as unpleasantly searching by those who come fresh from the over-heated atmosphere inside a cotton mill.

Then as to health-that, in our sense of the term, is simply unrealisable. Amidst such surroundings, can it be otherwise? The filthy atmosphere too often begets a hopeless despair as regards cleanliness, and paralyses the very springs of effort. Comfortless and untidy homes present a dark contrast to the warmth and brightness offered by the public-house, and literally drive men to the latter; a further craving for drink is induced by imperfect nutrition, the result not so much of poverty, as ignorance of cooking and domestic management on the part of wives and mothers-lack of time also, for most of them work in the mills. The drink demon finds a further ally in the hot and thirst-producing atmosphere of mills and workshops. Thus the chain of causation goes round in never-ending sequence. Its effects are visible in the rickety children with distorted limbs who meet the gaze on every side; women, pallid-faced, and young in years it may be, but who have never known what girlhood means; men, grown old before their time, with bleeding lungs, and puny, stunted frames. This premature ageing is one of the most marked and sadly significant features of the factory population. Returning once to hospital after a brief absence, I made some inquiry respecting a fresh patient, describing her as the elderly woman in bed number seventy-nine.' Perceiving that the nurse looked somewhat amused, I inquired the reason, and found that she whom on the first glance I had mistaken

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