ready to start. The average time between the striking of the gong and the departure of all concerned upon their mission is fifteen seconds. They have gone forth in ten.'

This time is certainly remarkable, and would seem to deserve to rank as a record; but those who have seen the Fire Patrol turn out in Chicago will remember that with them still more extraordinary celerity is attained. The horses having been trained to spring to their places of their own accord on the striking of the alarm gong by electric mechanism, their harness, suspended above them, drops down on their backs, and is attached with one or two snaps; the gates fly open, and, should the call be at night, the clothes are pulled off the beds on which the firemen sleep on the floor above; the beds themselves are at the same time tilted over to one side, and the firemen, who sleep ready dressed, with the exception of their boots, which are ready on the patrol wagon, find themselves deposited on the floor at the entrance to a sloping wooden chute so arranged that, gliding down it, they alight on the wagon, which immediately starts out.

The average time taken from the striking of the gong to the start is five seconds.

The operation of gliding down the chute, simple as it would seem, requires some confidence, as an English visitor to Chicago found to his cost when he attempted to perform the feat. Losing confidence when halfway down, he endeavoured to stop his wild career, alighting instead with a severe fall and a badly damaged leg.

In New Orleans, those who can afford to do so are expected to pay for treatment in the Charity Hospital or for being transported to their homes by its ambulance.

Turning now to the Continent, Vienna is the city which appears to have advanced most in the matter of ambulance service. But, owing probably to the military character of the nation, the terrible floods to which the city is exposed, and to the great disasters that have from time to time occurred there, the object would appear to be to combine a system of providing relief against famine and exposure, together with the ordinary ambulance in case of sickness or accident.

The Volunteer Humane Society of Vienna was established after the burning of the Ring Theatre in 1881. It is supported entirely by voluntary contributions, receiving no assistance from the State or the municipality, and its services to the public are given gratuitously It has at its disposal the services of a volunteer fire brigade, in case of fire, numbering nearly 400 men, with all necessary apparatus; of 200 trained watermen, with boats and the newest appliances for saving life; and of 221 doctors and 100 volunteer assistants (all medically educated).

The society owns 20 ambulance wagons for the transport of the sick and wounded, besides other vehicles; 25 doctors, whose residences

are distinguished by coloured lamps, give their services gratuitously to the society for night work.

Two ambulances by day and one by night, with the horses ready harnessed, are kept in readiness at the central station.

In addition to the ordinary ambulances, the society owns vehicles called kitchen ambulances,' fitted with all the necessary apparatus for forming soup kitchens, which they send out, with cooks in attendance, in time of floods and other disasters.

In Paris, the Ambulances Urbaines,' a private philanthropic enterprise, was started in the year 1888. The society sends out a special ambulance carriage on being communicated with at the Hospital St. Louis, their headquarters.

One of their ambulances is always kept ready harnessed, provided, as in the case of the New York service, with a stretcher, and containing the medical appliances necessary for first treatment, a doctor accompanying the vehicle, who conveys the injured person to the hospital or to his home.

Numberless lives have been saved, not only in New York, but in the many other cities that have followed the admirable example it first set, by the speed with which the ambulances reach the sick and injured, bringing help that literally wrests back the sufferer from the jaws of death, as the last flickering spark of life is leaving the body.

As, in the case of fire, the first few seconds or minutes are proverbially the most critical, so is it often in the case of accident or illness, and many lives are lost by injuries received in the streets of London and the other great cities of England, owing to the delay in reaching the scene of accident with a hand stretcher, that might be saved were the New York system in universal use.

And if a conveyance is employed in any English town in the case of accident, what is it? Generally a four-wheeled cab or suchlike unsuitable vehicle--perhaps to convey the patient for a distance of several miles to the nearest hospital, when suffering from broken limbs, the cramped position necessary in such a conveyance causing the sufferer excruciating agony.

The official annual reports issued by the Commissioner of Police of London dispel an illusion sometimes entertained that practically no accidents occur there.

The excellent manner in which the traffic is regulated in London, to the admiration and envy of foreign visitors to the city, cannot pievent an appalling number of accidents occurring in the course of the year, even allowing for the fact that the return has reference to an area of nearly 700 square miles.

The last report issued, that for the year 1894, shows that over 5,600 accidents that were known to the police occurred in the streets of London, and 156 persons were killed, in the course of the year.

Probably this return would compare very favourably with that from any other city where the traffic is not so well regulated, but still it shows that there is an ample field for such an ambulance service as has been described.

Finally, in considering the methods whereby such a system of ambulance service could be introduced into London, a consummation devoutly to be hoped for, two points of essential difference between the hospital systems in London and New York present themselves -the absence in London of municipal hospitals, and the exemption of the New York hospitals from taxation, rendered possible by the centralisation there of the taxing power, there being but one body to levy rates for the entire city; whereas the division of London into separate parishes renders taxation necessary, in order that certain districts may not be unduly burdened in comparison with others.

These two points of difference constitute a severe handicap in the case of the London hospitals.

In addition to which, the impecunious state in which far too many of them find themselves renders it extremely doubtful whether they would care to launch forth into any fresh undertaking that would entail further expenditure.

But still there are other methods to be considered whereby the end indicated might perhaps be attained.

One is by private philanthropy; another by the Metropolitan Asylums Board undertaking the matter; a third by the Metropolitan Police Department joining such ambulance wagons to their present hand-ambulance system; or, lastly, by the London County Council adding such a scheme to the improvements they are proposing, either in conjunction with the hospitals or otherwise.

As to private philanthropy, it would be doubtful wisdom waiting for it to tend in that direction-an event that might never happen.

The Metropolitan Asylums Board is a Government Department dealing with infectious cases, and is akin to the Department of Health of New York, that has been mentioned before.

It might be possible to have horse ambulances for cases of accident and non-contagious sickness added to their present system. But some difficulty might arise in keeping the two departments separate, and in giving confidence to the public that no danger would exist of an ambulance that had carried a patient suffering from an infectious disease being used in other cases.

Still, if the matter were taken in hand by the Board it might be able to cope with this difficulty.

The Police Department, if it were so decided, might introduce and take charge of the ambulances, as the police do in Chicago and other cities of the United States.

But probably the most satisfactory way of all would be for the London County Council to take up the matter, either by subsidising

the hospitals according to the number of ambulances employed by each, as in Brooklyn, U.S.A., or by working them by means of their own employés, in conjunction with the hospitals.

The first plan of the two would probably prove the more satisfactory; but as to the details, it would be for the future to decide them.

It has only been attempted in this slight sketch to draw some attention to what is being done by other countries in the alleviation of human suffering, and it seems impossible not to believe but that in the greater London of the future the same kind of system will ultimately prevail, by whatever means it is set in motion.

And certainly, when ambulance wagons take the place of the present old-world stretcher, or the worn-out cab so often made use of in this great city, it will be a matter of wonder that, with all our many philanthropic schemes, and all our efforts to minimise the terrible suffering that flesh is heir to, we have so long neglected an example set us by far younger cities than our own.

DUDLEY LEIGH.

1896

A VISIT TO QUEEN ELIZABETH

HOARDED among the archives of the kingdom of Würtemberg, and unknown, it would seem, to our historians, there exists to this day the confidential report of an envoy despatched to England on a difficult and delicate mission. In the year 1563 the future of England and of the English people hung, men said, upon a woman's life; and that woman was Queen Elizabeth. It was not only that her death, issueless, would leave the succession doubtful: the nation had too good cause to fear that to the miseries of civil war would be added the horrors of invasion and the fury of religious strife. From the prospect of these dangers there was but one escape-Queen Elizabeth must marry. This, indeed, was no new discovery; but the recent and dangerous illness of the Queen, together with the threatening outlook abroad, had brought out vividly the danger. A fresh and urgent remonstrance from Parliament impressed, it was thought (or at least hoped), upon Elizabeth the absolute necessity of sacrificing her anti-matrimonial feelings to the welfare of her people.

Now among the Queen's many suitors the Archduke Charles had met with a considerable degree of favour. Some years younger than the Queen-an important consideration with Elizabeth—he was barely twenty when his father, the Emperor Ferdinand, sent an ambassador, Count George of Helfenstyn, to negotiate for his marriage with the Queen. His Catholic faith had created difficulties; and, as usual, it was gravely doubted whether Elizabeth was in earnest. Possibly she could not make up her mind; in any case the matter dropped. Since 1560 the project had not been revived. But Cecil, three years later, had more reason than his standing anxiety to see the Queen married for urging that, after all, she should marry the Archduke Charles. There was a rival in the field. The Cardinal of Lorraine was known to be scheming to bring about a marriage between the Archduke and his own great-niece, the dreaded Queen of Scots. To Cecil this match presented an alarming prospect; and yet so probable did it seem that in the autumn of this year it was thought to be a settled thing. Whether or not he hoped to play upon the Queen's jealousy, he set himself to do what he could, knowing that almost any marriage would be rapturously acclaimed by the people, while a marriage with the