smaller States, like Switzerland and Belgium, tremble lest their neutrality should be violated in the bloody strife. Christendom is armed to the teeth; and as Sir Henry Maine too truthfully observes, "During the last quarter of a century, a great part, perhaps the greatest part, of the inventive faculties of mankind has been given to the arts of destruction." The workman in the factory and the peasant in the field know that they may at any moment be summoned from their peaceful vocations by the trumpet of battle. They know also that war has become more and more scientific, that horrid explosives have made it more ghastly, and that they would be marshalled for hideous slaughter, where each man sees the comrade fall at his side but not the enemy that strikes him dead. Some of them who sicken at the prospect, not with coward fears but with manly disgust, might almost cry with Shakespeare's Northumberland: "Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature's hand Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die ! And let this world no longer be a stage To feed Contention in a lingering act; Europe is the modern Damocles. The ancient bearer of that name envied the wealth of Dionysius of Sicily, who jestingly gave him a taste of royal pleasures. Damocles ascended the throne and gazed admiringly on the wealth and splendour around him. But looking up, he perceived a sword hanging over his head by a single hair. The sight so terrified him that he begged to be removed from his position. Europe likewise sits at its feast of life, but the fatal weapon suspended overhead mars its felicity. Serpents twine in the dance, arms clash in the song, the meats have a strange savour, there is a demoniac sparkle in the wine, and a poisonous bitterness in the dregs of the cup. All is darkened by the Shadow of the Sword. PUBLIC CONTROL OF HOSPITALS. THE PROBLEM STATED. "THE poorer the guest, the better pleased he ever is with being treated," philosophised the Vicar of Wakefield; and the aphorism which he applied to his poor relations is equally true of those who come under medical care. Thus is explained, or at any rate partly explained, the long silence concerning hospital management on the part of those who have been inmates of these refuges for the sick. Concerning these, however, like so many other previously uncriticised institutions, the public voice is at last beginning to demand, and in somewhat querulous tones, that more information be given, that more light be thrown on their inner working. In this paper I propose to state, as briefly as may be, the facts which, from the point of view of the layman, demonstrate the advisability, or rather the necessity, of taking the control of the hospitals out of the hands of the present governing bodies and placing it directly in the hands of the people's representatives. And here I would lay stress on what may appear a truism to any but those interested, namely, that the lay point of view is the only one to be considered. There cannot be any rational discussion of "the professional point of view" of which we have heard so much. Hospitals should exist solely for the good of the people, and not in the least for the |