out, rolled in a blanket, and carried to the dead-house in less time than I have taken to write it. The washing and laying out of a corpse is too dreadful to pass unnoticed. This necessary but revolting ceremony is performed in the kitchen. I saw the corpse divested of all clothing, lying on the top of the bath, in the centre of the kitchen, with the kettle boiling within a yard of it, and surrounded by pots and pans and other paraphernalia in daily use. The stench that pervaded the kitchen after this ceremony was so apparent (nor could it be got rid of for days) that I was absolutely unable to eat anything that had passed through it, and for days subsisted on the insides of loaves and eggs, as the only places where the flavour of potted pickpocket did not appear to have penetrated. This washing of corpses and the “itch bath” in a hospital kitchen is as great a scandal as ever was perpetrated by any Government. The dead-house is a primitive establishment, and cannot even be divested of superfluous officialism. Its entire contents consist of a slab and a wooden block for the head of the corpse, and yet it boasted of an inventory board. This latter absurdity is conspicuously displayed, and reads— “ONE TABLE.” “ONE BLOCK.” Another death I saw was even more awful in its suddenness. It was during dinner when some five or six patients were devouring their chops. One man, that was conspicuous for his habitual voracity, had left the table whilst waiting for the pudding. As he passed his bed he toppled over and was dead. The cook, with the characteristic officiousness of the criminal class, rushed out of the kitchen with a saucepan full of rice pudding in his hand, and began to assist at the ghastly manipulation. I was within a foot of him, and saw the wretch brush off a tear from the dead man’s eye, which he then proceeded to close; he then resumed his culinary duties, and gave the saucepan a stir. Rice pudding, I understand, is liable to “stick” to the pot; for my part, I made a vow to “stick” to dry bread; indeed, I never see one now without being reminded of this disgusting scene.