Whilst, as I have said, there was rapid improvement made in the various services, the defect inherent in all administrations, English as well as French, but perhaps more particularly French, subsisted. For instance, M. Joseph Reinach, the well-known Deputy, has inveighed especially against the abuse of red tape in the hospitals. All sorts of dreadful formalities were necessary to be fulfilled to obtain a lemon or a bottle of the simplest medicine. There had to be a proper requisition made with several signatures attached, and this entailed visits to different offices situated in different parts of the building—a formidable waste of time. Some string and nails, value 1 fr. 25, appeared in somebody’s report. Immediately there was an imperious demand for details, which were supplied, of course—though purely imaginary. The precious document travelled during several weeks from the bottom to the top of the administrative ladder. Papers even pursue the unhappy doctor or stretcher-bearer right into the trenches—though, of course, every reasonable person would admit that records must be kept. M. Reinach, who, furnished with special powers of investigation, has carried his inquiries into every part, points out that even if the high administration decrees simplicity and the different sub-departments apparently incline, they continue their complicated practices just the same. Says M. Reinach, and his words will serve to depict the unhappy state of the public in this country as well as in any other: "We believe we are governed at one time by this party, at another by that. In reality, we are governed by the departments in the interests of a mysterious syndicate of paper merchants. It will require a revolution more profound than that of ’89 to rid us of administrative routine." And it must be remembered also—one feels authorised to mention it since it is admitted by M. Reinach, as well as by other thoughtful Frenchmen—-that favouritism and nepotism have made terrible ravages in this direction as in so many others; but these abuses have been corrected, we must hope, by the touchstone of war.