palace, or the death-chamber of a king or queen, or however highly placed. During the thirty years that I was engaged in waiting on the sick poor, I never lost sight of the fact that they were my fellow-creatures who were accidentally placed in a humbler social position than myself. Though, in accordance with the custom adopted in the institution, they were stigmatized as paupers, I never allowed myself to make them feel I thought them such. After the departure of Mr. John Bliss and the disappearance (through illness) of Miss Heatley, the Guardians appointed as master and matron, Mr. and Mrs. Minter. I found them to be exceedingly respectable people, kind to the old and afflicted, and fair and kind to the general population of an urban workhouse. The sick poor were quietly attended to, whilst loud-mouthed swearing and blasphemy were banished from the place. Unfortunately, however, I began to break in health. Mounting up staircases day after day, which had gone on for nearly forty years, told upon me, aggravated as it was by repeated attacks of bronchitis. Then a heart affection, followed by its usual concomitants, proved too much for me, and I was compelled to resign the work I had done for so many years. What made the blow the greater to me was this, that in all other respects my professional life was a happy one. I had nothing to ask for from the Board of Guardians, as all my legitimate requirements were at once courteously met and complied with; a different atmosphere pervaded the establishment, and therefore it was a pleasure to me to meet my fellow-officers and to work with them. Looking back upon the change which had taken place from the day I first entered upon my duties in January, 1856, in the Old Strand Workhouse, till I finally left the Westminster Union in 1886, a period of thirty years, the change that occurred was enormous. Then there was hardly a paid nurse in any workhouse in London, the duties being performed by more or less infirm, drunken, and generally profligate inmates of the House. It was a miracle to find an honest one among them; they were a chance medley of Sairey Gamps and Betsy Prigs, who were selected at the will of master and matron, and who obeyed the orders of the medical officer just as much as, and no more than, their fancy led them. The scenes of untold misery which might have been witnessed by the Guardians of the Poor will never be fully exposed until the grave record of all things is opened to universal gaze. Fortunately, a change has come over the spirit of these things: in the present day the sick poor are housed in buildings which were never dreamed of twenty years ago; pauper nursing is now entirely a thing of the past; Lazarus now meets with careful, Christian consideration, and if it be possible to restore him to health, an opportunity is afforded him of resuming a position in society, useful, though it maybe humble. My readers will therefore fully understand with