of a modern workhouse than a hospital as we understand the term. Mr. Baker further suggests that the jousts and tournaments of Smithfield, as well as the horse and cattle fair which had been held there from time immemorial, may have provided the monks with not a few surgical casualties. For the following facts concerning St. Thomas’s Hospital I am indebted to a paper by Mr. Rendle, read in 1882 before the Royal Society of Literature:-- Those who have travelled from London Bridge to Cannon Street by the railway, must have noticed the fine Church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark. This church marks the site of the ancient Priory of St. Mary Overy, which was the original home of St. Thomas’s Hospital. Southwark, in ancient times, was largely occupied by the clergy. Not far from the Priory of St. Mary was the Abbey of Bermondsey, and the palatial residences of the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester. In 1207 the Priory of St. Mary was burnt down, and with it the Hospital of St. Mary. At Winchester House was living at that time Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester. This prelate decided to rebuild the hospital in a better form and on a better site, and accordingly set to work to obtain funds by means of the usual Charter of Indulgences addressed to the faithful in 1228. “Behold,” says Bishop Peter, “at Southwark an ancient hospital, built of old to entertain the poor, has been entirely reduced to cinders and ashes by a lamentable fire; moreover, the place wherein the old hospital has been founded was less suitable, less appropriate for entertainment and habitation, both by reason of the straitness of the place and by reason of the lack of water and many other conveniences; according to the advice of us, and of wise men, it is transferred and transplanted to another more commodious site, where the air is more pure and calm, and the supply of water more plentiful. But whereas the building of the new hospital calls for many and manifold outlays, and cannot be crowned with its due consummation without the aid of the faithful, we request, advise, and earnestly exhort you all, and with a view to the remission of your sins enjoin you according to your abilities, from the goods bestowed on you by God, to stretch forth the hand of pity to the building of this new hospital, and out of your feelings of charity to receive the messengers of the same hospital coming to you for the needs of the poor to be therein entertained, that for these and other works of piety you shall do you may after the course of this life reap the reward of eternal felicity from him who is the recompenser of all good deeds and the loving and compassionate God. Now we, by the mercy of God, and trusting in the merits of the glorious Virgin Mary and the apostles Peter and Paul, and St. Thomas the Martyr and St. Swithin, to all the believers in Christ who shall look with the eye of piety on the gifts of their alms--that is to say, having