Another fatal accident which gave me a curious experience was that of Madame J⸺, who was run over by a cab and killed. In her pocket was found a paper with my name and address written upon it. She was an Englishwoman, widow of a Frenchman, and used to earn her living by selling lace on commission. After the accident she was taken to the Morgue. At that time this gruesome institution was partly open to the public, and some of the bodies—not identified—were exposed upon slabs behind glass, others were kept in boxes in another part until buried. The authorities sent for me, to see if I could identify the body of this poor woman, which I was able to do—but I shall never forget the horror of the scene. The poor body was in a box without covering, and so disfigured that I had some difficulty in convincing myself that it was the person I expected. I was glad to arrange for her decent burial. One of the most melancholy of English suicides, of which, alas, there are many, was that of Colonel Hector Macdonald, in March, 1903. He was staying at the Hotel Regina in the Rue de Rivoli, and apparently after reading the “New York Herald,” in which there was a paragraph stating that grave charges had been made public against him, he shot himself. After the necessary formalities the body was removed to the Embassy Church in the Rue d’Aguesseau before removal to Scotland. Colonel Macdonald was a large man, and there being a double coffin, we were unable to lower the body into the mortuary, and this gave rise to a report that sufficient reverence was not shown—a report which was without any foundation. Many members of the Scotch colony in Paris visited the Church and placed flowers on the coffin, and someone unknown sent a bunch of heather from Scotland for a like purpose. It was a sad ending to the life of a brave soldier. CHAPTER VII. BRITISH CHARITIES IN PARIS. The British poor in Paris form no inconsiderable part of the Colony. This arises largely from the fact that it has been the custom in France to employ Englishmen as coachmen and stablemen, many of whom from one cause or another have fallen into poverty. Others have taken advantage of the small expense and gone to Paris in the hope of obtaining work, which is by no means easy to find. Some years ago many English were employed in various works, but lately it is not so. When first I went to Paris I held in the Montmartre district a weekly service for the families of those employed in the gas works in that neighbourhood, and had an attendance of thirty to forty persons. But this gradually dwindled, until at last there were none left—one after another had been discharged and had taken their families back to England.