The steps taken by Bishop Rogers seem to have been singularly felicitous. He obtained from Bishop Bourget the assistance of the nuns of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, and the government appears to have regarded with favorable eyes this regeneration of the lazaretto, which produced in a very brief period of time the best possible results upon the patients. Abbé Gauvreau draws a sad picture of the state in which these poor creatures lived before the nuns went to their assistance. In a letter dated April 28, 1869, addressed to the mother-superior of the Hôtel Dieu of Montreal, he says: “I am absolutely incapable of describing the state of abject misery in which our poor lepers passed their lives before the coming of the sisters. I can only say that from the hour of their transfer from l’Ile aux Bec-scies (Sheldrake) at the entrance of the river Miramichi, discord, revolt, and insubordination toward the government, divisions and quarrels among themselves, made the history of their daily lives. The walls rang with horrible blasphemies, and the hospital seemed like a den of thieves.” The Board of Health spared nothing to make the lepers comfortable. Good food, and abundance of it, appropriate clothing, and careful medical attendance were liberally provided; but, in spite of these efforts, the hearts of these poor creatures were as diseased as their bodies. Some of them revolted against the summons of death, notwithstanding the constant exhortations of the chaplain, and even after their last communion clung strongly to the futile hope of life. Of this number was one who had been warned by the physician that his hours were numbered and that a priest should be summoned. His friends, and those of his relatives who were within the walls of the lazaretto, implored him to prepare for death. “Let me be!” he cried. “I know what I am about!” About nine o’clock in the evening he begged his companions in misery not to watch at his bedside, and, believing himself able to drive away Death, who was hurrying toward him with rapid strides, insisted on playing a game of cards. The game had hardly begun, however, when the cards dropped from his hands and he fell back on his bed. Before assistance could reach him all was over.