equal and often a more spontaneous devotion." This is quite possible, but I maintain, upon personal experience of both methods, that the religious atmosphere brings a refinement and delicacy into the sick room by no means to be despised. Whatever throws a charm, a grace, a sweetness over the sick-bed carries an inappreciable value, and Frenchwomen, at least, however religious, have that delightful tact of their race to prevent them from worrying a recalcitrant patient on the subject of her faith.
At Lyons, as early as the fifteenth century, a medium was found between congregational and secular sick-nursing. It appears to work excellently, though the persons in this state affair who deserve our pity are the unfortunate sick nurses, whose sole reward for a life of unceasing labour is the precarious value of fifty low masses after death. I cannot, for the life of me, see why these poor women, so wretchedly paid in life, should not at least enjoy the glory of fifty high masses and a monument. But women who devote themselves to public service are, in all lands, and under every régime, ancient or modern, gallantly exploited. It is a recognised duty to overwork them, underfeed them, and pay them next to nothing, and then expect gratitude from them for permitting them to waste their lives in the service of their ungrateful fellow-men. In mediæval times the town of
