i78 EARLY REMINISCENCES without food, and were praying to God to help them. As they prayed the help came. I have often seen the efficacy of prayer ; but I have seen also how remarkably it has been answered in quite another and an unexpected way to that desired, and yet in a better way. The former visit to Pau saw us lodged in Maison Gautier on the farther side of the Gave. At that time the poor people in the cottages along the Gan and Jurancon road were engaged in the making of lucifer matches. It was a most dangerous operation. The phosphorus was melted in a pan over the fire, and then the bundles of matches already dipped in brimstone were touched at their points with the phosphorus. But the critical moment was when the phosphorus was melting. If heated beyond the second when it began to swim, it exploded into flame and spluttered in all directions. Continually during the time we were there accidents occurred and poor girls had their faces and arms frightfully burnt. The burn of phosphorus cannot be extinguished by water. My dear mother, so soon as she heard of such an accident, went off to the cottage to administer advice and help, which were most gratefully received. What was aivays an ordeal was the traversing the bridge over the river to enter the town of Pau. It was lined with beggars, who clamoured for alms. They exposed every sort of deformity. Many were cripples, some had but stumps of arms, some feet turned the wrong way. Many exposed horrible suppurating sores. Others were imbeciles. We were assured by French gentlemen, natives of Pau, and doctors practising there, that children were purposely deformed by their parents, so as to bring them up to gain their livelihood as beggars. We had one fellow pointed out to us, with distorted nether limbs, who moved about on a sort of wooden stool by the aid of his hands. A surgeon assured us that he knew the facts of the early distortion of the youth as an infant, by his parents. As to the sores that so many showed with ostentation, these were kept raw and running by the application of caustic, when they exhibited signs of skinning over. This loathsome exhibition has now disappeared from the bridge at Pau, but such cripples are still to be encountered in other places, mainly on the steps of a church. They are most
