Women as Army Surgeons In her preface to Women as Army Surgeons,* by Flora Murray, Miss Beatrice Harraden says no more than the truth when she observes, 'Dr. Flora Murray and Dr. Garrett Anderson made history at Endell Street.' This story of a Military Hospital run by women is a little miracle of tact and achievement — but always achievement. If these pioneers had failed! If they had failed to live up to the double responsibility that was theirs: their responsibility for the lives and welfare of the soldiers entrusted to their care, and, secondly, for the demonstration of women's efficiency. But they did not fail. Both abroad and at home they triumphed gloriously. And through a book whose sweetness of spirit one can but marvel at, the only hint of 'hitting-back' at the masculine element who had so long retarded the women's movement they had most at heart comes from Mrs. Harraden, when she says and again with limpid truth'If they had failed to satisfy the Authorities even in the slightest detail, there is not much doubt but that the charge of the hospital would have been handed over to a man, and that more than one military official would have had the joy and triumph of saying: "There I told you so! I told you so! The women have failed medically and administratively, and have been unable to maintain discipline.'

Well, they would have talked just like that. We admit it. But they never got even half the shadow of a chance. Endell Street was the show military hospital of the war, the choicest specimen, the brightest jewel in the crown of the Authorities. What the patients felt about it is almost beyond telling, although in many touching inarticulate ways they tried to tell it, too. Assuredly Endell Street did not fail medi

* Hodder and Stoughton, 12s. 6d. net.

cally nor administratively. As for discipline, well! Perhaps the eternal feminine had something to do with it, after all, for the very need of the word was almost unknown at that golden hospital. When a man was reported for a small offense and brought before the C.O., 'the embarrassment was mutual,' and with the dominant sense of fun which makes her book such delightful reading, Dr. Flora Murray tells the priceless method of procedure:

The sergeant was often asked by the C.O. to leave the offender alone with her, so that she could speak more freely: and an appeal to the feelings of the sinner generally reduced him to

tears. Then he had to be detained in the office with more pleasant conversation, till he regained his composure sufficiently to meet the public eye. After such an interview, one young fellow retired to his bed, and drawing the blankets over his much-concerned friends. In the evening, when head, refused to answer the inquiries of his hunger drew him from his lair, they gathered round him with solicitude. 'I've been up before men and up before women,' he said, 'and God save us from the women.'

We have told that anecdote, with a hundred others, amusing, poignant, crisp to a point, waiting to be told, because it seems to us so essentially typical of the atmosphere that set Endell Street apart from all other military hospitals. But there is much we should like to tell also did not space forbid, of the genesis of Endell Street, and how Dr. Flora Murray and Dr. Louisa Garrett Anderson, great souls both, won their spurs in the Women's Hospital Corps in Paris and Wimereux. In many lands now there are corners of foreign fields which are for ever the Empire's, because brave women of our race have died there. These are they who 'gave in one moment the days and the years which lay beyond them,' for the cause of the Allies and all that it stood for. Endell Street, although there is no longer its military hospital, will be forever the shrine of proud and enduring memories for women.

SOME people are surprised at the daring with which compilers of prophetic almanacs forecast the details of the future. What seems to us to be the most astonishing thing of all is that nearly everybody still regards the future as a mystery. As a matter of fact, we know a great deal about the future. We know that next year will contain 365 days. We know and this is really rather a tribute to our cleverness - that the year 1924 will contain 366 days, and even the exact point at which the extra day will slip in. Ask a savage to point you out the extra day in Leap Year, and he will be more hopelessly at a loss than a man looking for a needle in a haystack, but even the most ignorant Christian will pick it out at the right end of February as neatly and inevitably as a love-bird on a barrel-organ picking out a fortune.

The art of prophecy has undoubtedly grown with civilization. Prophets were regarded as almost divine persons in the old days, but now every man is his own Isaiah. The present writer is the most modest of the prophets, but even he ventures to foretell to you that there will be an annular eclipse of the sun in the coming year on the 8th of April, that it will begin at twentytwo minutes to eight at Liverpool, and that it will be visible at Greenwich. What clairvoyant could go further? Test our mantic genius at any other point you will, and we doubt not we can satisfy you. Do you want to know at what time there will be high water at Aberdeen on the afternoon of the 24th of January? The answer is, "Thirteen minutes past one.' Do you want

to know when partridge shooting w begin? We do not even need to refle before giving the answer, 'The 1st September.' And so we could go o almost ad infinitum, filling in the d tails of the year in advance. On the 1 of March, for instance, being S David's Day, there will be a banqu at which Mr. Lloyd George will ma a reference to hills, mists, God, and country called Wales. On the 28th March, being Easter Monday, the will be a Bank Holiday. On the 24 of May, being Empire Day, the m jority of shops in Regent Street w hang out Union Jacks, and scho children will salute the flag at Abing Hammer, Communists in various par of London gnashing their teeth t while. On the 15th of June the an versary of Magna Charta will fall, an will pass without any disturbance. C the 12th of July Orangemen will dre up in sashes and listen to orato whose speeches will prove the hollo ness of the old adage that you cann serve both God and Mammon. On t same day, Lord Birkenhead will cel brate his forty-ninth birthday, sho ing that Gallopers are born, not mad Need we continue, however? T year is obviously going to be a crowd one. It will, as we have said, conta 365 days, and will come to an end 12 P.M. on St. Silvester's Day at t time of the new moon.

We have said enough, we think,

prove that one knows a great deal mo about the future than is general realized. There may be skeptics w doubt the virtue of our prophecies. there be such, all we ask is that th should cut out this page and veri

each of them as its fulfilment falls due. The expense will be small. The most serious item will be the journey to Aberdeen to see the tide coming in on the 24th of January; but, by taking up a collection in Aberdeen, it should be possible to reduce one's net outlay by the better part of a shilling. But, on the whole, there never were prophecies easier to verify. We confidently challenge comparison between them and any prophecy made by any Cabinet Minister during the last five years. We even challenge comparison with the much more respectable prophecies contained in Raphael's Prophetic Messenger. Raphael at times strains our credulity. When he tells us, for instance, that on the 27th of April it is going to be 'cold and frosty' and that on the 29th of April we shall see 'high winds, storms and thunder,' we feel that he is giving a free rein to his imagination and treating prophecy not as a science but as an art. That the 30th of April will be 'showery' we agree, but how does he know that there will be 'high wind and lightning' on the 21st of December? We are also somewhat puzzled as to the means by which he arrives at the conclusions set forth in his 'every-day' guide for each day in year. We can ourselves prophesy what you will do on each day, but we cannot, as he does, prophesy what you ought to do.

the

This introduces an ethical element which is beyond our scope- or our horoscope. We need not quarrel with him when he dismisses the 1st of January as an unimportant day,' but when he bids us on the 2nd of January 'court, marry, and deal with females,' we may reasonably ask, 'Why?' His advice for the 3rd is more acceptable. 'Be careful,' he says, 'until 1 P.M., then seek work and push thy business.' That is about the time of day we prefer to begin to 'seek work'; we wish there

were more days in the calendar like the 3rd of January. Some saint must have it in his keeping. On the 7th, however, it will be safer, we fancy, to abstain from work altogether. Raphael says: 'A very unfortunate P.M. and evening for most purposes. Court and deal with females.' Sunday, the 9th, is better. 'Ask favors,' he says, 'in the P.M., and court.'

Though January is less than half gone, we confess we are getting a little breathless with all this courting. Raphael probably recognizes this, and a note of caution creeps into his advice on the 13th, on which he bids us 'court and marry in the morning, then be careful.' By the 18th, however, he is his old self again. 'Court,' he says cheerfully, 'marry and ask favors and push ahead.' Then come one rather careful day and two unfortunate ones, till on the 22nd, in a burst of exuberance, he offers us the day of our lives. 'Deal with others,' he exhorts us, 'and push thy business, seek work, travel, court, marry, buy, and speculate.' We doubt if all this can be crowded into twenty-four hours outside the Arabian Nights. Besides, as a result of following Raphael's advice, we are already bigamists several times over, and have become sick of the very sight of a Registry Office. By the end of the month even Raphael shows signs of being a little weary of his scarcely veiled incitements to Bluebeardism. For the 29th he advises: 'Avoid females and be very careful,' and for the 30th, which is a Sunday: 'Avoid females and superiors.' We should jolly well think so.

We need not follow Raphael through the rest of the year. We need only say that he keeps us busy courting, marrying, seeking work, being careful, traveling, speculating, pushing ahead, and avoiding females right down till the end of December. He occasionally

whoever may have come under the influence of Pussyfoot, it is not he:

and travel.' On the whole, however, his recommendations leave us with a sense of the desperate monotony of human existence. It is no wonder the novelists find it so difficult to invent an original plot. Nothing seems to happen even in the future-except the same old thing. It is all as monotonous as North, South, East, and West. We turn with relief to the page on which Raphael tells us what are the best days on which to hire maidservants and to set turkeys. We positively bound with delight when we come on his advice to those about to kill pigs. 'Do this,' he says, 'between eight and ten in the morning, and between the first quarter and full of the Moon; the pigs will weigh more, and the flavor of the pork be improved.' Then there are 'Legal and Commercial Notes,' one of which 'A bailiff must not break into a house, but he may enter by the chimney'- suggests a subject for a drawing by Mr. George Morrow. The medical notes are equally worthy of consideration. On one page we are given a list of herbal remedies, and we are told how one disease can be cured by pouring boiling water on hay, upland hay being better than meadow hay, and applying it to the stomach. But Raphael is no crank, as we see in his suggestion for the treatment of influenza:

If you think you have got an attack of influenza, slip off to bed at once and take the whisky or brandy bottle with you, and don't be afraid of it, for alcohol is the best medicine you can take, as it kills the germs in the blood. Do not wait until you are half dead - remember that a stitch in time saves nine, even with health.

Even on the subject of the care of children's teeth he makes it clear that,

I believe a committee is to be appointed to inteeth in children. I think I have already stated that these troubles were due to the excessive amount of sugar or sweetstuffs consumed. All sweet things cause an excessive exudation of saliva from the gums, which affect and impair both the teeth and the eyesight, for, despite of what dentist and doctor may say, there is an intimate relation between the two. Dr. Sims Wallace, the eminent lecturer on Dental Surgery, recommends Beer or dry Champagne as an excellent mouth wash. They are also pleasant to the throat and stomach!

The reader is now in a position to estimate for himself the extent to which he can rely on Raphael's judgment, and to say how far he will accept the horoscope Raphael has cast for Mr. Lloyd George. On this he writes:

This gentleman has figured so prominently in our national affairs for the last few years, that it may not be out of place if I give a few remarks on his horoscope. The time of his birth is stated to have been January 17, 1863, 8h. 55m. A.M., but neither myself, nor other Astrologers, are satisfied with this hour. I think he was born some minutes sooner. At his birth the Sun was in exact Square to Jupiter, and also in Square to Mars, and Mars was in Opposition to Jupiter. These are very ominous and important aspects. The former denotes great extravagance, and waste of money, and the latter gives impetuosity, and danger to the person.

He then proceeds to give a brief analysis' of Mr. Lloyd George's horo