One healthful augury of the times is that the stream of books, as the war goes on, seems to show signs of drying up. A vast mass of literature was let loose on the world in the autumn of 1914 and during the whole of 1915. In 1916, judging from those I have seen, only about two books were published to every five in 1915. Perhaps the reason may be that, since the war has been largely transformed from a mobile war to one in the trenches, there is less to write about; perhaps the Press correspondents and other publicists have exhausted their abusive epithets; or perhaps paper and ink may, in consequence of the blockade, have risen to prohibitive prices. It is more likely, however, that a change has come over the spirit of the people, and that they are beginning to realise that the happy and glorious ending to the war about which they wrote so profusely, and the noble aims of their Fatherland concerning which they consumed so many pages of foolscap, are not likely to materialise in the way in which they expected; and that, with the

Comparisons are, of course, odious; but one cannot help contrasting the literature of which a sketch has been given above with the same type of literature issued in England since the beginning of the war. In some aspects the English books, taken as a whole, fall below the German ones; but in most cases the result is precisely the opposite.

The German books all present a terribly serious view of the War. Leaving out of account the more trashy and superficial records, a deep earnestness as to the meaning of the war, and a comprehension of the desperate issues involved, are revealed in almost every volume. Psychological studies of the German character, of the nation's spiritual preparedness, sermons and religious essays-prosy and long-winded if you like, but none the less very purposeful and earnestabound; and in them all is expressed a sober and, so to speak, a driving faith in the ultimate issue which is most impressive. Appeals to patriotism, and to loyalty to sove

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reign and all authority, find infinitely greater expression in the German books than in the British; and the willingness to subordinate self to the general good of the nation beams from every page.

But, on the other hand, these self-same pages are blackened by a spirit of hatred of the enemy and appeals to the lower feelings for which we look in vain in the English books. The latter deal with the war in a gallant, highspirited way for the most part, -never a word of hatred for the enemy, hardly even of dislike, more often of ohaff, as for an adversary incapable of appreciating anything but the more serious side of war, but at the same time thoroughly worthy of one's steel. The lying slanders and efforts to do harm to the enemy by spreading falsehoods about him, which are so conspicuous in the German books, are entirely absent in the British ones; and where, in the latter, it becomes necessary to refer to low dealings on

the part of the enemy, chapter and verse are given, with an obvious effort to arrive at the truth and to make allowances where possible.

What, in conclusion, most clearly distinguishes the two literatures is, in my opinion, the spirit of fair-mindedness and cheerfulness in the British volumes as compared with the spirit of desperate determination and hate in the German ones. The harm, in fact, that has been and is being done by the dissemination of these latter books, sowing discord and hatred for future generations, is incalculable. For years and years to come the Germans will believe the falsehoods and lopsided theories and incorrect facts that teem in this literature; and, after all, as these books are all issued with official sanction, who is to blame them?

In very truth, the Censor and his Higher Authorities have a heavy responsibility to bear.

G.

JULY 1st, 1916! This is one of the half-dozen dates that will be branded for ever on the memories of every man and woman throughout France and Greater Britain. The first day of the Great Push-the first day, let us emend it, of the first great push. Before the vivid picture of it is blurred in my mind by the memory of a still greater day that is yet to be, let me try to put down in writing what the first week of July 1916 meant to a hospital served by British people for the wounded French soldiers of the Somme Army. The wounded men of France testify as much to their loyalty to our common ideal of civilisation, in the wards of a hospital, as do those who come through unscathed and stay on at the front to take part in the next great struggle.

On the first we waited, full of tense, suppressed excitement. The Great Push had begun— how were the Allies faring? Our hospital had been evacuated almost to the last man. Our new emergency ward of 80 beds had been created in what had once been as big as an English parish church: our theatre and our receiving rooms had been supplied with a huge reserve of bandages and swabs, of lint and gauze and wool; our new X-rays installation had been fitted up to the last connection; our am

bulances were waiting, ready to start at a moment's notice, in the garage yard.

The incessant thunder and boom of the great guns had never been silent for days. This day, at dawn, the thunder had swelled to an orgy of terrific sound that made the whole earth shiver; then, a few hours later, had ceased, and we could hear once more the isolated reports of individual cannon. Those of us who had been at the hospital through the attacks of June 1915, and the more serious push in Artois, beginning on September 25th, 1915, went early to bed. If the call came in the night, we could always be summoned— meanwhile, we slept when we could. The later comers marvelled at our lack-our apparent lack-of anticipation and excitement, and waited up long into the night. July 2nd dawned. The morning hours dragged on, placid in the hot sunshine of high summer. Our ambulances were called out to await the first train of wounded at our clearing station. It was at noonday dinner that the telephone message came through that they were arriving shortly with bad cases. The ward Sisters and their staffs went over their arrangements once more; the women orderlies stoked up the hot-water marmites attached to each ward and to the operating theatre,

and the Sister who presided there counted over again her reserve drums of sterilised cloths and swabs. We, in our department, once more tried our tubes to make sure that they were regulated to a nicety, and the little group of women doctors collected by the window that opens above the entrance-hall and watched for the cars to come. Absolute

readiness and then speed without haste. That was what we had to aim at; on that must depend the chances of many a human life. The long blast of a whistle from the entrance-hall-how well we were to know it!—and almost to dread its insistent iteration during the next few days. This was the porter announcing the arrival of the first convoy from Cr-, sixteen stretcher cases. No sooner had the men been lifted out and carried to the various receiving rooms than the cars went back to the gare regulatrice for more. Trains were arriving from the Somme in one long stream. The drivers never ceased journeying backwards and forwards all that afternoon and all that night, and the three women and the man,1 who drove our four ambulances, carried over a hundred cases during the first forty-eight hours of that nightless week. They slept a little by turns, so that during the first twenty days of the great push there were always some of our cars at the clearing

station, night or day, and the cases distributed to our hospital never had to wait there longer than was necessary.

Very soon the first cases were brought, already washed and prepared for operation, to the X-ray rooms. At first we worked the new installation only; then, as the men were brought up more quickly than we could deal with them, our Radiologist passed from one room to the other, making the examination herself, and leaving me to finish the photograph. Still we found we were not keeping up with the supply of fresh cases, and then she handed the smaller room, with the Butt installation, over to me, and herself worked the new Gaife installation, so that each case, as the stretcher was brought in and placed on the table, was examined at once, and we were able to deal with two at a time. The other assistant remained in the dark room, developing the plates.

Very soon the surgeon-inchief was hard at work, with the anesthetist and an assistant, in the operating theatre, each ward surgeon bringing up her own cases and assisting with them. It grew dark, and still the wounded came in. By ten o'clock we had a long line of stretchers lying in the corridor outside the X-ray rooms and the theatre,-at one end wounded men waiting to be examined by us; at the other, those who had already been examined and who were wait

ing their turn for operation. The two storekeepers, and the kitchen orderlies, who had gone off duty, organised themselves into a stretcher squad, and kept the X-ray couches and the operating table supplied. Down another corridor the other assistant radiographer had ranged her developed plates to dry-dozens of them. Some time after midnight our doctor had to retire to bed. She was not a strong woman, and she had to be ready for the new day's work at 8 A.M. At four o'clock the other assistant, having developed sixty-three photographs since two o'clock in the afternoon, followed her. We knew the surgeons now had more cases ready for them than they could possibly operate on during the night. One or two of the ward surgeons dropped off, aware that they would have to begin work early in the morning. But

the theatre went on, and the other surgeons who were waiting their turn to get their most urgent cases done, filled up the time by getting on with the list to be examined under the X-rays.

I went to bed when the theatre was closed for cleaning at 7 A.M, The surgeons went to bed too, with the theatre Sister and her staff of two women orderlies, leaving the rest of the cleaning to be done by the night-duty orderlies from some of the less busy wards.

At 11 o'clock I went back to the X-ray room to find that the doctor and the other

assistant had been hard at work since 8 A.M., and that the surgeon-in-chief had already made great headway with her ward visits, while all the ward surgeons were busy with dressings. I went to the dark room.

Cases continued to come in all day, but as every one was a stretcher case, and each ear could only carry four, while the clearing station was 12 kilometres distant, the hospital was able to absorb them as they came in, so that there was little if any delay in attending to the poor fellows.

Their wounds were terrible. They were mostly men from the famous Colonial Division, or from such crack corps as the Chasseurs Alpins. They had broken the German linebut how they had suffered! Former cases treated in our hospital had been single wounds: many of these men were wounded-dangerouslyin two, three, four, and five places. That great enemy of the surgeon who would conserve life and limb, gas gangrene, was already at work in 90 per cent of the cases. Hence the urgent need for immediate operation, often for immediate amputation. The surgeons did not stop to search for shrapnel and pieces of metal: their one aim was to open up and clean out the wounds, or to cut off the mortifying limb before the dread gangrene had tracked its way into the vital parts of the body. The stench of it was very bad. Most of the poor fellows were too far gone