eat number of hours they were forced to be on
duty each day, thus turning what should have been pleasant employment
into a drudgery. And like the nurses, so were the orderlies; their daily
work hours were so long and their pay so small that only the least
intelligent and most stupid moral idiots could be secured to take
positions that should be filled by men of the very highest intelligence,
character and sympathy.

The physicians themselves I found to be inexperienced youths, generally
masquerading under a set of whiskers, which some people are foolish
enough to mistake for brains and ability. Coming direct from the medical
colleges, they accepted these positions in order to gain some practical
experience at the expense of the lives of the hospital patients.

The bricklayer, who devotes his life to the honorable work of building
the edifice; the hod carrier, who gives his best services to the
community in an equally honorable employment; the locomotive engineer,
who safely carries from city to city a train load of human beings each
day for many years, are only fit to be practiced upon by inexperienced
physicians, and abused by irritable nurses and cruel orderlies, if they
are finally overcome by sickness and enter a charity hospital for
treatment.

For several days I lay upon my little ward cot in the Ruff Hospital,
with my life hanging in the balance, and obliged to accept for succor
the abuse and mistreatment of an inferior house staff. And worse still,
I had to be an eye witness to cruelties imposed upon other and less
fortunate sufferers than myself. I feel sure that many a poor fellow
that I saw carried away upon a stretcher, a lifeless corpse, had given
up all hope of recovery and died, for the want of a few cheering words
and kindly sympathy from sonic one, instead of the constant abuse and
brutality he was subjected to.

I fully believe that I myself must have inevitably succumbed to my
pitiless treatment, had it not been for the fact that the young girl,
Arletta, visited me each day for a half hour, bestowing upon me a tender
sympathy, and manifesting the greatest concern for my welfare and
recovery.

I was placed in a most peculiar position. I could get no information
whatsoever from the doctors, nurses, or orderlies, and even Arletta said
very little, and cautioned me against talking or exciting myself in any
manner. I learned enough, however, to know that twenty-one years had
actually elapsed since my