TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7527, 17 April 1890, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

The Duke of Cambridge, it appears, is not going w> resign the office of Com-mander-in-Chief, bub- has made up hi 8 mind not to accept an inferior position. The truth is that, as the result of the recent Boyal Commission on the Army and Navy it is quite poseible that the Duke of Cambridge, if he do not leave his office, may find his office leaving him. If we are to accept the statements made in a leader in The Times, a considerable reform in the administration of the British Army i& urgently needed. The present system (our contemporary states) appears to have been expressly devised in order to make the enforcement of responsibility impossible. Everything centres in the Commander-in-Chief, whose responsibility covers that of everyone below him. Of bourse his responsibility cannot, in the nature of things, be real, and the consequence is a a The Times bluntly puts it,"the most frightful blunders and the most hopeless confusion have to* be accepted as the normal incidents of. military management." Heads ofdeparti menta, instead of bearing their own re* sponsibility and reporting direct to the Commander-in-Chief or the Secretary of State for War, report to one another in an, "order determined largely by accident, .Ik, would b« ludicrous, if ifc were no| humiliating to the nation which tolerated such absurdities, to reproduce, from our contemporary a description of the disgrace* ful re&tapeism which pervades the system. Supposing the Director of ArfciH lery wants anything from the maaufao : turing department, the matter has to go through the Ordnance Committee, the Adjutant-General (after it has been tossed about among a number of promiscuous people by whom he ia assisted) the Quarter-master-General, the Inspector-General of Fortifications, the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of State, the Financial Secretary, and finally the Direc-tor-General of Ordnance, who gives his orders to the manufacturing department. , Therfe .i& necessarily endless waste of time and money, with probably a hopeless muddle for net result.' All the time the question is one for' Which the Difeotorof Artillery ought td be absolutely responsible and as to which he ought to be in direcfcirelation with the manufacturing departments. "Bat nobody is responsible and nobody can. by my possibility be made responsible." Thia ia the deliberate assertion of The Times. It is time this state of anarchy was brought to an end, even if it. should involve the shelving of his Boyal Highneee the Duke oi Cambridge.

In a suburb of London—Putney Heath— a house, which was formerly a grand mansion of the Duke of Sutherland, is now the residence of some 217 persons, most; of whom are hardly ever free from pain, and ■who, day after day, sit or—in moat eases— lie, patiently waiting for Death. For now there is no other remedy from which they c att hope for anr alleviation of their sufferings. In each case medical science has done its beet, and failed, and the patient has learded from tlie doctor's lips the fatal words that the malady is beyond human skill. This is the Hospital for Incurable*, which not only hae ita 217 inmates but has no fewer than 564 oufcpensionew, who each receive 420 * year from the bounty of ita supporters. What sort o|,Bcenea most those be which; pass within the walls of thla abode—the home, one would think not only of suffering but despair? Our readers will be interested in the answer given by Mrs Oliphant, who recently visited the Hospital and thus recorde lieu impreeaione :—

"Awriter, who has before set forth the claims of this great work to the attention of the public, has described the house in which it carries on one part of its merciful ministry as a Palace of Pain. I do not doubt the truth of this title. One has but to the inmates of that house in their pathetio social assemblies—one, bound in the chair which he has not quitted for more than twenty years j another laid flat upon the couch from which she cannot move % the majority- helpless iv their wheeled seats, in which alone they can be taken from one room to another; or in the more private chambers, where so many he incapable of even the solace of that movement, their twisted limbs huddled up under their coverings, their poor distorted hands painfully attempting somo bit of trifling work to relieve the long, long tedium of suffering dayg—to be sure of the justice of the description. But, there is fometbJng else there, which will strike the visitor as well as the pain. And I prefer to call this home of the incurables a House of Peace. I have gone through the greater part of those rooms, filled with indescribable aches and sufferings that are without hope, and I have found nothing but a patient quiet* ness, a great tranquillity, a peace which fills the careless spectator —coming moat of the fresh air, out of the sunshiny world; where everything ia rejoicing in life and strength and the radiance o* th "'nroimj

Borne of these poor i*3e&L ***** paroxyame of oa a B , m *&% I before another begins, J-mJI *£ and cannot moveat l »«*■ ... And yefc IZI Vw breathing all aroundf us fc£ complaint, but a composed v once, of tea accompaaiod scarcely ever with .a countenance,, ft> An atmosphere of i% the sunshine, the quiet * struggles there may bo in ioneuV N I tortured bodiea, it is uotoUwLSuch struggles there must be, O r f^ ferera would be more thaa hhl we catt see nothing but patience a*T h This ie more wonderful thaTtE* far lesa comprehensible. Oar he out for them aa we pass frota anguiah to another, but from thLJf* there rise no criea. All ia txana!& patience, a great quietness—tho Paia is also the House of Peace," * Surely this ia a striking w , which we shnll all read with % t^" } not only of relief, but; of heartfelt tude. The mystery of pain is gti{i the darkest problems coaaeoted *\S H I existence, but ifcj mystery j 8 lyT w when we realiso that tbe baok made strong for the burdens ft* I has to bear and that et ea m ™' \ heaviest affliction, the spirit ie I; and dtscipliaoa, so that the mS ,2 I enabled to reap the reward of thon £ tendure unto the end. f ba6 is Jwhioh la to be drawn from the w? ? picture which Hn Oliph&nt has ***>* ■ as the r«ault of her visit to the'« ? Peace." Surely another h thud wV , foolish to make a fu sß over tb mI Z worries and ailments whioh beset us o glance into the " Palace of Paia " wUv" I also the "House of Peace," ouW to jj L enough.to check ne whea we are iacliJ r to grumble over the lesser ills of lif 6i ||