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the child’s home to be "much more his castle," will becomea part of our national creed. The reluctance of magis-trates to convict in cases of cruelty is in all probabilitydue in no small degree to the fact that the children broughtbefore them do not always show the obvious marks ofviolent ill-usage. Cruelty is capable of many subtle modifica-tions, and the starved, neglected, probably beaten but notdisfigured child cannot always express the bitterness of hishard lot so as to secure more than very partial remission ofhis daily torture or entail any but the lightest sentence onhis tyrant. The agents of the society have facilities far

exceeding those of the police for arriving at the truth insuch matters, and it is due chiefly to their exertions thatthe majority of cases taken to court, some of them diabolicalin their cruelty, have resulted in conviction. We feel assured,therefore, that no true lover of order and justice, or

of his fellow creatures will withhold his support from theefforts put forth with tact and discrimination, and happilywith much success, by this young but vigorous and deservingsociety.

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THE DIFFUSION OF SMALL-POX.

DURING the week ended June lst there was only a singlecase of small-pox in London, and during the whole of thefive weeks of May there were only 31 attacks in the metro-polis, with but one registered death ; the four weeks of Aprilhad contributed 37 cases, but no death. The notified casesin the four weeks ended May 18th numbered 40, but half ofthese were in the two sanitary areas of Holborn andLambeth. In the first week of June the attacks rose to

5, but still no death occurred, and there was apparentlyno small-pox in the suburban districts. Last week therewere half.a-dozen cases in London and a single registereddeath from the disease-namely, in a person aged betweentwenty and forty years and stated to have been vaccinated,the individual belonging to the Hammersmith sanitary area.In the southern midlands there was but little small-pox lastweek or in recent previous weeks, and Bedford seems to haveall but got rid of the outbreak that threatened for some

time to become serious. But at Derby matters have not verymaterially improved, there having been upwards of 60 casesin the last six week3 ; a few days since there were 42 patientsin hospital, although the building ic, it is said, intended onlyfor 40 cases at one time. In these circumstances the towncouncil decided to purchase one of the wooden wards recentlyused at the infirmary and to remove it to the hospital site.The original case is now stated to have given rise to thirty-seven ether cases in a more or less direct manner, one

of the last of these being a barmaid at the public-house in the centre of the town which the first patienthad visited. Three fresh cases were isolated last week inthe borough, and three deaths were registered, the deathshaving occurred on three successive days. At Ripley, nearat hand, a further case bavieg developed, the district

council decided to take proceedings against persons whohad exposed themselves under circumstances which seemedto justify action of a penal character, after paymentmade by the council with the view of curtailing the chancesof spread of infection by the movements of the persons inquestion. At Belper last week a case of small-pox occurredin a man who had held office in a lodging-house at Ripley.He was admitted to the casual ward, but later the

council decided to rent a cottage near the town andtherein isolate the patient, the medical officer fearing lestsome epidemicity of the disease should ensue by reason of itsappearance among the vagrant class in the neighbourhood.Small-pox has also recently been introduced into the HayfieldWorkhouse in the person of a vagrant on the same day thattwo inmates were buried after succumbing to the malady,other inmates still being sufferers from the disease. A

case has been notified at Rawmarsh recently, the victim

being a professional singer who had in the precedingfew weeks fulfilled engagements at Derby, Ripley,Ashton-under-Lyne, and Barnsley, in addition to visit-

ing other places, while the eruption was out. The

family with whom she stayed in Rawmarsh just prior toher case being diagnosed have been placed in quarantine.In Lancashire several places have had experience in smallamount of the disease during recent weeks, including Man-chester with two cases last week, and one in each of the twopreceding weeks, all removed to Clayton Hospital ; and

Salford, Wigan, Bolton, and Oldham, a death beingregistered in each of the latter two places a fortnightago, and a further death in Oldham last week. In the

large towns of Scotland there were 3 deaths from thedisease in May, 2 of them in GlaFgow and 1 in

Edinburgh. In Dublin in the two latter weeks of May theadmissions of small-pox patients to hospital showed somefluctuation, the number in the first of the weeks having been16 in excess of that immediately prior, while in the weekended June lst the admissions fell again from 28 to 10, thepatients discharged numbering 21 and one death occurring,and the cases remaining in hospital being 41 acute, with other34 convalescent patients at Kilmainbam. Later records showstill further improvement.

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ACCIDENTS CAUSED BY CURETTING THEUTERUS.

THERE is an interesting paper on this subject by Dr. R.Pichevin in the May number of the Annales de Gynecologieet d’Obst6ttique. Among the ill consequences that haveresulted from curetting he enumerates : 1. The productionof abortion from the untimely introduction of the curetteinto the pregnant uterus. 2. Serious after-effects, and evendeath, from want of observance of strict antiseptic principles,3. The rupture of a collection of purulent matter encystedin the immediate neighbourhood of the uternP,-pvo-salping,for instance. Should such an accident be thought to haveoccurred he advises either immediate laparotomy or vaginalhysterectomy, 4. In very rare cases uterine atresia has been

produced by, or has followed curetting. 5. The most frequentaccident has been perforation of the uterus by the curette.The consequences of this accident have generally been in-significant ; indeed, according to Dr. Pichevin, a Vienna

gynaecologist was in the habit of pushing the sound throughthe uterus into the peritoneal cavity with the object ofdemonstrating the harmlessness of the proceeding. N3

doubt it is harmless in a large proportion of cases; but

Raffay in a recent thesis, while reporting three cases thatrecovered, records one also where death occurred. It seemsclear that perforation by the curette is more likely to takeplace when curetting is done after a confinement at term, orafter premature delivery, than when performed after anabortion in the earlier months. As regards the causes ofperforation, sometimes it may be due to want of tkill or careon the part of the operator ; in some cases it may be due, asAuvard has insisted, not to the curette, but to the method ofdilatation employed prior to the curetting. Metal dilatorswith expanding blades are very likely to cause such an acci-dent, but it has been known to occur when the dilatation waseffected by Hegar’s dilators. Auvard, it will be seen, thinksthe curette merely discovers a perforation that has been

already made. We referred to his views in THE LANCETnot long since. Finally, it seems that there are certain veryrare cases where the wall of the uterus is so thin at some

point that perforation may be inevitable, no matter howgently the curette be used. The diagnosis of perforationmay sometimes be made erroneously. Several authoritieshave noticed a sudden enlargement of the uterine cavityto occur during curetting. Thip, of course, allows the