52 Field and Forest Rambles. 



Through the same apertures confessions are received, and the 

 Holy Communion administered. I may here remark how 

 curious an illustration is thus afforded to architectural students 

 of the object of those low skew windows often found in the 

 chancels of ancient churches. In a remote corner of North 

 America, in a rude wooden building of modern date, erected 

 by men who never saw a mediaeval church, or possess the least 

 acquaintance with Gothic architecture, convenience has sug- 

 gested an arrangement precisely similar to one which has 

 long puzzled the antiquaries and architects of Europe. 



" At the time of my visit there were twenty-three patients in 

 the Lazaretto, thirteen males and ten females, all of whom 

 were French Roman Catholics, belonging to families of the 

 lowest class. These were of all ages, and suffering from every 

 stage of the disease. , One old man, whose features were so 

 disfigured as to be barely human, and who appeared in the 

 extremity of dotage, could hardly be roused from his apathy 

 sufficiently to receive the Bishop's blessing, which was eagerly 

 sought on their knees by the others. But there were also 

 young men, whose arms seemed as strong, and their powers 

 of work and of enjoyment as unimpaired, as they ever had 

 been ; and — saddest sight of all — there were young children 

 condemned to pass here a life of hopeless misery. 



" I was especially touched by the appearance of three poor 

 boys between the ages of fifteen and eleven years. To the 

 ordinary observer they were like other lads — bright-eyed and 

 intelligent enough; but the fatal marks which sufficed to 

 separate them from the outer world were upon them, and they 

 were now shut up for ever within the walls of the Lazaretto. 



" An impression similar in kind, though feebler in degree, is 

 produced by the sight of all the younger patients. There is 

 something appalling in the thought that from the time of his 

 arrival until his death, a period of perhaps many long years, 

 a man, though endowed with the capacities, the passions, and 

 the desires of other men, is condemned to pass from youth to 



