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communication with the Station.* During the night, and on
Sundays, application for a patient's removal is forwarded direct
to the Ambulance Station.
River Service.—The Managers possess, in their three
Ambulance Steamers, Red Cross, Maltese Cross and Albert
Victor, together with the steam pinnace Swallow, all specially
built or adapted, a fleet equal to all probable demands of smallpox
when epidemic. The patients embark at Wharves which
the Managers were authorised to provide by Section G of the
Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) Act 1883, now incorporated
in the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. These Wharves
are three in number respectively named north, south, and
West. The North Wharf is at Blackwall, the South
Wharf at Rotherhithe. The West Wharf, at Fulham, near
Wandsworth Bridge, at which, in the event of an epidemic of
small-pox,Kensington patients will embark forthe voyage to the
hospital ships at Long Reach, and the Brick Hut-Hospital at
Darenth, but which is also intended for the accommodation of
the West District generally, has long since been completed;
but hitherto it has not been necessary to bring it into use.
Owing to the great distance between the Western Hospital
and the districts allocated to it, and the South Wharf, at
Rotherhithe, to w hich small-pox patients were formerly sent
for embarkation, the number of miles travelled by the ambulances
was excessive.
Having said so much by way of general introduction, I
proceed to deal with the
ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMBULANCE
COMMITTEE.
Arrangements in connection with the transit of the sick,
between home and hospital, and back again, are under the
control of a Committee of the Asylums Board, whose Annual
Report for 1891, interesting as it is, has nothing of special
* Telegraphic Address, "Asylums Board, London" ; Telephone Number, 2587.