The illness of the Princess Alice is causing great alarm
to the Queen, who has sent her own physician, Sir William Jenner, to attend her. The attack is a grave form of the diphtheria from which the whole family has been suffering, and which has already caused the death of one of her children. In all proba- bility, to-day will show whether the illness is to assume a favourable turn or not. It is remarkable that this is the anniversary, both by the day of the month and the day of the week, of the death of the Prince Consort, and the same day on which the turn for the better came in the typhoid fever which so nearly carried off the Prince of Wales. Probably the truth is, that the access of cold, so common at this time of year, —an access of cold observable on all three occasions,—is a very serious addition to the peril of a family in whom the vital power is not of the strongest. The Prince Consort himself was cer- tainly deficient in it, and probably all his children have more or less inherited his insufficient stock of vitality.
