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. It is addressed entirely to the poor. And now thank you and bless you for all the support you have always given me. Believe me, very gratefully, E. A. PARKES.

The Professors at the Army Medical School had written to Miss Nightingale in alarm at a report in the newspapers that the institution was once more threatened. She begged Dr. Acland, who was a friend of the War Secretary , to do what he could; and meanwhile she took direct action herself. She drew up for Mr. Hardy, as she had done years before for Mr. Cardwell, the case for the defence of the School; she added personal entreaties of her own; and she sent Sir Harry Verney to present the documents to the minister in person. "Mr. Hardy listened attentively while I read your papers," reported Sir Harry. "I emphasised passages underlined by you, indeed showing him your marks and initials. He said that he had not decided the matter, and I replied, 'And Miss Nightingale wants to get hold of you before you do.' I shall congratulate you most earnestly, my dearest Florence, if your representations save the School, for I know that such success cheers you more than anything else." Three weeks later, the minister returned the papers to Sir Harry, announced that the School would not be touched, and said he might tell Miss Nightingale that he would make the appointments she had suggested.

Some unfinished letters from M. Mohl, found in his blotter after his death, were sent to Miss Nightingale by Madame Mohl, who leaned much on her "Flochen's" sympathy in her loss:--

Miss Nightingale's interest in the Eastern Question, moved by the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, had been heightened by her close friendship with Miss Paulina Irby. Of the women friends whom Miss Nightingale saw frequently, and with whom she corresponded regularly, Miss Irby was one of the few who could in any intellectual and spiritual sense be called her equal. Miss Irby was a woman of the highest cultivation, an excellent scholar; a woman of most generous kindliness and simplicity of mind who truly thought no evil. There was a sort of innocence in her that seemed to disperse difficulties of itself, and Miss Nightingale's papers contain references to occasions on which Miss Irby's friendly offices resolved many worries. She was a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Nightingale, and Florence had first met her at Embley in 1869. She was one of the many women who revered the name of Florence Nightingale, and she had spent some months at Kaiserswerth. She was enraptured by making the personal acquaintance of her heroine, and was used to say henceforth that any good she was able to do was owing to Miss Nightingale's example and sympathy. The good that Miss Irby did was great; in promoting education among the Sclavonic Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in relieving the distress among orphans and refugees. During the years 1874-79 Miss Irby was often in England, to collect funds and for other purposes connected with her work in the East. Miss Nightingale helped her much therein, and thus became very familiar with some aspects of the Eastern Question. This interest, combined with her detestation of the forward policy on the Indian frontier, formed a link of sympathy with Mr. Gladstone.

It is unfortunate that no record of this admirable woman exists except a slight article in one of the Reviews. Her letters were, I am told, destroyed at her death in 1912; those from Miss Nightingale among the rest. A very large number of letters from Miss Irby is preserved among Miss Nightingale's papers.

Was Miss Nightingale's life happy or unhappy? Her sister used to say to her, thinking of her many political acquaintances: "You lead such an interesting life." Mr. Jowett told her that her life was a blessed one, and that she ought so to think it. He always sent her a New Year's letter, and on the last day of 1879 he wrote to her thus:--

I cannot let the new year begin without sending my best and kindest wishes for you and for your work: I can only desire that you should go on as you are doing, in your own way. Lessening human suffering and speaking for those who cannot make their voices heard, with less of suffering to yourself, if this, as I fear, be not a necessary condition of the life you have chosen. There was a great deal of romantic feeling about you 23 years ago when you came home from the Crimea . And now you work on in silence, and nobody knows how many lives are saved by your nurses in hospitals ; how many thousand soldiers who would have fallen victims to bad air, bad water, bad drainage and ventilation, are now alive owing to your forethought and diligence; how many natives of India in this generation and in generations to come have been preserved from famine and oppression and the load of debt by the energy of a sick lady who can scarcely rise from her bed. The world does not know all this or think about it. But I know it and often think about it, and I want you to, so that in the later years of your course you may see what a blessed life yours is and has been. Is there anything which you could do, or would wish to do, other than you are doing? though you are overtaxed and have a feeling of oppression at the load which rests upon you. I think that the romance, too, which is with the past, did a great deal of good. Like Dr. Pusey, you are a Myth in your own life-time. Do you know that there are thousands of girls about the ages of 18 to 23 named after you? As you once said to me "the world has not been unkind." Everybody has heard of you and has a sweet association with your name. It is about 17 years since we first became friends. How can I thank you properly for all your kindness and sympathy--never failing--when you had so many other things to occupy your mind? I have not been able to do so much as you expected of me, and probably never shall be, though I do not give up ambition. But I have been too much distracted by many things; and not strong enough for the place. I shall go on as quietly and industriously as I can. If I ever do much more, it will be chiefly owing to you: your friendship has strengthened and helped me, and never been a source of the least pain or regret. Farewell. May the later years of your life be clearer and happier and more useful than the earlier! If you will believe it, this may be so.

In Mr. Jowett's example, his friend found strength and help, even as he did in hers. "He offers himself up to Oxford," she used to say of him with admiration; and she offered up all her powers to the causes she had espoused. There were still to be many years during which she was able to work unceasingly for them. Her life was to be not less useful than before, and perhaps, as increasing years brought greater calm, her life was also clearer. But happiness, as the world accounts it, she neither attained nor desired. She had a friend who was losing his devotion to high ideals, as she thought, in domestic contentment. "O Happiness," she said of him, "like the bread-tree fruit, what a corrupter and paralyser of human nature thou art!"

LORD RIPON AND GENERAL GORDON

I thank God for all He is doing in India through Lord Ripon.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE .

General Gordon was the bravest of men where God's cause and that of others was concerned, and his courage rose with loneliness. He was the meekest of men where himself only was concerned. You could not say he was the most unselfish of men: he had no self.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE .

Letter to Miss Pringle.

Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale was suffering from nervous collapse, and the doctors ordered sea air. She went for three weeks to the Granville Hotel, Ramsgate, but the change did her little good. "The doctors tell me," she wrote to Miss Pringle , "I must be 'free' for at least a year 'from the responsibilities which have been forced upon me' and from 'letters.' But when is that year to come? I believe, however, I must go away again for a time, if only to work up the arrears of my Indian work, which weigh heavily on my mind." She went in April for a few weeks to Seaton, where Lady Ashburton had placed Seaforth Lodge at her disposal. She was not to be disturbed, but her hostess came from Melchet for a few days, and had, as she wrote, "the deep joy of communion with my beloved." In the following month Miss Nightingale spent some days at Claydon, where in subsequent years she often stayed for a longer time, taking much interest in local affairs there. Her sister was now and henceforth an invalid, suffering sadly from rheumatic arthritis. Nothing cheered her so much, said Sir Harry Verney, as her sister's society, and now that Mrs. Nightingale's death made visits to Lea Hurst less imperative they hoped that Florence "would treat Claydon more as a home" than heretofore. She did as she was bidden, and for several years paid an annual visit to Claydon, where "Florence Nightingale's room" is still shown. For the rest, Miss Nightingale's life continued on the old lines, and whether at Claydon or in South Street the Sabbatical year of freedom from responsibilities, letters, interviews, and Blue-books did not come.

Except that in March 1881 she spent ten days at the Seaford Bay Hotel.

In the spring of 1880, Miss Nightingale was intensely interested in the elections. Her dislike of Lord Beaconsfield's policy, her recent intercourse with Mr. Gladstone, her hopes for India, her interest in the Verneys, as well as her own sympathy with liberal ideas and the Liberalism traditional in her family, made her a stout partisan. "I hope, dearest," she wrote to a nursing friend , "you care about the elections. You are in the thick of them. Sir Harry with patriotic pluck is in his 79th year fighting a losing battle at Buckingham. But what delights me is that the Liberal side find that the labourers and the working man have waked up during the last 6 years to interests entirely new to them. Then, 6 years ago, we could hardly get a hearing: now men jam themselves into small hot rooms, struggling for standing-room while for 3 hours they listen to political talk. Whether we win or not, such interest will never die." When the Liberal victory was complete, she was eager, like the rest of the political world, to know who would be Prime Minister, and more anxious than other people to know who would succeed Lord Lytton as Viceroy of India. Sir Harry Verney sent her the latest rumours from the Row in the morning and from the Clubs in the afternoon. She must have been greatly pleased when Lord Ripon's appointment to India was announced; but curiously there is no note about it, nor any record of a visit from him, nor at this stage any correspondence. They were, however, old friends; and as soon as Lord Ripon set to work in India, correspondence, at once cordial and confidential, began. Advocacy of Lord Ripon's Indian policy was indeed one of the absorbing interests which occupied Miss Nightingale during the years covered in the present chapter. Her other main preoccupation was the state of the Army Medical and Hospital service--a matter which became urgent in connection with the campaigns in South Africa, Egypt, and the Soudan.

Sir Harry, however, won the battle.

In April 1880 a notable addition was made to Miss Nightingale's hero friends. General Gordon introduced himself to her in order to introduce his cousin, Mrs. Hawthorn. She was the wife of a Colonel in the Engineers, and devoted herself to good work in military hospitals. She had been painfully impressed by the inefficiency of the orderlies, and had begged General Gordon to "go to Miss Nightingale" in the matter. The character of "Chinese Gordon" was already most sympathetic to Miss Nightingale, and the personal touch now heightened her admiration. She gained at the same time in his cousin a friend to whom she became warmly attached, and who served as eyes and ears for her in a way which enabled her to forward useful reforms. General Gordon's letters appealed strongly to Miss Nightingale as those of a kindred soul:--

Miss Nightingale took the matter up at once. She put the case into form, and submitted it, through Sir Harry Verney, to the Secretary for War, Mr. Childers, who promised to look into it. Presently he called for a report on hospital nursing by orderlies, and in August the Departmental answer was forwarded to Miss Nightingale. "I have seen such answers," she wrote, "at the Crimean war time. 'The patient has died of neglect and want of proper attendance; but by Regulations should not have died; therefore the allegation that he is dead is disposed of.'" In this case the allegations were not disposed of, as we shall hear presently.

To Captain Galton, August 21, 1880.

Early in May General Gordon left England as private secretary to Lord Ripon, and before starting he sent one of his "little books of comfort" to Miss Nightingale. He resigned the incongruous appointment almost as soon as he had reached India, and after a special mission in China returned to England. He saw Miss Nightingale and announced his intention of going to Syria. Miss Nightingale upbraided him. His past claimed more of his future than a tour of curiosity in the East. Why should he not return to India in an unofficial character? She could tell him of much work to do there:--

The time was presently to come when Gordon's wish was in a way he knew not to be granted, and his death was to be an inspiration unto many. For the present, Miss Nightingale hoped for the Cape or some other Colonial duty rather than Syria; and Sir Harry Verney wrote to Mr. Gladstone on the matter, mentioning her name. This she had not intended. Never reluctant to intervene in cases which might be considered within her competence, she had the strongest objection to weakening her influence by any appearance of meddling in matters wherein she had no better right to express an opinion than anybody else. She scolded Sir Harry severely for his indiscretion; but Mr. Gladstone sent a friendly answer : "he will make the circumstances known to Lord Kimberley who, he is sure, will, like himself, desire to turn Colonel Gordon's services to account." Gordon, meanwhile, whose rapid changes of intention must at this time have been puzzling to his friends, had accepted a military appointment at Mauritius, which, however, was soon followed by one at the Cape. Before leaving England, he again sent Miss Nightingale some of his little books. She never saw or heard directly from him again; but from Brussels, on the day before his fateful interview with the British Cabinet in London, he wrote to Sir Harry Verney : "I daily come and see you in spirit--you and Miss Nightingale." And from Khartoum : "I am among the ruins of a Government, and it is not cheerful work. However, many pray for me, and if it is God's will, I shall hope to get all things quieted down ere long. There is not much human hope in my wish, but I force myself to trust Him. Indeed one ought to be content with His help, and in fact can lean on no other, for I have none. Unless He will turn the hearts of men towards peace, I have no hope. I wish I could have called and seen you and Miss Nightingale, but I had no time." After his death, she took for some years a lively interest in the management of the Gordon Boys' Home. It was at a meeting in connection with it that her words, quoted at the head of this chapter, were read.

Letter read at a meeting held at Aldershot in support of the Gordon Boys' Home, August 30, 1886.

See Bibliography A, No. 100.

Miss Nightingale, however, was no idle or vague enthusiast. She was one of those who, while they fix their eyes on the stars, keep their feet firmly planted on the ground. She was as indefatigable as ever in mastering every detail, a process in which Lord Ripon's supply of Minutes and other documents provided abundant material, and she continued to see and correspond with every available Anglo-Indian or Indian who could help her, or whom she could hope to influence. There were two main lines on which her activities moved. "India says," she wrote, "'We want all the help you can give us from home.'" So, then, she devoted herself, in the first place, to the support of Lord Ripon's policy. She was constant in inspiring sympathisers at home to fresh exertions. She suggested meetings and propaganda. She wrote articles and assisted others to write. She was in constant communication with Sir William Wedderburn. She made the acquaintance of Mr. A. O. Hume, "the father of the Indian National Congress." She saw Mr. Dadabhai Naoroji, Mr. Lalmohun Ghose, and other Indian gentlemen. But Miss Nightingale had no fanatical belief in the value of legislative reforms in themselves. They are worth no more than the public opinion and the individual effort which they express or inspire. If Lord Ripon's policy was indeed to inaugurate a millennium in India, there must be a new zeal alike in Anglo-Indian administration and among the more educated classes of India. In her interviews with the latter, she was constant in impressing upon them how much each one might do in promoting sanitation and education. She took a lively interest in the Zenana mission. She saw Mrs. Scharlieb when that lady went out to practise medicine in India, corresponded with her, and gave her introductions. Lord Roberts came to see her before taking up his appointment as Commander-in-Chief in Madras. Mr. Ilbert had seen her before going out as judicial member of the Governor-General's Council, and they kept up a correspondence. Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff similarly called on his appointment to the Governorship of Madras , and throughout his term of office he wrote reporting progress on all matters likely to interest her.

For the particulars, see Bibliography A, Nos. 97-99, 109-111.

The Egyptian campaign of 1882 called for female nurses, and Miss Nightingale worked at high pressure in selecting them, and arranging details of their outfit. "I have been working some days," she told Mrs. Hawthorn , "from 4.30 A.M. till 10 P.M." Mrs. Deeble, of Netley, was in command of the female nursing corps, twenty-four strong, in which several old pupils of the Nightingale School at St. Thomas's were enrolled. They wrote repeatedly to their "Chief" at home, and she sent them constant messages of advice and encouragement. "A thousand thanks for your dear kind letter, which seems to have given me fresh vigour to combat against our many difficulties." "How good and kind you are to send me that welcome telegram. A few words now and then from you are so cheering." There are hundreds of such notes. The spirit of an old campaigner revived in Miss Nightingale as she read of stirring deeds, whether earlier in South Africa or now in Egypt. Nor had her "children" in the army altogether forgotten their old friend. There were four men, wounded at Majuba, who were detained for some weeks in hospital at Netley. They spent their time of convalescence in making a patchwork quilt, and asked that it should be sent from them "to Florence Nightingale." In November 1882 the Guards began to return from Egypt. A regiment of them was under the command of Colonel Philip Smith, a nephew of Sir Harry Verney, who persuaded Miss Nightingale to drive to the station to see their arrival. She was deeply moved:--

So Miss Nightingale noted at the time, and presently she included her description in one of the letters which she sent every now and then at the Commanding Officer's request for him to read out to the men of the Volunteer Corps at Romsey, near her old home. She used the incident again in an address to the Nightingale Probationers . A few days later there was a Royal Review, on the Horse Guards Parade, of the troops returned from the Egyptian campaign, and Miss Nightingale was present, at Mr. Gladstone's invitation, on a stand erected in the Prime Minister's garden. She was seated between him and Mrs. Gladstone, and Mrs. Gladstone, in recalling the occasion, used to say that "there were tears in Miss Nightingale's dear eyes as the poor ragged fellows marched past." Her presence on this occasion was observed, and she was invited accordingly to attend the opening of the new Law Courts by the Queen . She was given a place on the dais, and the Queen, noticing her, sent a message to say "how pleased she was to see Miss Nightingale there, looking well."

Lord Wolseley's Egyptian campaign of 1882 was short and sharp, and from the combative point of view admirably managed, but there was a good deal of sickness among the soldiers. The fighting during these years , both in South Africa and in Egypt, put to the test the re-organizations of the Army Medical and Hospital Service which had taken place since Miss Nightingale was "in office" with Sidney Herbert. The result of the test was far from satisfactory. There were, indeed, no scandals on the scale of the Crimean War, and the death-rate during the Egyptian campaign may fairly be cited as proof that great improvements had been effected since that time. But there were grave defects, and Miss Nightingale played an active part both in bringing them to light and in striving for their prevention in future. She was in close touch with the hospital arrangements both in Natal and in Egypt through her friends among the lady nurses and lady visitors. From Natal, one of the latter, Mrs. Hawthorn, had sent her many particulars, supported by evidence, of neglect in the hospitals. Miss Nightingale wrote a memorandum on the subject, which she submitted, again through Sir Harry Verney, to the Secretary for War. Mr. Childers appointed a Court of Inquiry , presided over by Sir Evelyn Wood, to investigate the charges. The Committee reported that "improvements in the system of nursing are both practicable and desirable." "This is rather a mild opinion," wrote Sir Robert Loyd Lindsay to Miss Nightingale , "considering that all the independent evidence went to show that the orderlies were often drunk and riotous, that they ate the rations of the sick, and left the nursing of the patients to the convalescents." The Egyptian campaign followed, and many cases of neglect were alleged. The Committee was reconstituted on an enlarged basis, under the chairmanship of the Earl of Morley, with instructions to inquire, with special reference to the Egyptian campaign, into the organization of the Army Hospital Corps and the whole question of hospital management and nursing in the field. Miss Nightingale had a close ally during this inquiry in Lord Wantage, who was a member of the Committee. She suggested witnesses to him; and sent him elaborate briefs for their examination. She was furnished day by day with the minutes of evidence; and when the time came for preparing the Report, she wrote successive papers of suggestions, which Lord Wantage submitted to the Chairman. "I think," wrote Lord Wantage , "that the Report, although dealing with details, and not going much beyond them, will be of service. And I am bound to say many of the best suggestions come from you, and for these I beg to thank you most sincerely"; and, again, in sending her an early proof of the Report : "I can only repeat once more how valuable your aid was to me during the enquiry. If the Secretary of State carries out the Report, some of the most useful improvements will have originated with you."

The rate was 24.39 per 1000.

Miss Nightingale found in the evidence a justification of her forebodings during past years. It disclosed evils comparable in kind, though not in extent, to those at Scutari and in the Crimea. Supplies procurable had not been procured. Hospital equipment was incomplete. The cooking was defective, and so forth. These defects were due, Miss Nightingale considered, to the undoing of Sidney Herbert's work. The Purveyor's Department, reorganized by him and her, had been abolished. For the rest, their whole scheme of reorganization had been based on the regimental system, which had now been abandoned for a unitary system, though in time of war some return to the former was a necessity. Miss Nightingale did not wholly condemn these changes in themselves. What she complained of was that they had not been thought out in all the details or in terms of war. This was what she meant when she noted the progress of reorganization during previous years, and pronounced it lacking in administrative skill. She now said that the changes must be accepted, and threw herself into the work of lending aid towards improvement. She saw and corresponded with the Director-General of the Army Medical Department, Dr. T. Crawford, than whom, she said, "we have not had such a man of unflagging energy since Alexander." She made friends with many other army doctors. Among them was Surgeon-Major G. J. H. Evatt, who had seen service in India, and was now at the Royal Military Academy. He assisted Miss Nightingale in suggestions for the reorganization of the Army Hospital Corps in India, which she sent to Lord Ripon. She was consulted on revised regulations for various branches of the medical service. She was in constant communication with her old associates, Captain Galton and Dr. Sutherland, and she urged the former to keep the question of reform to the front by writing in the papers and magazines.

Letter to Captain Galton, Nov. 28, 1883.

In the middle of 1883 Miss Nightingale was in the thick of her two main preoccupations--the defence of Lord Ripon's Indian policy and the reform of the Army Hospital Service--when an opportunity came to her for putting in a word on behalf of each of these causes in the highest quarter. The decoration of the Royal Red Cross had been instituted by Royal Warrant on April 23, 1883, and Miss Nightingale's attendance was requested at Windsor on July 5 to receive the decoration for her "special exertions in providing for the nursing of the sick and wounded soldiers and sailors." She was invited to dine and sleep at the castle on the occasion. The Queen, whose observant eye had noticed at the opening of the Law Courts that Miss Nightingale was attended by Sir Harry Verney, hoped that he would again accompany her. The state of her health compelled Miss Nightingale to decline the invitation; with the greater reluctance because there were two subjects--India and the Army Medical Service--on which the Queen had permitted her to speak on a previous occasion and on which she would now have highly prized the opportunity of speaking again. She begged to be permitted to write to Her Majesty instead. The permission was given, and Miss Nightingale sent a letter upon the state of the Army Medical and Hospital Services. A second letter contained an expository vindication of Lord Ripon's Indian measures. In this connection it had been intimated to Miss Nightingale by a friend that she would do well to describe in a few words what the Ilbert Bill really was. The Queen had doubtless read voluminous dispatches "about it and about," and perhaps been addressed on the subject by copious Ministers "as if she were a public meeting," and like the greater number of her subjects may have felt little the wiser. Miss Nightingale condensed into the following words the nature of the Bill and the case for it: "The so-called 'Ilbert Bill' is intended to give limited powers to try Europeans, outside of the Presidency towns, to Native Magistrates and Judges who, after long trial of their judicial qualification, in corresponding positions, have shown themselves worthy to be entrusted with this duty and have risen to that grade where for their official responsibility such powers are required. It is no new experiment, but has been tried on the Bench of the High Courts and in the Chief Magistracies of the Presidency towns." Miss Nightingale then went on to refer to the Queen's "noble proclamation" of 1858, and to connect the Ilbert Bill with it. "The Queen has proclaimed that she will admit the natives of India to share in the government of that country without distinction of race and creed. She has invited them to educate themselves to qualify for her service as Englishmen do. In face of the greatest difficulties they have in competition with our ablest young men gained honourable place, and by trial in long service have proved themselves efficient and trustworthy." It would be disastrous, Miss Nightingale went on to argue, if, in deference to clamour, the Queen's Government were to draw back from giving effect to Her Majesty's gracious assurances:--

With regard to the "Ilbert Bill" which is now being so vehemently discussed, The Queen cannot but deplore the acrimony with which the question has been treated; but as it is a matter under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, The Queen is unwilling to express any opinion upon the measure at present.

The Queen was extremely sorry to have missed the opportunity of seeing you at Windsor, but trusts that on some future occasion she may be more fortunate. I am to repeat to you Her Majesty's thanks for your letters, and to assure you that The Queen will always be glad to receive any communications from you.

The decoration was accordingly sent to her by the Secretary of State on July 17. It is now placed, in accordance with directions in Miss Nightingale's Will, in the Museum of the United Service Institution.

The practical interest which Queen Victoria took in Army matters may have been a factor in the prompt attempt to remedy the evils to which Miss Nightingale had called attention. In the following year Miss Nightingale obtained, through Lord Wantage, a statement from the War Office "showing how far the recommendations of Lord Morley's Committee had been carried out." There were very few of the evils left unremedied--at any rate on paper.

There was one feature of the Hospital Service upon which the inquiries above mentioned threw nothing but praise, and that was the female nursing. Lord Wolseley, whose service dated back, like Miss Nightingale's, to the Crimean War, was particularly emphatic on this point. "I have always thought," he said, "that the presence of lady nurses in our military hospitals was a matter of the first consequence. When, as a General, I have inspected hospitals, I always felt I could not really 'get at' the patients; few men would dare to speak against the orderlies of a hospital, no matter how you may question them, but they would tell what they think very freely to a lady nurse who is attendant upon them. Apart from the incalculable boon which the care and kindness of such ladies confers upon the sick or wounded soldier, I regard their presence in all our hospitals as a most wholesome check upon the whole personnel in them. I am sure that the patients in a ward where there was a lady nurse would always receive the wine, food, etc., ordered them by the doctor, and the irregularities of the orderlies, such as those complained of by Mrs. Hawthorn, could not take place. I am therefore of opinion that it was very wrong to have prevented that lady from entering the wards at Pietermaritzburg, and I think it would be desirable to call attention in the Queen's Regulations to the great advantage of procuring the aid of lady nurses at all stations, both in peace and war." All this is precisely the doctrine preached by Miss Nightingale when she said that the most important function of the female nurse was the education of the male orderly. Lord Wolseley, in the Memorandum just quoted, was speaking from personal experience in South Africa. Subsequent experience in Egypt confirmed his opinions, and in his evidence before the later Committee of Inquiry he was even more emphatic. "The employment of lady nurses to a very large extent in every hospital on service" was the surest way to efficiency. The female nurses at Cairo, Ismailia, and Alexandria were of the "greatest assistance." "It was delightful to go into a ward where there was a female nurse. Their presence made the greatest difference." "If I might so describe them, although it is not perhaps a complimentary way of describing them, they are the best spies in the hospital upon everybody."

See Questions 6166, 6214, 6215.

The nurses were soon to have another opportunity of proving their usefulness; but we must first return, with Miss Nightingale, to Lord Ripon's Indian reforms, the fate of which was in the middle of 1883 still uncertain. "Which way," she wrote to friends likely to know, "do you think the storm is going?" She had urged the Viceroy "not to yield to the storm which raged round him," and he had assured her that he had no inclination whatever to do so, though he would not be unwilling to admit reasonable amendments to his proposals. The Viceroy's letters showed Miss Nightingale that his policy would need all the support that those in England who agreed with it could give. The storm-centre was the Ilbert Bill, and Lord Ripon's letter had prepared Miss Nightingale for coming events. "Reasonable amendments" were ultimately accepted, and the "Ilbert Bill" was passed . The compromise was that Europeans tried before native judges should have the right of claiming a jury. "The so-called compromise is, in fact, a surrender," wrote one of Miss Nightingale's Radical friends; but for her part she held that the Viceroy had wisely yielded somewhat on a less important point, in order to improve the prospects of his more important measures. With these, from time to time, Lord Ripon reported satisfactory progress. After some difficulties with the India Office, he was allowed to establish an Agricultural Department in Bengal. The prospects of the Land Tenure Bills were favourable. The local self-government Bills were passed. Educational reforms had been made. Then, presently, it was announced in London that Lord Ripon had resigned and would shortly return to England. Miss Nightingale was much perturbed, and accused her friend of "deserting the Empire." Lord Ripon in reply sent her a long letter of explanation, the gist of which was that he had exhausted his powers of usefulness in India, and that, by retiring now instead of serving his full term, he would be more likely to obtain a sympathetic successor. The successor was soon appointed, and early in November Lord Dufferin came to see Miss Nightingale. "My visit from Lord Dufferin," she wrote to Dr. Sutherland , "took place yesterday. We went over many things--Sanitation, Land Tenure, Agriculture, Civil Service, etc. etc. And I am to send him a Note of each. But about sanitary things he says he is perfectly ignorant, especially of Indian sanitary things. But he says, 'Give me your instructions and I will obey them. I will study them on my way out. Send me what you think. Supply the powder and I will fire the shot.' Give me quickly what instructions you think I should send him." This letter reached Dr. Sutherland on a Friday, and she had commanded him to send in his notes "before Monday." But, as ill luck had it, the Doctor was busy "in working at the cholera bacillus with a beautiful Vienna microscope purchased with this object." That would occupy him on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday was Sunday; so "the Viceroy must wait." The reader who remembers an earlier chapter will be able to imagine Miss Nightingale's wrath. Notes and telegrams, now withering, now pleading, followed fast upon each other. "I did not know the bacillus was of more consequence than a Viceroy." "If you did a little on Sunday, the Recording Angel would drop not a tear but a smile." But Dr. Sutherland was not to be cajoled into abandoning either his science or his Sabbatarianism; and on the former point he put in a very good plea in mitigation of judgment. If Dr. Koch's cholera bacillus turned out well, the discovery would save many more lives than Lord Dufferin, however carefully instructed, was likely to do. Miss Nightingale did not believe in the bacillus but allowed herself to be appeased, especially as it turned out that Lord Dufferin was not leaving London till a day or two later than she had supposed. So, she and Dr. Sutherland collaborated in indoctrinating their fifth Viceroy in the truths of their Sanitary gospel. There is a formidable list in her hand of "Papers for Lord Dufferin." As he was as good as his word, he must have had a strenuous voyage. On starting he sent to her one of his pretty little letters:--

They were ultimately passed with some amendment by Lord Ripon's successor.

Meanwhile, Miss Nightingale, in the hope of completing the new Viceroy's education, had written an account of her interview to Lord Ripon, so that when they met he might know on what points his successor most needed indoctrinating. Lord Dufferin had not long been gone when an opportunity offered itself for another effort at evangelization. At the end of November Mr. Gladstone called upon Miss Nightingale. He had come without an appointment, and she was unable to see him; but assuming, for her purpose, that he had proposed to discuss Indian questions, she sent him a written statement of her views on various matters, and asked leave to write again with more special reference to Lord Ripon's splendid record. Mr. Gladstone thanked her for the valuable letter; said that the best use he could make of it would be to commend it to the attention of Lord Kimberley; and added that he would be very glad to hear her views about Lord Ripon's administration. She had wanted to interest Mr. Gladstone, and was disappointed that he had only passed her letter on to Lord Kimberley, who, she thought, meant the India Council, a body not sympathetic to the Ripon policy. But, as she had been given the opening, she made another attempt. Mr. Gladstone was, of course, in general sympathy with Lord Ripon, but she wanted the Prime Minister to give greater prominence and emphasis to Indian internal reforms in his speeches. She did not succeed. "I wish I could hope," wrote a friend who knew both India and Mr. Gladstone well , "that you could make some real impression on him; but at his age and at this time, when his hands are so full, what can you expect? He has never given his mind to India, and it is too late now." It was not only Mr. Gladstone who was preoccupied at this time with other things than the welfare of the Indian peoples. Miss Nightingale soon discovered this. Lord Ripon was nearly due in England. He ought, she said, to receive a popular welcome as enthusiastic as any accorded to a conquering General. As there were no signs of any preparation in that sort, she worked very hard, though with very little success, to organize a welcome in the form of laudatory articles in various newspapers and reviews. She herself wrote an enthusiastic appreciation, but she was unwilling to sign it. The editors were willing to publish anything to which Miss Florence Nightingale would give her name, but for articles in praise of Lord Ripon's policy without that attraction there was no demand. As soon as it was disclosed that what was offered was only an unsigned article, or an article signed by some nominee of hers, the editors, with one consent, discovered that exigencies of space prevented its insertion. And this was not surprising; for Khartoum had fallen, and the Government was tottering. Miss Nightingale was as keenly interested as any one else in those things; but there were few beside herself to whom the standing problems of Indian administration were matters of "life and death," no less passionately interesting than the fate of a hero or the fall of a ministry.

Who had been transferred from the Colonial to the India Office in December 1882.

I was then Sister of one of the surgical wards at King's College Hospital. It was on a Saturday in February, about midday, just as I was due to attend the operation cases from my ward, that a one-armed commissionaire appeared at the ward door: "A note for Sister Philippa from Miss Nightingale," he said. The request it contained was characteristic of the writer--decisive, yet kindly. Would I leave in three days' time for service in the Soudan? if so, I must be at her house for instructions on Monday at 8.30 A.M., at Marlborough House to be interviewed by Queen Alexandra at 11 A.M.; and immediately afterwards at Messrs. Cappers, Gracechurch Street, to be fitted for my war uniform. Would I also breakfast with her on Wednesday, so that she "might check the fit of my uniform, and wish me God-speed." Months afterwards, when the war was over, and we were quietly chatting over things at Claydon, how she enjoyed hearing the numerous trivial details of that three days' rush! Again and again she would refer to that afternoon when I had to stand by the patient's side in the operating theatre, mechanically waiting on the surgeons, outwardly placid, yet inwardly, as I told her, in a fever of excitement, not so much at the thought of going to the front, as at the fact I had been chosen by her to follow in her footsteps.

On the Monday above referred to, punctually at half-past eight, I arrived at South Street, wondering what my reception would be, but before ten minutes had passed all wonder and speculation had given place to unbounded admiration and affection for the warm-hearted old lady who counselled me as a nurse, mothered me as an out-put from her Home, and urged me to spare no point--myself specially--where the soldiers were concerned. "Remember;" she said, "when you are far away up-country, possibly the only English woman there, that those men will note and remember your every action, not only as a nurse, but as a woman; your life to them will be as the rings a pebble makes when thrown into a pond--reaching far, reaching wide--each ripple gone beyond your grasp, yet remembered almost to exaggeration by those soldiers lying helpless in their sickness. See that your every word and act is worthy of your profession and your womanhood." Then she asked me to accept an india-rubber travelling bath as "her parting gift to a one-time probationer who had once reminded her that cleanliness was next to Godliness," and in spite of the merry twinkle in her eye as she said this, there were tears of anxious kindness as she added, "God guard you in His safe keeping and make you worthy of His trust--our soldiers."

I saw nothing more of her till Wednesday morning. The troop-ship in which we were to go out left Tilbury Docks at 11 o'clock, and I was to breakfast with Miss Nightingale at half-past seven. It was rather a rush to manage it, but it was well worth any amount of inconvenience to have that last hour with her, and it was a picture that will always remain above all others in my memory. Propped up in bed, the pillows framing her kindly face with its lace-covered silvery hair, and twinkling eyes. I often think her sense of humour must have been as strong a bond between her and the soldiers as her sympathy was. The coffee, toast, eggs, and honey, "a real English breakfast, dear child," she said, "and it is good to know you will have honestly earned the next one you eat in England." "And suppose I don't return to eat one at all?" I asked. "Well! you will have earned that too, dear heart," she answered quietly. Who can be surprised that we worshipped our Chief? Other nurses were going out in the same ship as I, and when we entered our cabins we found a bouquet of flowers for each of us, attached to which was "God-speed from Florence Nightingale."

The writer--Sister Philippa Hicks --was the "cheeky probationer" above quoted, p. 252. Afterwards matron of the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital ; founder of the first "Co-operation for Nurses," at 8 New Cavendish Street ; gave up nursing to be married .

Sister Philippa was only one of the many war-nurses to whom their Chief showed this tender friendship. During their service abroad, she was constant in letters of encouragement and advice:--

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