The Life of Florence Nightingale Volume II Part 22

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:--

(_General Gordon to Miss Nightingale._) SOUTHAMPTON, _April_ 4 [1881]. You have written most kindly and far too highly of me, for I find no responding tone in my heart to make me claim such praise.

I will explain exactly how I am situated. I consider my life done, that I can never aspire to or seek employment, when one's voice must be stilled to some particular note; therefore I say _it_ is done, and the only thing now left to me is to drift along to its natural end and in the endeavour to do what little good one may be able to do.

Syria is, to me, no land of attraction, all lands are indifferent. I go for no desire of curiosity, but simply because it is a quiet land and a land where small means can do much good. That is all my reason for going there. I would have gone to the Cape. I would have gone to India as you suggest, but I would never do so if I had to accept the s.h.i.+bboleth of the Indian or Colonial official cla.s.ses.... My life is truly to me a straw, but I must live. Would that it could go to give you and all others the sense that they are all risen in Christ even now, even if it was at the cost of my eternal existence--such is the love I have for my fellow-creatures, but the door is shut. I cannot live in England; for though I have many many millions in my Home, I am only put on short allowance here, tho' it is ample for me with my wants. I cannot visit the sick in London: it is too expensive. I can do so in Syria, and where the sick are, there is our Lord. I would do anything I could for India, but I feel sure my advent there would not be allowed.

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 (April 26): "he will make the circ.u.mstances 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.[198] 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 (Jan. 17, 1884): "I daily come and see you in spirit--you and Miss Nightingale."

And from Khartoum (Feb. 26): "I am among the ruins of a Government, and it is not cheerful work. However, many pray for me, and if it is G.o.d'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.[199]

[198] Namely, _Short Notes_ (Bible readings), and thoughts on the Holy Communion ent.i.tled _Thou shalt not eat, Take eat_. Miss Nightingale's presentation copies of Gordon's privately printed booklets included also his _Remarks on Expenditure in India_ (1881).

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

IV

During the years 1881 and 1882 Miss Nightingale was very busy with Indian questions, and when Lord Ripon's policy was disclosed, he became a hero to her almost comparable to General Gordon. In forwarding to Lord Ripon a copy of one of her Indian pieces, she sent her "deepest reverence and highest hopes for all the great measures by which the Viceroy is bringing peace to the people of India and fulfilling England's pledges. And the love and blessing of India's people be upon him!" Readers of the present generation, who do not remember the political controversies of thirty years ago, and who are familiar with experiments in Indian reform, more daring in some respects than any which Lord Ripon attempted, may wonder at Miss Nightingale's enthusiasm.

But it was very natural to one holding her views at the time. The admiration which she felt for Lord Ripon and his policy was equalled by the pa.s.sionate detestation felt by the larger, if not the better, part of Anglo-Indian opinion. The opposition to the "Ilbert Bill," named after the member of the Legislative Council who introduced it, was intensely bitter; that to some other branches of Lord Ripon's policy, hardly less so. Miss Nightingale was behind the scenes both at Calcutta or Simla and in London: in India by confidential communications from Lord Ripon himself, in London through friends in the India Office. She knew how uncertain was the support he received in his own Council, and how strong was the opposition in the Council in Downing Street. He was a good man fighting against adversity, and she was eager to do what she could to help him. His reforms were also hers. She had spent years of labour in mastering the intricacies of land tenure in India. For years her heart had been full of the grievances of the cultivators. And now Lord Ripon had prepared Land Reform Bills for Bengal and Oudh which, if pa.s.sed, would give the ryot security against oppression. She had thought much and written something on Indian education.[200] It was "not enough," she had said, "to read Locke and Mill." She wanted an education which would teach the peoples of India to be "men," which would encourage them to the better cultivation of agriculture and industries, which would enable every _patel_ (village headman) to understand and enforce the principles of sanitation. And Lord Ripon had appointed an Education Commission (1882), from which some useful reforms followed. As for the "Ilbert Bill," which sought to confer upon duly qualified native judges powers equal to their position, it was in Miss Nightingale's eyes a measure of simple justice and duty; it was an honest fulfilment, within its scope, of the Proclamation of 1858, in which the Queen declared her pleasure, that as far as may be "Our subjects of whatever race or creed be impartially admitted to Our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge." Lord Ripon's measures in the direction of local self-government similarly appealed to Miss Nightingale. It has been thought by some that Lord Ripon attempted too much and allowed too little for Lord Salisbury's "periods of Indian cosmogony." But in these matters some one must begin; and if some of the hopes raised by Lord Ripon's p.r.o.nouncements have been doomed to disappointment, the fears of his more frantic opponents have been in at least equal measure belied by the event. Miss Nightingale was among those with whom hope ran highest.

Her fundamental doctrine of human perfectibility by Divine order encouraged her to see in Lord Ripon the Providential instrument of vast changes. She approved whole-heartedly of all that he actually proposed, writing him letters of enthusiastic encouragement, and she also plied him with suggestions of further reforms. In particular, she sent him a scheme--in which Captain Galton, Dr. Sutherland, and Sir Richard Temple collaborated with her--for village sanitation in India. She regarded his Viceroyalty almost as the beginning of the millennium.

[200] 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 doc.u.ments 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 a.s.sisted 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 cla.s.ses 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 (June 1881) 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 Governors.h.i.+p of Madras (June 1881), and throughout his term of office he wrote reporting progress on all matters likely to interest her.

Miss Nightingale was particularly interested in agricultural development and education. She saw much of Sir James Caird, and corresponded with Mr. W. R. Robertson, the Princ.i.p.al of the Agricultural College in Madras. Candidates selected for the Indian Civil Service were now given the option of a year's study at the University before going out, and at Balliol Mr. Arnold Toynbee was appointed a lecturer to them. Miss Nightingale made his acquaintance, and corresponded with him. "I know nothing," she wrote (May 30, 1882), "that tells so soon, so widely, so vigorously as Indian Civil Service administration. Balliol sends forth her raw missionaries; and in four years from the time he was an undergraduate, see what a man may do!" "Could not some instruction be given," she suggested (Oct. 20, 1882), "in agriculture and forestry," so as "at least to direct your students' attention to what are the peculiar wants of India, a knowledge often absent in her rulers? In agricultural chemistry, in botany (as regards plants and woods), in geology (as regards soils and water-supply), in forestry (as regards rainfall and fuel), in animal physiology (as regards breeds, fodder, and cattle-diseases), there is much ignorance in India. What if Scientific Agriculture could be taught at Oxford?" These things have of late years been done both at Oxford and at Cambridge. Then Miss Nightingale discussed with Mr. Toynbee the importance of familiarizing the students with the agrarian conditions in India, "so as to open the minds of these future administrators and judges to the real significance of their position and its responsibilities." To this end she induced her friend, Sir George Campbell, to give a course of lectures at Oxford. Of her own writings during this period[201] the most considerable was an elaborate exposition and defence of Lord Ripon's Bengal Land Tenure Bill, of which, as of his other measures, the fate was hanging in the balance.

This Paper--ent.i.tled in her fanciful way _The Dumb shall speak, and the Deaf shall hear, or, The Ryot, the Zemindar, and the Government_--was read (by Mr. Frederick Verney) at a meeting of the East India a.s.sociation at Exeter Hall on June 1, 1883, with Sir Bartle Frere in the chair. It was well reported; there was a full attendance of distinguished Anglo-Indians, and a lively discussion followed. Miss Nightingale printed her Paper as a pamphlet and distributed it widely.

The discussion showed much difference of opinion, but every speaker paid a tribute to Miss Nightingale's knowledge and devotion. There was one who was able from personal experience to recall the thoughts of the audience to other scenes wherein she had won her first renown. This was Surgeon-Major Vincent Ambler. "I was sick in hospital at Balaclava," he said, "and she nursed me through a long illness of Crimean fever. She was with me, I might almost say, night and day, and it is to her good nursing and energetic attention I owe my recovery. Previous to my illness I had had experience of her friends.h.i.+p when at Scutari, where the hospitals were crammed with dead and dying, and cholera was carrying off hundreds of victims a day; it was amid such scenes as this that I constantly beheld Miss Nightingale." Scenes not quite so terrible, but yet not entirely different, had been witnessed at this time in other fields of war; and Miss Nightingale, though no longer able to be in the midst of them herself, played some part, nevertheless, in ministering to the sick through her pupils, and in seeking to remedy defects in administration which the test of war had once more revealed. To these scenes, leaving Lord Ripon's measures trembling in the balance, we must now turn.

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

V

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 (Aug. 3, 1882), "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 (Grenadiers) 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:--

_November_ 13 [1882]. For the first time for 25 years I went out to see a sight--to Victoria Station to see the return of the Foot Guards. Anybody might have been proud of these men's appearance--like shabby skeletons, or at least half their former size--in worn but well-cleaned campaigning uniform; not spruce or showy, but alert, silent, steady. And not a man of them all, I am sure, but thought he had nothing in what he had done to be proud of; tho' _we_ might well be proud of _them_. Royalty was there with its usual n.o.ble simplicity to bid them an un.o.btrusive welcome. The men, not the Royalty, were to be all in all on that occasion. A more deeply felt and less showy scene could not have been imagined.

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 (1883). A few days later (Nov. 18, 1882) 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 (Dec. 4). 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 (1880-82), 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.[202] 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 (June 1882), 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 (Lord Wantage) to Miss Nightingale (Oct. 23, 1882), "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 reconst.i.tuted (Oct.

1882) on an enlarged basis, under the chairmans.h.i.+p 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 (May 5, 1883), "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 (June 12): "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."

[202] 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.[203]

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 p.r.o.nounced it lacking in administrative skill.[204] 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."[205] 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 a.s.sisted 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 a.s.sociates, 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.

[203] See especially the evidence of Lord Wolseley himself, summarized at pp. 35-36 of the _Report of the Army Hospital Services Inquiry Committee_, 1883.

[204] Her points may be followed in detail in the article referred to below, p. 340, _n._

[205] Letter to Captain Galton, Nov. 28, 1883.

VI

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 inst.i.tuted 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[206]; 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 "n.o.ble 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 compet.i.tion 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 a.s.surances:--

(_Sir Henry Ponsonby to Miss Nightingale._) OSBORNE, _August 13 [1883]_. The Queen hopes you will forgive her for not answering your letters herself. Her Majesty has been so constantly interrupted in writing that she has entrusted to me the duty of conveying to you her thanks for the two very interesting communications you have been good enough to address to Her Majesty.

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.

It gave The Queen sincere pleasure to confer the decoration of the Royal Red Cross upon you, who have worked so hard and who have effected so much in the Sanitary Departments of the Army, and The Queen is very grateful for your observations on the Military Medical questions, and has read with much interest the paper in the _Fortnightly Review_[207] to which you called her attention. Her Majesty considers your remarks of the highest value, and fully concurs in your opinion that the Hospital Services should be carried out in a manner calculated to relieve the Medical officer from the care of details not belonging to his Medical work. The abolition of the Purveyor's Department and the change from the Regimental to the General system--which The Queen much regrets--were both effected on the recommendation of the Medical officers, and The Queen observes that those who gave evidence before the late Committee of Enquiry consider these steps to have improved the efficiency of their Department. These matters have been prominently brought to Her Majesty's notice lately, as the selection of a new Commandant to Netley Hospital is now under consideration, and the comparative advantages of naming a Combatant or Medical officer are being discussed.

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 a.s.sure you that The Queen will always be glad to receive any communications from you.

[206] 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 Inst.i.tution.

[207] "The Army Hospital Service," by Captain Douglas Galton, in the _Review_ of July 1, 1883.

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 (Oct. 17, 1884) "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."[208] 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 a.s.sistance."

"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."[209]

[208] Memorandum by the Adjutant-General printed at p. 1 of _Proceedings of a Court of Inquiry into the Army Hospital Corps employed in South Africa, War Office, June 1882_.

[209] See Questions 6166, 6214, 6215.

VII

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 a.s.sured 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 pa.s.sed (Jan. 1884). 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.[210] The local self-government Bills were pa.s.sed.

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 (Nov. 6), "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 Sat.u.r.day, 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:--

(_Lord Dufferin to Miss Nightingale._) S.S. "TASMANIA," _Nov._ 13 [1884]. MY DEAR MISS NIGHTINGALE--I duly received the papers you were good enough to send me, and you may be quite sure of my studying them with the attention they deserve. I well know how well ent.i.tled you are to speak with authority in reference to Indian questions, and I can well believe that you have thought out many conclusions which it would be of the greatest benefit to me to ponder over. I hope you will forgive me for adding that one of the pleasantest "sweets of office" I have yet tasted has been the privilege I acquired of coming to pay you that little visit.

[210] They were ultimately pa.s.sed with some amendment by Lord Ripon's successor.