CHAPTER IV

ADVISORY COUNCIL TO THE WAR OFFICE

(1862-1866)

We are trying to reduce chaos into shape. It is three years to-day since I first felt what an awful wreck I had got myself into. I interfering with Government affairs; and the captain of my ship, without whom I should never have done it, dying and leaving me, a woman, in charge. What nonsense people do talk, to be sure, about people finding themselves in suitable positions and looking out for congenial work! I am sure if any body in all the world is most unsuited for writing and official work, it is I. And yet I have done nothing else for seven years but write Regulations.--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (_Letter to Julius Mohl_, Jan 1. 1864).

Though Miss Nightingale's main work during these years was connected with the Army in India, she was also continuously engaged in work for the War Office in relation to the army at home. Indeed in some respects the work was as constant, and it was quite as varied, if not as far-reaching in range, as in the days when Sidney Herbert was Secretary of State. She was a kind of Advisory Council to the War Office on all subjects within her sphere, and on some outside it; but the references to her were far more frequent than is commonly the case with those somewhat shadowy bodies; and besides she was a privileged person, with the right of initiating suggestions. The picture of her relations to the War Office as it is disclosed in her papers is remarkable. There are scores of letters from the Ministers. There are hundreds from one of the (non-political) Under-Secretaries. Her own letters in reply are equally numerous. There is a large collection of Drafts, Minutes, Warrants, Regulations. Her private letters tell of frequent interviews with one of the Ministers. Was there ever another case in which nearly every vexed question in War Office administration (other than of a purely military kind) was referred almost as a matter of course to a private lady, and that lady an invalid in her bed? It is not likely that the situation will ever exist again; and it becomes of interest to trace "the Nightingale power" in this matter to its sources.

* * * * *

The primary explanation is simple. In a large class of questions which were occupying the attention of the War Office at this time Miss Nightingale was regarded as the first expert of the day. One sees this in the fact that she was consulted in connection with work, within her sphere, for other departments than the War Office. Thus in 1865 Mr. R. S. Wright (afterwards the judge) was appointed by the Colonial Office to prepare a Report on the condition of Colonial Prisons. He went to Miss Nightingale, asking (April 27) "to be allowed to submit to you for your criticism the conclusions at which I may arrive. Supposing them to be approved by you, it will be a great advantage if I may state that you approve them."[42] Then, in the second place,--to repeat a phrase which I have already applied to her, she was the official legatee of Sidney Herbert. Everyone who was behind the scenes knew that his work had also been her work, and Sidney Herbert's repute as a reformer stood very high. The official Army world at this time was divided into two camps--those who desired to complete Herbert's work, and those who tried to undo it. Miss Nightingale, as the repository of the Herbert tradition, was the indispensable ally of the former party against the latter. Her friend, Lady Herbert, put the case from her point of view, when she wrote (March 7, 1862), in reply to a letter telling of much weakness and weariness, "If you never wish to live for your own sake, yet bear to live, dearest, for a time to carry out his work, and to keep his memory fresh in the hearts of men." Some questions of reform arose to which Sir Benjamin Hawes had raised copious objections. "Would Miss Nightingale oblige the Political Under-Secretary by suggesting an answer to Hawes's points?" Sometimes she was the only person who possessed the necessary documents. "Have you got a copy of the Report of the Committee on the Organization of a Medical School? The War Office actually have _no_ copy, and the Army Medical Department only a proof not signed and supposed to have been altered?"

[42] Miss Nightingale must have enjoyed the correspondence that ensued; for not only was Mr. Wright sound on sanitary matters ("it is no part of a prisoner's sentence that he should be black-holed"), but he wrote to her in a racy style. "I send you (Oct. 23) a specimen of the materials sent home by colonial prison authorities with the endorsement of a colonial Governor:--_Question_: What is the mode of treating lunatic or maniacal prisoners? _Answer_: Maniacles is not nor ever has been in use in this prison."

But besides all this there were personal factors in the case. Miss Nightingale had no longer, it is true, an intimate friend at the head of the War Office, and with Lord Herbert's successor, Sir George Lewis, she was not otherwise than by correspondence acquainted. Early in 1862 he had made overtures through Sir Harry Verney, desiring to be given the honour of making Miss Nightingale's personal acquaintance. She was, however, too ill to receive him, and knowing perhaps her proficiency in the classics he sent her some of his _jeux d'esprit_. The offering had anything but a propitiatory effect. Many of her letters express indignation that the Secretary for War should be writing trifles in Latin instead of reforming the War Office. She was equally indignant when he presently published learned works on Ancient Astronomy and Egyptology. Mr. Jowett was somewhat of the same mind: "I agree with you about Sir G. Lewis and his book. I felt the same disgust at Gladstone for writing nonsense about Homer while the East India Bill was passing through the House." It does not seem to follow, however, that Mr. Gladstone would have been the more interested in the East India Bill if he had not been engaged in finding the Trinity on Mount Olympus, or that Sir George Lewis would have been any more in the mood to reorganize the War Office if he had not been applying the Egyptological method to modern history, or turning "Hey diddle diddle" into Latin verse. There is a keener point in another of Miss Nightingale's reflections on the Minister (Feb. 19, 1863): "If Sir George Lewis, instead of writing a 'Dialogue on the Best Forms of Government' would write (or rather silently act) a _Monologue_ on the Dual Form being the Worst form of Government, the War Office would be much the gainer." But during his term of office the Under-Secretary was Lord de Grey; and with him she was on very friendly terms, and he, as is obvious from the correspondence, had the highest opinion of her knowledge, her ability, and her influence. The part she played in Lord de Grey's appointment as Secretary of State, after the death of Sir G. Lewis, has already been described. Then in Captain Galton she had throughout these years a standing ally within the War Office, and her daily attendant, Dr. Sutherland, was a member of the Army Sanitary Committee. And in the last resort, if a difficulty worthy of such adjustment arose, she had the ear of the Prime Minister.

II

Such occasion did arise when, on May 15, 1862, death removed from the War Office Miss Nightingale's old opponent Sir Benjamin Hawes, the Permanent Under-Secretary. She had tried to reorganize him into insignificance in 1861, but "Ben had beaten Sidney Herbert."[43] Now was a chance of carrying out the plan which Mr. Herbert and she had often discussed--of breaking the bureaucracy, and of dividing up the office. Hitherto the Departments had reported through the Permanent Under-Secretary; the reform scheme was that they should report direct to the Secretary of State. Sir E. Lugard, Military Under-Secretary, was already in part-possession. Let Captain Galton resign his commission, and take the other half, as a civilian (and, what was equally in her mind, a convinced and professional sanitarian). She carried the case to the Prime Minister, and convinced him. Lord Palmerston told her afterwards that when the appointment was first mentioned to the Horse Guards they said it was "simply impossible." But the Prime Minister advised Sir George Lewis to make the appointment nevertheless:--

(_Miss Nightingale to her Father._) 9 CHESTERFIELD STREET, _Poor Queen's Birthday_, 1862. I must tell you the first joy I have had since poor Sidney Herbert's death. Lord Palmerston has forced Sir G. Lewis to carry out Mr. Herbert's and my plan for the reorganization of the War Office _in some measure_. Hawes's place is not to be filled up. Galton is to do his work as Assistant Under-Secretary. This brings with it some other reforms. Lord de Grey says that he can reorganize the War Office with Captain Galton, because Sir G. Lewis will know nothing about it and never inquires. Sir G. Lewis wrote it (innocently) to the Queen yesterday, and Captain Galton was appointed to-day, resigning the Army of course. No, Sir Charles Trevelyan would not have done at all [in Hawes's place]. It would have been perpetuating the principle (which I have been fighting against in all my official life, _i.e._, for eight years) of having a dictator, an autocrat, irresponsible to Parliament, quite unassailable from any quarter, immovable in the middle of a (so-called) constitutional government, and under a Secretary of State who is responsible to Parliament. And, inasmuch as Trevelyan is a better and abler man than Hawes, it would have been _worse_ for any reform of principle. I don't mean to say that I am the first person who has laid down this. But I do believe I am the first person who has felt it so bitterly, keenly, constantly as to give up life, health, joy, congenial occupation for a thankless work like this.... It has come too late to give happiness to Galton, as it has come too late for me. He seems more depressed than pleased. And I do believe, if he feels any pleasure, it is that now he can carry out Sidney Herbert's plans in some measure. And it may seem to you some compensation for the enormous expense I cause you that, if I had not been here, it would not have been done. Would that Sidney Herbert could have lived to do it himself! Would that poor Clough could have lived to see it! He wished for it so much--for my sake....

[43] See Vol. I. p. 405.

The high hopes which Miss Nightingale entertained from this slight reorganization were doomed to disappointment. Neither as Under-Secretary, nor after April 1863, when he became Secretary of State, did Lord de Grey manage, and I do not know that he seriously attempted, to reform the War Office root and branch.[44] He and Captain Galton had, according to Miss Nightingale, "miscalculated their power." She preached the necessity of reform to them unceasingly--in season and, as they may sometimes have thought, out of season too, for she was a very persistent person; and, with Dr. Sutherland's assistance, she provided them with detailed schemes. Her principles were as admirable, as was her criticism scathing when any breach of them came under her notice. There must in all things, she said, be a clear definition of responsibility, with a logical differentiation of functions; and the business of the War Office was to prepare for war--not to jog along with an organization which might hold together in peace, but would break down in the field. Some papers were submitted to her criticism (June 1862). "What strikes me in them," she wrote, "is the black ignorance, the total want of imagination, as to a state of _war_ in which the _War_ Office seems to be. Really if it was a Joint Stock Company for the manufacture of skins, it could not, as far as appears, be less accustomed to contemplate or to imagine or to remember a state of war." I am afraid that most of us have lived through times when the same criticism could have been made. Let us hope that it is all a matter of ancient history now. Papers were sent to her dealing with the questions of Purveying and Commissariat. The Commissariat had hitherto been the bankers of the army, and some of the permanent officials saw no reason for a change. From her experience in the Crimea she gave them the reason. The confusion of functions worked badly in the field.[45] As it was bound to do, for it was absurd. "Is a man who buys bullocks the best man to be a banker? Would it not be better to have a separate Treasurer for the Army to receive all moneys and issue them to all departments? In private life nobody makes his steward or butler his banker. It would not be economical. Finance is as much a specialty as marketing, and as much so, to say the least of it, in the Army as in private life."

[44] There is a succinct account of organizations and reorganizations between 1854 and 1868 in a _Memorandum on the Organization of the War Office_ by Captain Galton, dated November 1868.

[45] See Vol. I. p. 231.

III

Complete reform of the War Office was, then, to remain a task for the future; but Miss Nightingale thought that Lord de Grey and Captain Galton did the administrative work well. Much of it was done with her assistance. From Miss Nightingale's point of view, the most important thing done under the Lewis-De Grey régime was the placing on a permanent footing of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission. It was important, first, as keeping sound sanitary principles to the forefront in the execution of new works at home. It also, as already explained, provided machinery for promoting sanitary improvements in India. The point, next to its permanence, on which she most insisted was that the Commission should not be under the Army Medical Department, but should be directly responsible to the Secretary of State. "Lord de Grey said," wrote Captain Galton (June 25, 1862), "that he had adopted exactly your Minute about the Instructions to the Commission." With its Secretary, Mr. J. J. Frederick, Miss Nightingale was on very friendly terms, and Dr. Sutherland was its most active member. Most of the plans for new barracks or hospitals were submitted to her, and her inspection and criticism of them were searching. Then in 1862 the Government was about to build a new Military General Hospital at Malta. With Dr. Sutherland's aid, she went into every detail, and her Report on the plans occupies twenty-four pages of manuscript. In 1865 Sir Hope Grant succeeded Sir Richard Airey as Quarter-master General, and in that capacity as chairman of the Barrack Commission, the name of which was now changed to the Army Sanitary Committee. He went to see Miss Nightingale, "proud to think that she remembered him"; and the conversation must have been satisfactory; for "our new President is a Trump," reported Dr. Sutherland to her.

In examining plans, she always had a thought for the horses. When the plans for some cavalry barracks were sent for her criticism she put in a plea (June 4, 1863) for windows in the loose-boxes out of which the horses could see. "I do not speak from hearsay," she wrote to Captain Galton, "but from actual personal acquaintance with horses of an intimate kind. And I assure you they tell me it is of the utmost importance to their health and spirits when in the loose-box to have a window to look out at. A small bull's-eye will do. I have told Dr. Sutherland but he has no feeling." To which Dr. Sutherland added: "We have provided such a window and every horse can see out if he chooses to stand on his hind legs with his fore-feet against the wall. It is the least exertion he can put himself to, and if your doctrine is right, he will no doubt do it." Miss Nightingale had learnt to love the army horse in the Crimea. Many years later, some very bad barracks were closed in Ireland, and men and horses were moved to the Curragh. It was the horses, she wrote, who had done it. "If we are not moved, they said, we shall mutiny. _Military_ horses are quite capable of organizing movements. Did you ever hear of Jack? Jack was a riderless horse (his master having been killed) at the Charge of Balaclava. And he was seen collecting about 30 riderless horses, and at the head of his troop leading them back to, I suppose, Cavalry Headquarters. I have failed to discover whether Jack allowed horseless men to mount some of his horses. These men certainly returned on horseback--but when they found that a comrade, or an officer, was missing, they rode back, one and another, mounted the wounded man, and fought their way out of the Russian melée, but many died in the attempt--a glorious death. And when I see in the hansom-cabs horses who by their beautiful legs must have been hunters or even racers, galloping up Park Lane as long as they can stand, I say too 'a glorious death'; and horses should teach _us_, not we them, duty--do you think."[46]

[46] Letter of April 12, 1896, to Mrs. Henry Bonham Carter.

All regulations for military hospitals and for their nursing staff were similarly submitted to Miss Nightingale. She had a poor opinion of the capacity of the male mind to frame rules for female nurses. "By the united skill," she wrote (Feb. 16, 1863), of "Mess^{rs.} ---- and ----, the following Regulations for Female Hospitals were put together:--(1) Kennel your nurses and chain them up till wanted; (2) When the number of Patients does not exceed----, chain up the Nurses without food; (3) Let the number of Nurses vary every day as the number of Patients varies. I send you an _amended_ copy which, if you approve, might be put into type." She was constantly appealed to in connection with disputes caused at Netley by the difficult temper of Mrs. Shaw Stewart, the Superintendent of the Female Nursing Staff. She and Miss Nightingale were no longer close friends, but Miss Nightingale's sense of justice was strong, and she continuously supported Mrs. Stewart's authority.

IV

Another large batch of the semi-official correspondence is concerned with Miss Nightingale's favourite child, the Army Medical School, and with the position of the Army doctors generally. The troubles of the professors were still many; the relation of the School to the Secretary of State on the one hand, and to the Army Medical Department on the other, was much vexed; and, when the School was moved to Netley (1863), a fresh set of difficulties cropped up. Miss Nightingale was constantly appealed to, sometimes by the staff, sometimes by the War Office, to smooth over difficulties, to suggest ways out, to settle disputed questions. She was recognized by the War Office as a kind of super-professor. One of the staff sought official sanction for a book on the work of the School: "Lord de Grey wants to know whether he is capable; also whether his proposed syllabus is good. Also to have any critical suggestions upon it which Miss Nightingale could kindly communicate." Her verdict was favourable. I have been told that some Army doctors of to-day, knowing little about Miss Nightingale except that she found fault with medical arrangements in the Crimea, suppose her not to have been their friend. Nothing could be further from the truth. What she blamed was not the doctors (for most of whom she had the greatest admiration), but the system. From first to last, she was the most efficient friend that the Army Medical Service ever had. In 1862-63 there is a long series of letters from her to the War Office, in which she persistently pleaded for improvement in their status and emoluments. It was in connection with this matter that she wrote to Captain Galton (Dec. 24, 1863): "_In re_ Medical Warrant, I am meek and humble, but 'I cut up rough.' I am the animal of whom Buffon spoke, _Cet animal féroce mord tous ceux qui veulent le tuer_. You must do something for these doctors; or they will do for you, simply by not coming to you." A series of letters to Sir James Clark in the following year shows with what pertinacity she fought the battle of the Army doctors, and how indignant she was at any slights cast upon them:--

_April_ 6 [1864]. I have written threatening letters both to Lord de Grey and to Captain Galton about the [Medical Officers'] Warrant; and after pointing out that both restoration of Warrant and increase of pay are now necessary, I have shown how, when we are exacting duties from the Medical Officer, such as sanitary recommendations to his Commanding Officer, which essentially require him to have the standing of a gentleman with his Commanding Officer,--we are doing things, such as dismounting him at parade, depriving him of presidency at Boards, etc., which in military life, to a degree we have no idea of in civil life, deprive him of the weight of a gentleman among gentlemen.

_April_ 7. The W.O. seem now willing to listen to some kind of terms. They are frightened. They sent me your letter. It was very good, very firm. Don't be conciliatory.

_April_ 9. I wrote _for the tenth time_ a statement of eight pages, with permission to make any use of it they pleased, with my signature, as to Lord Herbert's intentions. But I positively refused to write to Mr. Gladstone, who certainly ought not to grant me what the Secretary of State of War does not urge.

_April_ 11. What is wanted is to put a muzzle on the Duke of Cambridge, and to tell him that he _must not_ alter a Royal Warrant.

_April_ 15. You may think I am not wise in being so angry. But I assure you, when I write civilly, I have a civil answer--_and nothing is done_. When I write furiously, I have a rude letter--_and something is done_ (not even then always, _but only then_).

In the following year there was a debate in the House of Lords upon the Military Hospitals which greatly interested, and personally affected, Miss Nightingale. Early in March Lord Dalhousie (the Lord Panmure of earlier days)[47] gave notice of a motion to call attention to the expenditure on the Netley Hospital and the Herbert Hospital respectively, and it was rumoured that the ex-Minister intended to deliver a set attack upon two of his successors, the late Lord Herbert and Lord de Grey. The War Office, in order to be fully prepared, sent to Miss Nightingale for a brief. She gladly supplied it, and she entered into the fray with great spirit. She was very angry that the memory of her "dear master" should be assailed, but I think that she enjoyed not a little the prospect of yet another encounter with "the Bison." She had beaten him before, and was determined that he should be beaten now. She advised Lord de Grey to avoid giving an advantage to the enemy by withholding any credit to which he was justly entitled. She recalled that at the last time they met, Lord Panmure had complained to her that she ascribed every sanitary reform in the Army to Sidney Herbert, though some of the reforms had been started by himself. She admitted, and advised Lord de Grey to admit, that Lord Panmure had deserved well of the Army by the measures which he took in the Crimea, and by initiating some steps for reducing the mortality at home. These things being admitted, the defence of Lord Herbert would carry the more weight. Having armed the Secretary of State with materials to meet any attack that might be made, Miss Nightingale turned to organize a second line of defence. Sir Harry Verney was dispatched to ask Mr. Gladstone's advice. Mr. Gladstone thought that Lord Harrowby should be retained for the defence, and he was approached. Miss Nightingale sent watching briefs also to her own friends, Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Houghton.[48] When Lord Dalhousie's motion was taken, the rumours turned out to be well founded. He extolled his Netley (the non-"pavilion" hospital) as perfect, and criticized the Herbert Hospital ("pavilion") as a costly toy in the "glass-and-glare" style, and in a long speech attacked the "wasteful" system which Lord Herbert had introduced by paying attention to "hygienists who had carried their opinions too far." He had, I suppose, "that turbulent fellow," Miss Nightingale, in his mind when "he could not help thinking that all these unnecessary knick-knacks in hospitals were introduced partly from the habit, which prevailed at the War Office, of consulting hygienists not connected with the army." The personal animus in the attack was thought so obvious that the speech fell very flat. And Lord de Grey's reply--"quite admirable" according to Miss Nightingale--was so courteous, yet so conclusive, that her "counsel" were unanimously of opinion that not another word was necessary. Apart from any personal question, Lord Dalhousie's speech[49] has a certain historical interest as embodying some of the prejudices against which Miss Nightingale as a Hospital Reformer had to contend. A little later in the year a military attack on the sanitarians was threatened in the House of Commons, but this only took the form of questions about the vote under which payment by the War Office to Dr. Sutherland appeared.[50] Miss Nightingale sent a note to the War Office, setting forth the facts and emphasizing the value of his services in the cause of sanitary improvement.

[47] He had succeeded to the earldom of Dalhousie on the death of his cousin, the 10th earl and first marquis, in Dec. 1860.

[48] Mr. R. Monckton Milnes had been created Baron Houghton in 1863.

[49] It is in _Hansard_ on March 6, 1865.

[50] _Hansard_, June 19 and 30, 1865.

V

These were subjects in which Miss Nightingale was directly concerned, but questions of many other kinds were referred to her. I find in the correspondence with the War Office during these years that, in addition to matters otherwise mentioned in this chapter, her advice was asked upon such subjects as an Apothecaries' Warrant, barracks for Ceylon, "Fever Tinctures," Instructions for Cholera, fittings for Military Hospitals, the proposed amalgamation of the Home and Indian Medical Services, the organization of Hospitals for Soldiers' Wives, Sanitary Instructions for New Zealand, revision of soldiers' rations, staff appointments at Netley, appointment of West Indian staff surgeons, an outbreak of Yellow Fever in Bermuda, the relation of Commissariat Barracks and Purveying at Foreign Stations, victualling on transports and the Mhow court-martial.[51] On one occasion she was asked to send hints for a speech in the House of Commons. Lord Hartington, then Under-Secretary for War, would have to defend a large increase in the votes for Hospital and Medical Service. The Crimean War and Miss Nightingale's crusade had raised the expenditure from £97,000 in 1853-54 to £295,000 in 1864-65. "Could you send me a paragraph for Lord Hartington's speech," she was asked, "to show the salient points of what the nation gets for its money? Something pithy, put in your best manner." "There is nothing in the world I should like so much," she replied (Feb. 29, 1864), "as to have to do Lord Hartington's speech and stand in his shoes on such an occasion." She sent some pithy comparisons; and, in case the Minister wanted something heavier, a detailed memorandum. I suppose Lord Hartington chose the heaviness and rejected the pith; for when Miss Nightingale read the parliamentary report, she thought the speech a poor performance.[52] The same kind of references to Miss Nightingale went on when in 1866, on Lord de Grey's transference to the India Office,[53] Lord Hartington became Secretary of State for War. "Can you throw light," she was asked (June 21, 1866), "on the position of the medical officers of the _Guards_? This is very pressing. The whole matter is an awful mess, and Lord Hartington is anxious to leave it in some way of settlement." On the following day a lucid and exhaustive Memorandum on the subject went in from her.

[51] The history of this affair, which excited a prodigious interest in Parliament and the press, may be read by the curious in vol. xxxiii. of the Parliamentary Papers of 1863, and vol. xxxv. of those of 1864. Miss Nightingale's good offices were asked by the War Office to parry an attack by "Jacob Omnium," for whose part in the affair see _Essays on Social Subjects_, by Matthew John Higgins, 1875, pp. lvi.-lx.

[52] It certainly was dull: see _Hansard_, March 3, 1864.

[53] See below, p. 108.

In July 1864 Miss Nightingale was engaged on a piece of work for the War Office which was closely associated with her Crimean experiences and with her European repute. It was in August of that year that the international congress was held which framed the famous Geneva Convention. The British delegates were Miss Nightingale's friend, Dr. Longmore, and Dr. Rutherford, and she drafted their Instructions. The principle of the Convention was the neutralization of the wounded under the Red Cross. Societies formed under the Red Cross were soon organized throughout Europe, and the movement led to a great development of volunteer-nursing in war time.

Sometimes Miss Nightingale sent in suggestions on her own account. She was in close touch with soldiers and sailors, and a woman's sympathetic insight appears in this letter:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Captain Galton._) _Sept._ 21 [1863]. People are complaining that when a Regiment sails, many of their wives and children are left behind, and the soldiers are unable to make any provision for their support until they have reached their destination, say China or Calcutta (after a four months' voyage round the Cape), and have been able to send money through their Captains to their families at home. Meanwhile the families have gone through five or six months of distress. For sailors leaving a port in England or Ireland, the Admiralty provides power to leave a standing order that a certain amount of pay is to be sent regularly to their families. The W.O. objects that a similar arrangement would "involve a change in their book-keeping." It would involve no change. It would involve a small addition. I am willing to go the length of 6d. to furnish an account-book to the W.O., which would enable them to keep these additional accounts. The W.O. also objects that it would deprive the Captain of the chance of fining the soldiers for any military offence. But they can learn the Admiralty system; and whilst there are other ways of "doing" the soldiers, their pay is the only means of providing bread for their families starving (or doing worse) at home. Surely the soldiers might be allowed to leave, for the probable duration of their voyage, and for a month or two beyond it, a sum to be paid weekly to their representatives at home. Sir E. Lugard has been tried and failed. Pray set this right. But the W.O. would not be the W.O., if such things as these were not. And when they have ceased to be, the War Office will have ceased to be.

Satire was not the only weapon which Miss Nightingale employed in order to get things done. Sometimes she appealed to the motive of rivalry. Was the Minister hanging back? Well, all she could say was that Sidney Herbert would have done the thing in a moment. There were difficulties in the way, were there? The subordinate officials were piling up what they were pleased to call "reasons" to the contrary, were they? Well, "on this day many years ago," she wrote (June 18, 1862), "the French guns kept coming up again and again to get us out of the yard at Hougomont, and we answered in strong language, often repeated, till we kept the ground that we had won. I never heard the French guns called reasons. And I advise you to answer in the same way, because there is no other way of answering. Lord de Grey's Minute is the gun which just has to be fired over again." And sometimes she resorted, as of old, to a little bullying. "I send you," she wrote (March 26, 1863), "my protest about the Medical School. Make what use of it you like. But, if we fail, I shall refer it to Lord Palmerston who, as you know, befriended us on a former occasion (after Hawes's death)"--a home thrust, this, as it was by a personal reference to Lord Palmerston that she had secured Captain Galton's appointment.

There was one occasion when, for a wonder, the pressure to be prompt and decided came not from her, but from the War Office. The Governorship of the Woolwich Hospital fell vacant; she had been sent a list of names with a request to advise upon them, and she had not immediately replied. "I wrote," she explained (Feb. 11, 1863), "to various authorities the very moment your and Lord de Grey's letters were put into my hands. The answers cannot be long delayed. But what would you think of my opinion if I volunteered it about men whom I know only by name? Had you asked me about Lord William Paulet or Colonel Storks or Sir Richard Airey, I could have given you an opinion off-hand with the utmost want of modesty. The very moment I have any reliable information you shall have it. But it takes some time to make such an inquiry, or what would it be worth? And Woolwich, I suppose, is not on fire, or with the enemy at the gates?" But for some reason or other, the War Office was in a hurry, and the appointment was made before her inquiries were completed. Her conscientiousness thus lost her the chance of deciding a piece of patronage. Not, indeed, that she felt any loss in such a case. She was nothing of a jobber. She pulled wires, as I have told, in some special appointments where she believed that a high public cause was at stake; but she was never actuated by personal favouritism, or by the love of personal influence on behalf of individuals. For this very post, she had received fifty letters of application, she said, but she had taken no action upon them. Only once, she said on another occasion, had she solicited anything as a personal favour from the War Office. It was an appointment for a Presbyterian Chaplain, who was not personally known to her, but whose hard and deserving case (as she thought it) had been brought to her notice. She was once sent a list of the Army Medical Service, and asked by a Minister to mark the names, for his private and confidential use, with her approbation or otherwise. This she respectfully declined to do. When she was asked a specific question about an officer whom she had known in the Crimea or elsewhere, she gave an opinion freely, and generally managed to put it pointedly; as of a certain Commandant: "As you often see in those round-headed, red-faced men, he has a great deal of conscience and very little judgment."

VI

A subject, in which Miss Nightingale took great and painful interest during these years, was the State regulation of vice. The legislation of 1864, 1866, and 1869 was already being promoted and considered in 1862. The subject was odious to Miss Nightingale, but her experiences in foreign hospitals and at Scutari had made her peculiarly familiar with it. Her private correspondence with doctors and military officers shows that for some years before 1862 she had given much thought and study to the question, and had carefully tested conclusions drawn from her personal observations by statistics and by the opinions of other persons. She hated the system of regulation on moral grounds, but she was equally convinced that the case for it had not been satisfactorily established by statistical evidence on hygienic grounds. On this point, two of the medical men, upon whose judgment she placed most reliance--Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Graham Balfour (the head of the Army Statistical Department)--agreed with her. With their assistance she worked up the case against the continental system, and at the request of Sir George Lewis, who was considering the matter in 1862, she wrote a private paper, which was circulated among some members of the Government and others. "Your facts," wrote Captain Galton to her (April 29, 1862), "have shaken Lord de Grey's views on the subject of police inspection." With Mr. Gladstone, she was less successful. He found her Paper "of deep interest and full of important fact and argument," and said that, as a result of reading it and her letters, he should approach the subject "with much of circumspection as well as of anxiety"; but he "doubted the possibility of making a standing army a moral institution." Therein she profoundly differed, and she urged, in rejoinder, that nothing should be done on his assumption, at least until the other had been given a fair trial--by increasing the soldiers' facilities for marriage, by giving them better opportunities for instruction and recreation, by encouraging physical exercise and manual handicrafts. Official opinion steadily hardened, however, in the direction of regulation; and presently public opinion was tested by a series of articles in the _Times_ in favour of the continental system. Miss Nightingale thereupon supplied Harriet Martineau with facts and figures, and the _Times_ was answered by the _Daily News_. Miss Nightingale also printed her own Paper for a more extended, though still "private and confidential," circulation. Dr. Sutherland chivalrously assumed the sole authorship, and was acrimoniously attacked by some of his professional brethren. The Army Medical Department was working hard for regulation, and some person therein, suspecting Miss Nightingale as the real leader of the opposition, disgraced himself by sending her an anonymous letter of vulgar abuse. This of course did not deter her, and, when legislation was proposed, she lobbied indefatigably (through correspondence) against it. The opinion of the House of Commons was, however, overwhelmingly in its favour. When the legislation was passed, the War Office invited her assistance in the selection of medical officers under the Act; but she refused to touch what she regarded as an accursed thing. It was left to another of the remarkable women of the nineteenth century, to secure, after a struggle of sixteen years, the repeal of the Acts; but though Miss Nightingale shrank from taking a public part in that crusade, she gave support privately to Mrs. Josephine Butler. At a later time, however, Miss Nightingale somewhat modified her views.[54]

[54] Below, p. 408.

Miss Nightingale's failure during the years 1862-64 to arrest the movement of public opinion in the direction which she detested, increased her eagerness to promote what she considered the more excellent way. She was the life and soul at headquarters of the movement for increasing the supply of Reading-rooms, Soldiers' Clubs, Recreation-rooms, and facilities for useful employment. "I will tell you," she wrote to the Reverend Mother of the Bermondsey Convent (Jan. 3, 1864), "how I spent my Christmas Day and the Sunday after, those being two holidays: in preparing a scheme, by desire of Lord de Grey, for employing soldiers in trades." She wrote a Memorandum on "Methods of Starting an Exhibition (Soldiers' Trades)," and such an exhibition was held at Aldershot in the summer of 1864.[55] Whenever there was a difficulty to be overcome, or an opportunity to be seized, Miss Nightingale was appealed to. For instance, there was a fight for a certain disused Iron House at Aldershot. Miss Nightingale's party (supported at the War Office) wanted it for a Men's Recreation Room; the Horse Guards wanted it for an Officers' Club. A promise had already been given in favour of the former, but Sir George Lewis was wavering. "Lord de Grey thinks," wrote Captain Galton (April 29, 1862), "that the best course for the Iron House is for Sir H. Verney to ask Sir G. L. in the House about it, alluding to his former promise, and if it could be arranged that Monckton Milnes, Gen. Lindsay, or any other persons could cheer or support the proposals, it would pledge Sir G. L. to act at once." Miss Nightingale set her parliamentary friends to work, and the fight for the Iron House was won. Lord de Grey succeeded in getting a vote on the Estimates for the encouragement of such places. Miss Nightingale revised for him a set of Regulations for Reading-Rooms. She also, at his request, drew up (in concert with Captain Pilkington Jackson) an inventory of the appropriate furniture and other fitments. Her zeal in this matter was known abroad; at Montreal and Halifax and Gibraltar commanding-officers who were trying to start or develop instructions of the kind applied to her. She often succeeded in obtaining War Office grants for them, and these she supplemented by gifts of her own. No inconsiderable portion of her resources at this time went in subscriptions of this sort, either in money or in kind (carpentering equipment, bagatelle boards, books, prints, and the like). It is pleasant to read the letters in which the non-commissioned officers and men of regiments, which had been served by Miss Nightingale in the Crimea, sent thanks, through their commanding officers, to "that noble lady for her continued interest in the welfare of the British soldiers."

[55] Attention was called to it, and the moral was pointed, by a leading article in the _Daily News_ (July 8), doubtless written by Harriet Martineau.

It was a cause of great pleasure to Miss Nightingale that in 1864 her old friend of the Scutari days, General Storks, who had encouraged her there in work of this kind,[56] was appointed to the command at Malta. "I am very grateful to you," he wrote (Nov. 10), "for seeing me the other day, and can only express the great gratification I experienced on that occasion. I can never forget the time when I was associated with you in the great work which has produced such satisfactory results, and for which the whole army will ever thank you. When one reflects on the condition of the soldier ten years ago and what it is now, there is cause for wonder at the difficulties you have overcome, and the results you have achieved.... (Nov. 18.) All the arrangements contemplated at Malta, both legislative (if necessary) and administrative, shall be submitted for your consideration and approval in draft before they are acted upon, and I need not say how grateful I shall be for your kind assistance." In later years Miss Nightingale took a friendly interest in the Soldiers' Institute at Portsmouth, founded by Miss Sarah Robinson. A meeting was held in its support at the Mansion House in 1877, at which Lord Wolseley presided, and a letter from Miss Nightingale was read. "If you knew," she said, "as I do (or once did), the difference between our soldiers cared for in body, mind, and morals, and our soldiers uncared for--the last, 'hell's carnival' (the words are not my own), the first, the finest fellows of God's making; if you knew how troops immediately on landing are beset with invitations to bad of all kinds, you would hasten to supply them with invitations to, and means for, good of all kinds: remembering that the soldier is of all men the man whose life is made for him by the necessities of his Service. We may not hope to make 'saints' of all, but we can make men of them instead of brutes. If you knew these things as I do, you would forgive me for asking you, if my poor name may still be that of the soldiers' ever faithful servant, to support Miss Robinson's work in making men of them at Portsmouth, the place of all others of temptation to be brutes."

[56] See Vol. I. p. 279.

VII

Even the multifarious interest described in preceding pages and chapters do not tell the whole tale of Miss Nightingale's labours during this time. It was not only the British soldiers at home and in India whom she took under her protection; nor only the War Office and the India Office with which she had some connection. She was open to any human appeal for help, and her acquaintance with Sir George Grey led her, through a friendly Minister at the Colonial Office, to make an attempt for the protection of the aboriginal races in the British Dominions. She had met Sir George Grey in 1859 and 1860, and he had talked to her about the gradual disappearance of those races when brought into touch with civilization. This was a subject which appealed strongly to Miss Nightingale. Her mission in life was to be a "saviour" of men. It shamed her to think that her country in colonizing so large a part of the world should so often come into contact with inferior races only to destroy them. In the course of conversation with Sir George Grey, the question was raised whether the disappearance of the aboriginal races was in any degree due to the effect of European school usages and school education. Miss Nightingale determined to investigate the matter. She drew up schedules of inquiry, and the Duke of Newcastle (then Colonial Secretary) officially circulated them to Colonial Schools and Colonial Hospitals (1860). As each return came in during following years, it was forwarded from the Colonial Office to Miss Nightingale. Her inquiries were far more searching and detailed, I notice on looking through the papers, than were the answers. There were not many passionate statisticians in those days among the schoolmasters or doctors attached to native schools or hospitals in distant colonies, and the results of Miss Nightingale's researches in this obscure field were somewhat disappointing. She summarized the information in a Paper which she contributed to the Social Science Congress at Edinburgh in 1863, and which she printed as a pamphlet.[57] The Duke of Newcastle sent the pamphlet to colonial governors and other officials, and invited their remarks. To the Congress in 1864 Miss Nightingale contributed a further Paper (also printed as a pamphlet[58]), embodying the substance of some of the later information thus obtained. The documents which she received from the Colonial Office during several years are preserved amongst her papers, and form what is, I suppose, a unique collection of information on a curious subject. Though her researches did not lead to any positive conclusions in relation to the effect of education as such upon the deterioration of the wild races, they disclosed much neglect of sanitary precautions. She pointed out mistakes that were made in the kind of clothing into which in the name of decency the native children were put. She applied in a wider way the principle that their open-air habits should be remembered, insisting especially on the importance of physical and manual training. The returns from colonial hospitals showed again that preventable causes--bad drainage, bad water, and so forth--were to blame for much of the mortality. "Incivilization with its inherent diseases, when brought into contact with civilization without adopting specific precautions for preserving health, will always carry with it a large increase of mortality on account of the greater susceptibility of its subjects to those causes of disease which can, to a certain extent, be endured without as great a risk by civilized communities born among them." But principally Miss Nightingale based upon the results of her inquiries a moral appeal to the conscience of popular opinion and governments in the Colonies and in Downing Street. "The decaying races are chiefly in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and perhaps in certain parts of South Africa. They appear to consist chiefly of tribes which have never been civilized enough, or had force of character enough, to form fixed settlements or to build towns. Such tribes have few fixed habits or none. But the papers show that they are naturally, in their uncivilized condition, possessed of far stronger stamina, and that they resist the effects of frightful wounds and injuries far better than civilized men. This latter fact tells strongly against any natural proclivity to diseased action." The course of history does not show that such appeals as Miss Nightingale's have been wholly successful. It seems to be, as Mr. Froude said, that with men, as with orders of creation, only those wild races will survive who can domesticate themselves into servants of the newer forms. Where there is such ability, where the labour of the coloured races is required by the white men, the aboriginal races survive, and even thrive and multiply; where those conditions do not exist, they do not survive. So far, however, as the extinction of native races has been arrested, Miss Nightingale was among the pioneers in pointing out the way. Her clear intelligence, acting upon the mass of evidence which she had collected, perceived certain principles which have guided all practical statesmen who sought to protect aborigines, and to free civilization from one of its disgraces. She urged that "provision of land should be made for the exclusive use of existing tribes." She pleaded passionately for the suppression of the liquor traffic.[59] She argued that in the formal education, and in all other means of endeavouring to improve the natives, "there should be as little interference as possible with their born habits and conditions," that interference should be wise and gradual, and that above all "physical training and a large amount of out-door work are essentially necessary to success." She did not succeed in arresting the decline of the aboriginal races; but she contributed something to their protection.

[57] Bibliography A, Nos. 39 and 40.

[58] _Ibid._ No. 47.

[59] A letter to her on this subject (Dec. 6, 1864) from the permanent Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office is printed in _Letters of Frederick Lord Blachford_, 1896, p. 251.

VIII

Thus, then, in all the various ways described in this chapter did Miss Nightingale labour, but especially in the cause of the British Army. The rôle of the Soldiers' Friend which she had filled in the Crimea was enacted on a conspicuous stage. Her work was now all done behind the scenes; and done, as I have already described, under heavy physical disability. Much of the work was, moreover, dull and even uncongenial; but she fed her soul on higher things:--

(_Miss Nightingale to Mrs. Moore._) 32 SOUTH STREET, _Dec._ 15 [1863]. DEAREST REVD. MOTHER--I am here, as you see--(My brother-in-law's house--where you were so good as to see me last year--to think of that being more than a year ago) and have been here a good bit. But I have had all your dear letters. And you cannot think how much they have encouraged me. They are almost the only earthly encouragement I have. I have been so very ill--and even the little change of moving here knocks me down for a month. But God is so good as to let me still struggle on with my business. But with so much difficulty that it was quite impossible to me to write even to you. And I only write now, because I hear you are