The Press.
London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

establishment of new schools, as well as the
maintenance of those now in being ; and reli-
gious teaching will neither be set aside on the
one hand, nor, on other, suffered to degene-
rate into a watchword of party, and an occa-
sion of perpetual strife. From such a measure,
brought forward under these auspices, at a
time when the necessity of action is admitted
on all hands, and when extreme views are
generally scouted, we augur well. Let the
two plans—those of Sir J. PAICINGTON and Lord
J. RussEtt.—be fully stated, and their relative
merits discussed. It is not impossible that
the House of Commons may send them both
to a committee, and that (as happened with
the bribery bills of last year) a measure may
arise out of the union of the two which shall
pass through Parliament by consent of all
parties, and finally set at rest this long-vexed
controversy.

MR. SIDNEY HERBERT AND HIS NUNS.
AMONGST the flagrant errors of the Ministry
in the management of the army, the blunder
of sending out propagandist nurses, in the
name of " Sisters of Charity," is deserving of
particular rebuke. By selecting conventual
" subjects" (in the Romanist phrase), Mr.
SIDNEY HERBERT did much to damage the
novel experiment of trying whether feminine
auxiliaries in military hospitals would pro-
mote or retard the welfare of the sick. As an
experiment, the scheme deserved the best
trial that a man of practical mind could give
it, and the fact that it came from one of actual
experience like Miss NIGHTINGALE ought to
have been an additional inducement to the
Secretary-at War to take special heed how he
resigned himself to the eccentric influence of
that passion for sentimental crotchets by
which he is so singularly characterised.
Of Miss NIGHTINGALE herself, and the high
motives which animate her, we heartily sym-
pathise with the sincere respect universally
felt towards her. In her first thought—
" What a comfort the sight of their country-
" women would be to poor wounded English-
" men far away from home "—there was much
affecting earnestness. Her previous life of
devotedness to the sick showed that she was
no mere holiday enthusiast, bent on setting
traps to catch cheers, and to win the care-
lessly-given palm of popular applause. Her
antecedents were guarantees for the spirit in
which that estimable lady entered upon her
difficult work ; and it is well to remember the
honest and unnoticed apprenticeship which
Miss NIGHTINGALE had previously served,
because it cannot be denied that English
society generally recoils from any exaggerated
exhibition of those traits which sometimes
make up a " heroine." It is easy to say, that
as a people we are " too proud," or " too cold,"
and it is certainly possible that we are too
reserved in the display of our emotions.
There are weak as well as strong points in our
national character, but, though not so ready
as the people of other countries to give up
our enthusiasm at the first solicitation. in no
land when virtue is once proved does it find
more fervent admiration than in England.
Thus, when Miss NIGHTINGALE'S proposal was
first mentioned, there were doubts and hesita-
tion, but when people learned the interesting
and authentic facts in the personal history of
that lady, they accepted the genuine evidence
given by her well-spent life as security that
her mission to the East was not made in the
romantic spirit of a Lady Hester Stanhope
or some other of these extraordinary " female
characters" who have made themselves con
spicuous. The applause due to a noble-
minded Englishwoman, whose rare accom
plishmenta and intellectual gifts are forgotten
in comparison with her lofty moral qualities,
was given from all sides with no stinted
'need.

Rarely, therefore, had a Minister a better
mode of testing a new design, and seldom did
the official mind commit a more offensive
blunder, than when the most formidable
missionaries of the Church of Rome were
enlisted by Mr. SIDNZY HERBUIT for the pur-

5~

pose of carrying out a plan for giving English
female nurses to British soldiers. Any one
might have foreseen that such a plan would
provoke general distrust at home, and sow end-
less dissensions in the camp. The morbid lean-
ings of Mr. HERBERT'S softly-emotional nature,
his queer crotchet that mediaeval institutions
are fitted fora practical age, his love of "artistic "
religionism, along with the fatal fallacy of his
peculiar school in supposing that there is a
moral connection between the pious and the
picturesque—all these induced our senti-
mental Secretary-at-War to shut his eyes to
the fact that the " Sisters of Charity" in the
Church of Rome are propagandists as much
as any of those renowned suns of LOYOLA
who sow doubts where they cannot reap con •
versions. Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT liked the
costumes of the " White-hooded Nuns," and
his ear was caught with the phrase " Sisters
of Charity." A practical man would have
given nurses to obey the directions of
Miss NIGHTINGALE, but the word " sisters "
fell with musical cadence on the ears
of this sympathetic gentleman, amiable,
unpractical, and crotchety, wha has done so
much to imperil the success of a benevolent
scheme worthy of an honest trial.

Our readers must recollect that we have
previously condemned the plan followed by
Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT. In Our number of the
6th instant we noticed at some length the un-
satisfactory working of the system, and we
then mentioned the fact that Miss NIGHTIN-
GALE was compelled to dispense with the ser-
vices of five of Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT'S " White-
hooded Sisters." In some quarters our state-
ment was received with incredulity ; but
in the Times of a subsequent date to our pre-
vious remarks there is detailed evidence of
the dissatisfaction arising from " Sisters"
having been employed. The Times' almoner,
writing from Scutari, mentions the fact, that
"the removal of the ' White-hoods' by Miss
" NIGHTINGALE had given umbrage to the Roman
" Catholic chaplains," and we hear also from pri-
vate sources, that Miss NIGHTINGALE has been
" fiercely attacked Ly one of the clerical Ro
" manists." Any one (excep; a mere sentimen-
talist) might have foreseen as much.

Nor can we think that there will be perfect
peace in the Nurse Department until the mis-
sionary " Sisters" shall be sent away entirely,
and their places taken by competent and ex-
perienced nurses. The troubles of Miss NIGHT-
INGALE are quite severe enough, without entail-
ing on her the consequences of the crotchets
and misdirected sensibilities of the impractical
Secretary-at-War. " Miss NIGHTINGALE (writes
"the Times' almoner, from Scutari,) is quite
"right in endeavouring to put her establishment
"in a proper business footing ; but doing so
"will, I fear, make her a number of enemies."
Such are the anticipations formed by a person
on the spot, who has seen the evil resulting
from the monstrous design of employing the
missionary influences of Romanism as means
for achieving purely benevolent objects. It is
impossible for " Sisters" to dissociate their
minds from the grand object of their Church.
Their very costume is strikingly sectarian and
polemical. Nor will it answer for the
votaries of a certain school to declaim against
the views we have advanced as " Pro-
testant prejudices." We insist upon it,
that political feeling, or religious " preju-
dice," has no right to be needlessly offended
by the employment of purely sectarian influ-
ences, under the pretence of affording national
succour. More experienced nurses than con-
ventual institutions furnish can easily be pro-
cured, and, for the sake of giving a fair trial to
the generous design of Miss NIGHTINGALE, we
insist upon the propriety of immediately re-
moving those causes of polemical discord,
which will mar the working of the whole ex-
periment.

The office of the nurse should be kept
distinct from that of the chaplain. We object
to the employment as nurses of the " sisters "
of any religious community whatever, be it
Romanist or Protestant. Trained for a dis-
tinct mission, and clad in a garb appropriate
to it, the suspicion at least must attach to
them of being actuated by proselyting mo-
tives.
Their qualifications for tending the
sick cannot be superior, even if they be equal,

52

to those of regular hospital attendants ; and
when Mr. SIDNEY HERBERT defends himself
by alleging that only a small number of nuns
and sisters accompanied the staff of nurses,
he furnishes ground for his condemnation
by exposing the animus which led to their
selection, and by showing how he knowingly
perilled the success of a great and benevolent
experiment, and aggravated all the difficulties
of Miss NIGHTINGALE'S peculiar position,
merely for the sake of gratifying his peculiar
religious sensibilities. A graver wrong, or
grosser folly, was never committed by a gen
tleman in high official station.

INDIA-HOUSE OBSTRUCTIONS TO
THE WAR.

Ir one vitiating quality more than another has
always characterised the India-house, and
converted into a public nuisance what should
be an,efficient agent of Government, it is the re-
sistance which that body offers invariably to
every measure proposed that has for its object,
not the extension of Directorial patronage, but
the furtherance of the public good. Particular
proof of this assertion may be found in the
conduct of the India-house in reference to a
question of the deepest importance both to this
country and our allies, and having special re
lation to the carrying on the war in Turkey.
It does so happen, in consequence of the
paucity of available engineer and artillery
officers in the Royal service, and the small
number of officers of the line experienced in
the various details peculiar to Eastern war-
fare, that it has long been felt desirable to em-
ploy a number of East India Company's officers
in Turkey on various duties connected with
the army in the Crimea, the Turkish army in
Asia Minor, and the Turkish contingent about
to be raised, but which ought to have been
raised and made fit for service nearly a year
ago. At the same time it also happens that
there are a great number of Indian officers in
England who, with a true soldierly feeling,
are most desirous of rendering their aid where
it is admittedly so much wanted. Under
these circumstances it would be but natural
in the Directors, if the, had either the wel-
fare and honour of their own service or the
true interests of the country at heart, to do all
in their power to respond to an appeal so
flattering to their officers, and encourage in
every way volunteering to the extent that the
public wants might make desirable. But
neither the honour of their own service nor
the welfare of the public are matters which
the Directors have ever cared for ; their whole
faculties have always been absorbed in jobbing ,
and because the appointments in question will
rest with the Crown and not with themselves,
they throw every possible obstruction in the
way of their officers accepting them.
Constituted as the Indian service is, the Di-
rectors have, unfortunately, great power of carry-
ing out their purpose without raising such an
open and active opposition to the plan as to
bring down upon their heads the indignation
of the country. They know that their officers
are mostly poor men, dependent entirely on
their pay, and they know that the pay of
the Royal army is so much less than the pay of
the Indian army, that it is only at a great pecu-
niary sacrifice that au officer of the Indian
service can accept service with the Royal
army at all. Unless in doing so he were
allowed to draw the subsistence of his rank
from the India-house—an item which forms
but a small portion of his Indian allowances,
and which, under every circumstance, he has
hitherto been allowed to draw---he would be
serving at a loss of half his income. Even
with that subsistence he would still serve at a
loss, but not at a loss nearly so great as in the
other instance. On this hint, therefore, the
Company have acted, and, while not directly
refusing to allow their officers to take tempo
rary service with the Royal army in the
East, they have enacted that any one doing
so shall forfeit for the time all the pay
and subsistence to which he is entitled as
a member of their own service ; or, in other
words, that in addition to the hardships and
dangers of a campaign ho shall bo subjected

lIMIN