The Press.
London, England, 1857-07-18 00:00:00

THE PRESS, JULY 18, 197.

through the crowd with an air of authority. We walked
about among the company, enjoying ourselves extremely.
I amused myself by flu-tin.; with some young ladies, who
were evidently gratified by my attentions. We went to the
saloon for refreshments, and passed so close to Sir George
and Lady - that we were very much frightened, but
fortunately escaped their notice. They got home before
us, however, for our cab did not go so fast as their car-
riage. The lady's maid was missed, and did not dare to
meet her master and mistress. I took courage, and went
to show myself just as I was, so that they laughed so much
that they could not be angry with either of us.

On another occasion, at Milan. they " made
" two young students of the University pro-
" vide them with fine clothes and a carriage
" for the Opera ;" and once when Mrs. Davis,
being engaged as a laundry-maid in a family,
was irritated by the frequency of her ink-
tress's visits to the laundry, she went upstairs
to the parlour. while her mistress was below,
and seated herself at the head of the dinner-
table. The only consequence of this proceed-
ing was that her wages were raised, and the
lady of the house snubbed.

Our readers will now be able to form an
opinion fin• themselves of the sort of woman
by whom Miss Nightingale; has been assailed.
The charges here brought against her may ho
divided into three heads—self-indulgence,
incapacity, and disregard of religion. Our
readers will stare at these words, but we shall
make them all good by extracts :
Every day, during my stay at Scutari, I, and the other
nurses, dined on the filaments of the meat, which had
been stewed down all night long to make soup for the
patients.

Miss Nightingale bad a French cook, and three courses
of the best of every kind of food were served up every day
at her table for Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge, and her friends.
The " free-gift " stores were said to be freely used there,
but my informants believe that she knew very little about
where things came from—even what were on her own
table—or how other delicacies were disposed of.

The excuse here offered is only a shade less
malicious than the charge itself. Again :

He °penal all the bales, of which Mrs. Shaw Stewart had
paid the freight, before he conld find linen fine enough for
Miss Nightingale's use on her ♦oyage to Scutari. He
took out table cloths—one being an Indian damask, four
yards long—sheets, pillow•cases, linen chemises, long
nightgowns, fine towels, and stockings, of which some were
of lambswool, and others of cotton.

On her return to Scutari, she sent Dr. Hadley and Dr.
O'Connor to superintend all the hospitals in the Crimea.
They tried her system, and it came into operation there
on the 15th of July, 1855.

The pitiful quantity of three quarters of a pound of
arrowroot was sent to me as the allowance for the supper
of eighty-three men : before it came, however, I had
fortunately made preparations for that meal in my uaual
way. The next day I received a hundred and thirty-five
screws—little paper parcels such as grocers put up—they
contained rice, arrowroot, sago, sugar, and such things,
and were sent to me from the stores under the new system
adopted by the medical staff.
I arranged all the little packets on the table, and was
going out to call Mr. Fitzgerald to come and look nt them,
when I saw Dr. Hall and two other gentlemen riding up
the bill.

asked him to come in. He did so, and his corn.
panions, Dr. Taylor and Dr. Hadley, who were then
strangers to me, came in also. He inquired,
" Mrs. Davis, who has put your Welsh blood up
today? "
I answered, " It would have been enough to put your
Scotch blood up, too, if yon had been here."

I showed him the " screws," and declared, as to this
ne'v plan, that I would not put up with it, and that I re•
fused to obey such orders.
Dr. Taylor said it wonld never do, and Dr. Hall
promised that things should be altered.

There are repeated allusions to the discomfort
and in:ionvenience of Miss Nightingale's
system :
It is a melancholy fact that the Superintendent of the
Female Nursin; Staff did not recognise any religious in-
tercourse between the nurses and patients. Whatever
did take plice was without her authority, ani in most
instances without her knowledge.

_
The principle of having nothing to do with their souls
was avowed. That care was wholly left to the few chap.
lains and priests. _ _ _

The instructions from the War•ofiice accorded with this
practical exposition of the system of noninterference.
And very right too.
The specimens of Mrs. Davis's eonversa
tions with Miss Nightingale are extremely
offensive:—

She said that I must not prejudice her nurses, and
added—

" I want to know your opinion of them—l have sent the
best here." _

answered—" Yon know more about them than I do."
She inquired--" 1)o you think the reports about them
are true ?"_

" I have heard no reports ; but all I can say is they nre
very fond of drinking; and if these arc your b:st, ruar
nurses are not good for rotten."

705

" Whose fault is it ?" Miss Nightingale asked.
I replied, that I supposed drinking too much must be
their own fault; and said— _ .

" You know nothing about me. I don't want you to
place eon ti•lenee in me."
She said—" I have heard a great deal about yon. About
Mrs. did you see anything wrong? She is one of
my best nurses."

I only wish you had never sent her here ; and if you
wish to know more, you must apply to Miss Wear."

One day about twelve o'clock, which was the dinner
time, ➢liss Nightingale and her maid came in from the
Castle. I was busy sending out the extras for the patients
on half-diet.

I was irritated at being interrupted, and said, " You
must please to walk out. I don't want petticoats here."
There were perhaps as many as thirty ordeliies in the
kitchcn, and I was cutting up fowls and putting things
rea.ly for them to carry away.
Seeing the necessity of the case she went away; and
when the burry was over she came back again, and said,
" You were in a had humour, Mrs. Davis."

I denied it, for I did not consider just displeasure as
bsd humour.

She said, " I thought you were. You spoke very
sharply."
I told her that I was very busy, and thonght that she
would not like to be there among the common men. So
she went away again.

Nobody can read these two latter extracts
without seeing at once that the conversation
was in each case between two persons one of
whom was keeping her temper while the other
had lost it Nothing can prove more clearly
the vulgarity and ignorance of the complain-
ant's mind, nor can Miss Nightingale desire a
more complete vindication than is thereby
afforded.

ON THE PAY OF MINISTERS OF THE CROWN.
Journal of the Statistical Society. Vol. R.Y.

Part 11.

June, 1857.

" WANTED, a few great statesmen, who can
" make themselves generally useful," is a cry
that has been heard repeated in various forms
for some little time past. The maxim that a
demand creates a supply appears to have
failed in this instance, so that various persons
liave come firward with various theories to
account for the phenomenon. It was not to
be wondered at that this fact should be
accounted for upon statistical grounds, as all
the world knows that figures are not such
stubborn things as facts, and will prove any-
thing. Accordingly, an eminent professor of
this occult science has come forward to show
by the help of tables of dates and of official
salaries, and by a neat application of the
doctrine of chances and the integral calculus,
how it is that the right man is not in the right
place.

Our author (Dr. Farr, of the General Regis-
ter-office, Sotnerset.house) approaches his
subject according to the rules Marc. He shows
that the average duration of a Ministry since the
revolution of 1688 is three years and a quarter,
and by calculations, through which it is not
necessary to follow him, shows that " a person
" aged twenty one, and certain, should he live,
" to be Prime Minister, who wished to purchase
"the salary of his future post, and to make
"three per cent. by his investment, would only
" be required to pay 7,4321.," and similarly for
other of the great offices of State. Hence he
contends, that the country is served for less than
the average earnings of persons in trades or pro-
fessions by the First Ministers of the Crown.
Nor does he confine himself to calculation :
he cites the cases of the two Pius, and the
statement made by Lord John Russell tha
those First Lords of the Treasury who bad
not large private estates had died in debt.
He enumerates the various branches of know-
ledge which should be possessed by a public
man—economic science, statistics, mathema-
tics, geography, history, eloquence. He de-
mands, that, since the political profession is
one that demands all the time and all the
energies of a class of the ablest men in the
country, these men should be as well paid for
their services as their contemporaries in other
professions. He therefore suggests that the
Superannuation Act should be so modified
" that, including the Ministers and ex
Ministers, eighty or a hundred of the work-
" ing political men in the Legislature should
" enjoy either half pay or salaries, never, in
" the highest offices, exceeding the amount
" which the country may find it necessaryz to
"-give to secure the services of the judges.

706

Now, it may be granted that there is some-
thing plausible in Ur. Fares proposals ; but
if we consider the question more attentivtly,
we shall see grave reasons to doubt whether
the remedy would not prove worse than the
disease. For, if this scheme were cat vied out:
it would tend to make politics a profession
(indeed that is avowedly its author's aim); it
would tend to divide the people of this
country into two classes, the governing and
the governed—a distinction which ought to
be as slight as possible in a free State. Any
one ►rho is acquainted with the political
arrangements of free countries in general, and
of this in particular, knows that it is expected
that each individual citizen should be ready to
serve the State in person when called upon to
do so by his fellow-citizens. Such service
should more willingly be rendered by those
who by the possession of independent fortunes
have time at their disposal, and who have had
in early life the advantages of a liberal educa-
tion. It is not for such a man to say—" I
" nee.l not trouble myself about public
" matters—there are a lot of fellows paid to
" attend to all that sort of thing," and so to
live like the gods of Epicurus, looking down
carelessly from his blissful height of luxurious
enjoyment on the toiling and struggling mul-
titude below. There are, indeed, and pro-
bably there will always be, men who look on
their advantages of birth and fortune as merely
the means of promoting their own personal
comfort ; but there are also many who have a
higher notion of the responsibilities and, we
may add, of the privileges of their position in
life—for is it not a privilege, ay, and a high
one, to serve one's country, and to promote
the welfare of one's fellow men ? But such a
plan as that now suggested would tend to
augment the former class and to furnish them
w►th a pretext for their political inaction.
Such an amount of apathy in a nation with
respect to public matters, whether local or
national, may exist, that it may be looked on as
necessary and proper that all public services
should be paid fur, that private individuals
have nothing to do but to attend to their own
business, and that public business is to be
attended to only by those whose profession it
is to carry it on. Such a state of public feel
ing has existed before now in States that have
been free, but it is a canker which eats out the
heart of a commonwealth. There has been too
much tendency this way in this country for
',me years past ; too much tendency to inter-
fere with independent local self-action, and to
refer matters to the Home office or to some
Board at Whitehall ; too much tendency to
con-ider municipal and parochial offices as
beneath the dignity of a man of ample means
and leisure. Should such notions as these ex-
tensively prevail, it may be necessary to adopt
Dr. Fares suggestion , but the necessity of
its adoption would be a proof that the aptitude
for self government which has fur centuries
been the honest boast of Englishmen had
ceased to exist. A nation in which public
spirit is dead is not worthy of liberty, and will
not long retain it.

A Residence among the Chinese : Inland, on the
Coast, and at Sea. By Robert Fortune.
London : Murray.
China and its Inhabitants. By Sir John Davis.
New Edition. Twa Vols. London :
Murray.
China. A Popular History. By Sir Oscar
Oliphant. London : Blackwoods.
(Second Notice.)
EARLY in June, 1853, Mr. Fortune left. Shanghae
for the silk districts, proceeding by water up
the Soochow branch of the Yang-tse kiang
♦s he approached what had been the Impe-
rialist camp during their siege of Shanghae,
he was suffocated by the stench of hundreds
of decompose:l headless bodies, which lay
about with scarcely an inch or two of earth
up in them, polluting the air. This was the
end of the Shanghae rebellion. " so much
" lauded and encouraged by
_foreigners at that
" port ":
The country was devastated for miles round, the city lay
in ruins, thoutands of the peaceful inhabitants were ren •
dared homeless and friendless, and the authors of this suits