Denton Examiner, Audenshaw, Hooley Hill and Dukinfield Advertiser. — 1876-09-23 (Denton, Greater Manchester, England)

LETTER FROM PLOREIWE NIGHTINGALE. Sir John Bennett sent the following letter, received from Mina Florence Nightingale, for publication in the London newspapers. "London, September lit, 1875. "God speed Sir John Bennett in collecting help for these innocent Bulgarians, martyrs of a persecution like which there has nothing been seen in Europe since the perilegudoil of thoeltristians under a Roblin' Emperor whore ,nnirm WWI peek. In the mid* of their rose garden industry, their, ;omen  compare the purely urban with das•strietly carol i-and regions. If we accept non-ability to write one's I butchered with never- to -be - forgotten horrors; name in the marriage register as a test of ignorance, or wore, their valleys, beautiful as our own then we find that the best educated, or rather the least Derbyshire valleys, where every stream once turned ignorant place in England is London. Out of the its mills, are laid waste into literally howling wilder-33,425 marriages that were solemnised in the metro noises.' Their very. means of life are gonaestairst,poll. in 1874, only 8.1 of the bridegrooms and 13.1 pillaged, destroyed; and this in a country in which, if of the brides were unable to sign their names. Nay, education it haa not yet, raised itself to a level with more than that, we find that next to London in its the West. American missionaries had but to plant freedom from caligraphic incapacity stand counties' schools. At once these spread and multiplied a hunnear her—to wit, Surrey, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, dred-fold in the people's own hands. These schools, Berkshire. In this South-Eastern group only 14'2 these particularly, are all destroyed, the mistresses per cent, of the men and 11.5 per cent, of the and inastens tortured, girls sold into slavery. I' women married last year had to make crosses in say that a poor little country which ' could do so the registers. The most unlettered district in much in fifteen years under such a bruteforee of a the kingdom seems to be Wales, where 27.8 Government, a Government to which one had to Pay per cent, of the men, and 381 of the women married tribute not to be burnt, plundered, or murdered, is in 1874 could not write their signatures. Next to itself not only streg,gling into our Western life, but them in this respect figure the West Midland coun- up the highest level of civilisation. To the country. ties, Gloucester, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Stafford- thus bravely, industriously struggling into life comes shire, Worcestershire, and Warwickshire--whilst the, the brute, vile rapine, with nameless crimes. And Northern counties figure as being third highest in the some toll on the same things are to he in Servit scale of intelligence. One curious circumstance not AlreAdy they are there in Bosnia and the Herzegovina usually noticed in connection with these return. in a chronic state intolerably aggravated now. 0: the relative ignorance of the sexes. In every group, let us help them back to the struggle into life; letus who with four exceptions, we find the women less able have everything they have lost—homes, schools, secuto write their names than the men, and these four rity, good government, independence, freedom to exceptions seem to point to the fact that this worship God—show how we value these by givihg inability to display educated penmanship on the each our mite to help them to themselves. With a part of the brides is not a necessary consequence cheque for .£lO 10s.