Volume II Part 11 (1/2)

This incident did not interfere with the continuance of frequent and friendly correspondence between the two ”high powers,” and Miss Nightingale's persistence may not have been without soestions to the Governor-General, and these he always referred to some appropriate official for report, whose remarks (sometimes in manuscript, sometimes printed for official use) were in turn forwarded to her There is one long printed paper of the kind, headed ”Dr Farquhar's Notes on Miss Nightingale's Questions relative to Sanitation in Algeria and India, April 20, 1867”[97] Miss Nightingale forwarded the ”Notes” to Sir Bartle Frere, rote a long ale that there was no reason why India should not be brought up to the Algerian standard The ”Notes” were a coht, of the errors that ih Sir John Lawrence's officials were critical, and her suggestions were not at the moment effectual, they may have had their influence in the end Sir Bartle Frere was once asked by a ale's family to what her influence in India was due, and what had set the sanitary crusade inBlue-book, he replied, which nobody reads, but ”a certain little red book of hers on India which e at the tiood”[98]

Sir Bartle Frere had by no ale to write to hi him in advance of the Memorandum which would shortly come to him from the India Office ”I have often known,” he said, ”a scrap of paper on which you had written a feords--or even your words printed--workSir John Lawrence once more to appoint an Executive Sanitary Department in the Government of India, but it did not prevail:--

(_Sir John Lawrence to Miss Nightingale_) _October_ 25 [1868] It leness ofvery little, and yet in truth I already see great improvement, more particularly in our military cantonments, and doubtless we shall from year to year do better But the extension of sanitation throughout the country and a the people must be a matter of time, especially if ish to carry them with us(_November_ 23) I think that we have done all we can do at present in furtherance of sanitary improvement, and that the best plan is to leave the Local Governeood humour If we try more we shall have trouble I don't think we require a commission Mr John Strachey, a e of the Home Department under the Government of India, and all sanitary matters have been transferred to that departone there will still be a friend at court to whom you can refer

[97] She had made use, after all, it will be observed, of Dr

Sutherland's visit to ”Astley's” (above, p 110)

[98] The ”little red book” was the reprint of Miss Nightingale's _Observations_; see above, p 36

Miss Nightingale found cold comfort in this promised friend at court, for Sir John Lawrence forwarded at the same time a letter to himself fronant terms about the India Office's s which they were said to have left undone, and gave them no credit for what they had done; and it advocated a forward policy in sanitation whichsanitary reforale to Dr

Sutherland, ”this is the nastiest pill we have had, but we have sed a good many and we're not poisoned yet” They replied to Mr Strachey's criticisms in a final letter to the Governor-General An ”adht it; ”ale in her diary, ”to bless and to curse” (Dec

4, 1868) I hope, and I expect, that the blessing was the larger half

For, in truth, she had obtained during Sir John Lawrence's term of office at least as much for her cause as could reasonably be expected

When Sir John Lawrence returned to London, one of the first things he did was to call at South Street, and leave, with a little note, ”a soat” He did not presume, he said, to ask to see her without an appointive him one Three days later (April 3, 1869), he caale's ad note of his conversation, which ranged over the whole field of Indian government On the subject of Public Health she recorded with pleasure his saying to her: ”You initiated the refors possible, and now there is not a station in India where there is not so” But ”in the first place,” she wrote, ”when I see hiain, I see that there is nobody like hiypt All the Ministers are rats and weasels by his side” And to a friend she afterwards said:[99] ”Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew He has left his norance or starvation or dirt or fever or famine, or the wild bold lawlessness of brave races, or the cringing slavishness of clever feeble races was to be found, there he has left his mark He has set India on a new track which--ht of a better era Without reproach or fear, Said I not well that Bayards And Sidneys still are here!”

[99] Letter to Madame Mohl, March 26, 1869

CHAPTER III

PUBLIC HEALTH MISSIONARY FOR INDIA

(1868-1872)

There is a vast work going on in India, and the fruits will be reaped in ti in faith and in hope--DR JOHN SUTHERLAND (_Letter to Miss Nightingale_, August 16, 1871)

”By dint of reot a little (not tart, but) Department all to myself, called 'Of Public Health, Civil and Military, for India,' with Sir B Frere at the head of it And I had the i 'Printed Despatch No 1' of said Department (I never, in all my life before, saw any Despatch, Paper or Minute under at least No 77,981)

Still you know this is not the meat, but only the smell of the meat

What ant is an Executive out there to do it, and a Depart done The latterhave; the former must still rest with the Viceroy and Council out there” Thus did Miss Nightingale, in a letter to M Mohl (Feb 16, 1868), sun described in the last chapter Her life, for soely occupied with the affairs of the ”little Department all to herself” The Department may have been little, but she interpreted her duties, as we shall see, in a large sense Her work in connection with the War Office, though it did not entirely cease, was no longer absorbing She had ceased to have direct communications with the Secretaries for War In 1868 there was one of the periodical reorganizations of the War Office, followed in the succeeding year by the retireer a confidential intimate in the Department She could have made one, perhaps, if she had so desired; for her Scutari friend, Sir Henry Storks, had now been appointed to the newly organized post of Controller-in-Chief, and presently became Surveyor-General of Ordnance

But her Indian preoccupations, coupled with the never-ceasing strain of work as Adviser-in-General on Hospitals and Nursing, used all her strength In the present chapter we shall follow the course of her life during the years 1868-72, with special reference to Indian work; in the next, we shall follow the develop

[100] He retired at the end of 1869, and was appointed to a post in the Office of Works Miss Nightingale intervened (through representations to Lord de Grey and Mr Cardwell) to secure his continuance as astrain, mentioned in the letter to M Mohl, had told severely upon Miss Nightingale's strength, and at the end of Dece no address behind (except with Dr Sutherland), for a month's rest-cure under Dr Walter Johnson at Malvern Upon her return to London she was busily engaged in the preparation of the Indian ”Menes Jones and the anxieties which it entailed (chap i) told greatly upon her health and spirits Mr Jowett, after seeing her early in July, was seriously alarmed at her state of physical weakness and o for rest and change to Lea Hurst; but only if the rest were accompanied by a duty of affection If her o; if not, she would not So Mr Jorote privately to Mrs Nightingale, who arranged her plans accordingly, and begged her daughter to coether at the old home for three months (July 7-Oct 3), and for a week of the tihter had seldo terale to Madaentle than I ever rehter's note of conversations shows that they talked of s in the past, and that the mother was ready to bla in life, if you had not resisted ale repeated such visits to the country homes of her parents They were now old; her father was 74 in 1868, her hter desired to be with the was due also to the persistent counsels of Mr Jowett Continuous drudgery in London was not good, he pleaded, either for her body or for her soul They were supposed to have entered into a compact not to overwork He avowed that he was faithfully keeping his side of the bargain, and put her upon her honour to do her part in return It was an unhealthy life, he pleaded, to be shut up all the year in a London room There was still much for her to do, and she would do it all the better for some relaxation of daily effort Perhaps he persuaded her At any rate, from 1868 for sohtingale's life--less of incessant drudgery, e for meditation In 1869 she was at Embley for three months in the summer; in 1870, at Embley for one month, and at Lea Hurst for three; in 1871, there was a siht months

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