I confess that, subject to correction or modification from further experience or information, my belief, the result of much anxious thought and actual experience, is, that their introduction is certain to effect far more harm in some ways than it can effect good in others; that a great part of the advantages of the system of Orders is lost when their members are partially incorporated in a secular, and therefore, as they consider, an inferior system; and that their incorporation, especially as regards the Roman Catholic Sisters, will be a constant source of confusion, of weakness, of disunion, and of mischief. Saint Vincent de Paule well knew mankind, when he imposed, amongst other things, the rule on the Sisters of his Order never to join in any work of charity with the Sisters of any other Order. This rule was mentioned to me on an occasion which gave it weight, by the Superior of the Sisters of Charity of one of the two Sardinian Hospitals on the Heights of Balaklava, in the spring of 1856, and by the _Mère Générale_ at Paris, October 1854, when she was solicited by me, with the assent and sanction, both of the English and of the French Governments, to grant some of her Sisters to us at Scutari. [Sidenote: Ladies] 9. As regards ladies, not members of Orders, peculiar difficulties attend their admission: yet their eventual admixture to a certain extent in the work is an important feature of it. Obedience, discipline, self-control, work understood as work, hospital service as implying masters, civil and medical, and a mistress, what service means, and abnegation of self, are things not always easy to be learnt, understood, and faithfully acted upon, by ladies. Yet they cannot fail in efficiency of service or propriety of conduct--propriety is a large word--without damaging the work, and degrading their element. Their dismissal (like that of Sisters) must always be more troublesome, if not more difficult than that of the other nurses. It might be better not to invite this element; to let it come if it will learn, understand, and do what has to be learnt, understood, and done: if not, it is better away. It appears to me, but I may be quite mistaken, that, in the beginning, many such persons will offer themselves, but few persevere; that in time a sufficient number will form an important element of the work; more is not desirable. It seems to me important that ladies, as such, should have no separate status; but should be merged among the head-nurses, by whatever name these are called. Thus efficiency would be promoted, sundry things would be checked, and the leaven would circulate.