It would have been more to the purpose had he produced his requisitions for food, clothing, comforts, &c., and shown how they were refused or not complied with. At the very time I gave over part of our own private stores of port wine, &c., to the French Hospitals (for part only of what was given were Government stores at all), Sir John Hall might have obtained, out of the large wine store at Balaklava, any amount of wine he required, by merely asking for it. The simple statement of this fact would have been a better answer to M. Baudens[20] than assuming that I could obtain from Government stores and wine for the French Hospitals which he could not obtain for his own. As to his statement about the Nurses, it simply shows ignorance of the whole matter. Nobody ever contemplated giving to a Nurse the entire charge of a number of sick in a Military General Hospital. It is no part of good Hospital nursing to do so. With proper Orderlies, a Nurse can very well attend to sixty or seventy sick. We were prevented, indeed, by the authorities, and by circumstances, from organizing a proper system of nursing, and were obliged to do all the good possible in the best possible way. But Sir John Hall’s method of estimating the efficiency of nursing, by dividing the number of sick by the number of Nurses, is simply absurd. FOOTNOTES: [2] As little reference as possible, no reference at all, if it can be avoided, should be made, on our part, to the Confidential Report, which, in 1855, was presented against the War-Nurses. The less scandal about women is reverted to the better--a truth all slanderers have always appreciated: “Calomniez, calomniez toujours: il en reste toujours quelque chose.” It would be far preferable if Nurses could enter the Army Hospitals quietly, and let by-gones be by-gones (the useful experience always excepted, which has been gained). [3] The work was done under many difficulties, some inevitable, some which should have been spared. Things happened among us deeply to be regretted. Rebellion among some ladies and some nuns, and drunkenness among some nurses unhappily disgraced our body; minor faults justified _pro tanto_ the common opinion that the vanity, the gossip, and the insubordination (which none more despise than those who trade upon them) of women make them unfit for, and mischievous in the Service, however materially useful they may be in it. Of all this, the material consequences might have been spared by some such “General Order” as the above, which, at least, prevents others from taking advantage and making capital of such faults.