[20] To M. Baudens, whose recent death is so much to be lamented, I cannot here but add a tribute of admiration for his wise and enlightened sanitary views, during the year of his superintendence over the Medical Department of the French army in the East, and of gratitude for his ready and magnanimous acceptance of our stores, when the French sick were really in want of them, after these had been refused by other French authorities. LONDON: PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN’S LANE, W.C. _PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL._ THOUGHTS SUBMITTED AS TO AN EVENTUAL NURSES’ PROVIDENT FUND. I. WAGES AND PROSPECTS OF NURSES. II. DESIRABILITY OF SOME FURTHER PROVISION. III. OF WHAT NATURE? 1. With regard to kind? 2. ″ persons? 3. ″ objects? IV. SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE RULES TO BE FOLLOWED. V. PROSPECTS OF EVENTUAL SUPPORT. I. WAGES AND PROSPECTS OF NURSES. [Sidenote: The two Classes of Hospital Nurses.] 1. The nurses of the great London hospitals are divided into two classes: head-nurses or sisters, and nurses or assistant-nurses. These latter are, generally, subdivided into day and night-nurses. [Sidenote: Head-Nurses or Sisters.] 2. The head-nurses, on an average, receive about £50 a-year and no board, or lower wages and partial board; the use of one or two rooms, generally unfurnished, and an allowance of fuel and light. Sometimes uniform outer-clothing is included. Sometimes two pints of beer daily are added to the above. [Sidenote: Nurses or Assistant-Nurses. Day Nurses.] 3. The day-nurses, on an average, receive about 12_s._ a-week and no board, or lower wages and partial board; lodging, with the use of some furniture; sometimes an allowance of fuel and light apart from the use of both in the wards. Sometimes uniform outer-clothing is added to the above; sometimes they have also an allowance of one pint of beer daily. [Sidenote: Night Nurses.] 4. The night-nurses, on an average, receive about 10_s._ a-week and no board; lodging, with the use of some furniture; sometimes an allowance of fuel and light apart from the use of both in the wards. Sometimes they live in their own lodgings, near the hospital, receiving the same wages. [Sidenote: Retiring Pensions and Payments at St. Bartholomew’s.] 5. I am informed that St. Bartholomew’s Hospital has no fixed scale of pensions, nor is the term of service defined. But pensions have been granted to worn-out sisters of from £15 to £25; as also pensions of smaller amount to some worn-out nurses. [Sidenote: At St. Thomas’s.] 6. St. Thomas’s Hospital, in like manner, has given, without any fixed rule, pensions to worn-out sisters, of from £30 to £50. A gift in money has been granted on the retirement of a sister; and the same has been done in the case of nurses who may have received injuries in the discharge of their duties; and in a very few instances of long and faithful service they have been pensioned.