3. What aid the hospitals might be disposed to give I do not know. I rather think none at first. If the thing works and works well, I think they would probably contribute. But it must never be forgotten that, excepting the endowed hospitals (the financial position of St. George’s I do not know) the London hospitals find their income scarcely sufficient, often not sufficient, to meet their expenditure. They cannot be expected, nor would they perhaps be justified, to curtail the number of the sick they relieve, in order to provide for the superannuated nurses of those sick. It is true, however, that it might enable them to get better nurses, which is surely economy. [Sidenote: Support from the Public in general.] 4. I do not think that much lasting public interest is likely to attend the Fund. The interest the public has, for the last few years, taken in hospitals has been fictitious and almost mischievous. The public can never really know what hospitals are, nor is it feasible or desirable that it should. What eventual good may be done in them must be done quietly and with great patience. What good may be done among the nurses must be done by infusing, if it may be, a higher and truer spirit of duty, by increased discipline and protection, and by ameliorating, in some material points, among which the aim contemplated by the Fund ranks very high, a condition which, to the end of time, must remain severe, rough, dangerous, and in all senses trying. In the details of all these things, most especially in all that concerns discipline, which involves protection, the public, with the best intentions, will only be an obstacle, and John Bull is sadly prone to pull up anything he plants or anything he waters, to see how it grows. I think anything like appeals to or solicited support from the public might, in various ways, seriously embarrass the Superintendent of a very difficult and a very important though, at the same time, a very humble branch of Her Majesty’s Service. I should be very anxious to avoid this: it would be perpetuating the evils of publicity, and sacrificing the greater good for the lesser. [Sidenote: Necessity of Advice.] 5. In conclusion I again submit that it would be desirable to ascertain from the hospital authorities above mentioned, and if possible from three or four able and honest men accustomed to business, their opinion as to the scope and details of this plan. In matters of spirit and of discipline we should probably rely on other judgment; but these are matters of business; and in which, without binding ourselves to follow, it seems most important to obtain and to weigh, the opinions of men long conversant with business. _January 23, 1858._ NOTE AS TO THE NUMBER OF WOMEN EMPLOYED AS NURSES IN GREAT BRITAIN.