Should her being without children be made a _sine quâ non_? Children--poor little things--are wanted nowhere in the way of business, but do not be too strict about this: they are sometimes pledges to other things than fortune--thoughts, anxieties, and labours for them, concentrate and steady a mother’s heart--there will be fewer adventurers. Maternal _nurses_ must upon the whole be discouraged, because upon the whole the disadvantages seem to overweigh the advantages.[9] But the Matron’s office and duties are different; she is not fixed to a great ward of patients; and her having children should not be a bar, especially if they did not live with her. Young and grown-up daughters are much in a Matron’s way; sons matter much less. The greatest Civil Hospital gives its Matron 200_l._ and a _house_, the other great Hospitals, 150_l._, and a _house_. The London Hospital gives 150_l._, and a couple of good well-furnished rooms, and a servant. A _house_ is an impediment to a Matron’s duty. She is seen arriving in the wards, and she is more or less hindered in entering them. From her rooms she issues and re-issues, unexpectedly, and much more efficiently. 200_l._ and quarters is not at all too much. The Matron must be responsible for the storing, mending, and distribution of the linen, and for returning to the laundry any linen not properly washed or dried. Linen ought never to be dried in the wards, a process both inconvenient and unwholesome. The Matron ought to have a steady, respectable woman, certainly not below the rank and pay of a nurse, to be responsible to, and under her, for the linen, otherwise the proper care of the linen will take up far too much of her time. This is important. If, however, a Nurse should be thus set aside for the Laundry, she must not be allowed to enter the wards; otherwise she will unconsciously become a gossip and mischief-maker. I would term her “Linen Nurse,” not Assistant. The Matron should also have a steady, properly paid servant. A Matron of the proper sort has quite other things to do at a leisure moment, than to keep her wardrobe in order. She must have a servant; but it seems to be advisable to simplify things, and condense payments as much as possible; and I would rather consider this in the salary, and let the Matron find and pay her own servant. Try to have the servant’s room near the Matron’s. These minutiæ, once provided for, enter much into the daily working and comfort of things. The dress of the Matrons is a difficult thing to settle. Sometimes a Matron is afflicted with a taste for either gorgeous or elegant apparel, which the Nurses are invariably proud of, admire and humbly emulate. This sort of thing would be really out of place in a Military Hospital, and would moreover sadly discompose the Nurses with their plain caps and gowns. How would it be to allow the Matrons the choice between a Regulation dress and a plain black or brown silk gown?