But it was the condition of the army itself during the winter of 1854 in the Crimea, rather than the diplomacy of the struggle that disturbed most grievously the mind of the Queen. Official Despatches, especially those of Lord Raglan, were culpably silent on the subject. Private letters, however, from officers and men, teemed with complaints, and officers in the Guards kept the Court well informed about the actual state of things. Early in October, the _Times_ newspaper generously opened a subscription for the benefit of the army, and sent Mr. Macdonald to the Crimea to administer it. The services which this gentleman rendered to the troops will never be forgotten. He seemed to make his pence go as far as other men’s pounds, and to his skilful administration may be traced many most important reforms which were adopted by the Government in their methods of issuing rations to the army. The Queen was now of opinion that the time had come for appealing to the generosity of the people on behalf of the sufferers from the war. On the 13th of October a Royal Commission was issued, headed by Prince Albert, to establish the Patriotic Fund for the relief of the families of those who had perished in the Crimea. A staff of hospital nurses was organised under Miss Florence Nightingale--a lady whose good deeds and kindly offices to the sick and wounded at Scutari have given her imperishable fame. On the 5th of November she reached the scene of her labours--as the wounded men were being brought in from Balaclava--and the hospital which had been a foul and disorderly pest-house, was soon rendered a wholesome and serviceable sanatorium. It was Mr. Sidney Herbert who requested Miss Nightingale to undertake this work, and he was bitterly condemned at the time for sanctioning such an innovation as the introduction of a volunteer staff of thirty-seven lady nurses into a military hospital.[198] Nor was the Queen contented merely to help all these good works by her counsel, sympathy, and support. With her own hands she, her daughters, and the ladies of her Household knitted woollen comforters, socks, and mittens, and plied their needles as busily as the most toilworn seamstresses in the East-end, making under-clothing for the soldiers. Their example was quickly followed by every lady of leisure in the three kingdoms. Prince Albert sent fur coats to his brother officers in the Guards, and bountiful supplies of tobacco for the men. He devised a series of forms in order to extract, or rather extort, full information from Lord Raglan and his subordinates as to the condition of the troops, and it was not till his system of tabulated returns was adopted that the Government had the data necessary for devising measures of relief for the miseries of the army. On the first day of the year 1855, the Queen, in sending her congratulations to Lord Raglan, speaks in touching language of the grief which a long stream of Crimean reports have caused her. She urges vehemently that