To what individuals the disgrace of "a disgraceful state of things" attached, it is happily no concern of ours here to inquire. But as I have called Mr. Sidney Herbert as a witness to the fact of the disgrace, I must add my conviction that his own part in the business was wholly beneficent. Some research among the documents entitles me, perhaps, to express entire agreement with Mr. Kinglake's remark upon "what might have been if the Government, instead of appointing a Commission of _enquiry_ on the 23rd of October, had then delegated Mr. Sidney Herbert to go out for a month to the Bosphorus, and there _dictate_ immediate action." At home, Mr. Herbert was a good man struggling in the toils. The fact is that, though there were some individuals palpably to blame, the real fault was everybody's or nobody's. It was the fault of a vicious system, or rather the vice was that there was no system at all, no co-ordination, but only division of responsibility. The remarks of Mr. Herbert, just quoted, point to the evil, and on every page of the Blue-books it is written large. There were at least eight authorities, working independently of each other, whose co-operation was yet necessary to get anything well done. There was the Secretary of State; there was the War Office (under the Secretary-_at_-War); there were the Horse Guards, the Ordnance, the Victualling Office, the Transport Office, the Army Medical Department, and the Treasury. The Director-General of the Medical Department in London told the Roebuck Committee that he was under five distinct masters--the Commander-in-Chief, the Secretary of State, the Secretary-_at_-War, the Master-General of Ordnance, and the Board of Ordnance. The Secretary of State said that he had issued no instructions as to the hospitals; he had left that to the Medical Board. But the Medical Director-General said that it would have been impertinent for him to take the first step.[92] If I were writing the history of the Crimean War, or of the Government Offices, other fundamental reasons for the disgraceful state of things in the hospitals--notably the miscalculated plan of military campaign--would have to be taken into account; but I am writing only the life of Miss Nightingale, and all that under this head the reader need be asked to bear in mind is this: That the root of the evils which had to be dealt with was division of responsibility, and reluctance to assume it. [92] _Roebuck Committee_, Fifth Report, pp. 17, 19. The third conclusion of the official inquiries, which I want to emphasize, is contained in a passage in the Roebuck Committee's Report, which prefaced a reference to Miss Nightingale's mission: "Your Committee in conclusion cannot but remark that the first real improvements in the lamentable condition of the hospitals at Scutari are to be attributed to private suggestions, private exertions, and private benevolence."