objections to it, and to exaggerate mischiefs arising from it; that the Surgeon can, to a considerable extent, allow the Nurse to be useful, or force her to be comparatively useless, in his Wards; that the War Hospitals are a bad field for investing the Nurse with powers and offices which she never exercises in Civil Hospitals. On these grounds, as strict an adherence to existing rules as was possible appeared to be the only course.... Miss Nightingale exacted and she rendered adherence to rules to a large extent, and she strictly reverted to them when any emergency, during which, at the instance of authorities, she had departed from them, had ceased. A position such as hers necessarily exposes the holder to attacks from different quarters upon opposite grounds. While previously existing authorities are disposed to complain of all novel expenditure as lavish, and tending to the relaxation of discipline by over-indulgence, others, who feel themselves checked or restrained by regulations in the distribution of comforts according to their ideas of benevolence, will naturally object to the obstruction, in their view unnecessarily, interposed to the current of public liberality. While the experience of all who have conducted the operations of any extensive charity proves that the application of the ordinary axioms of business is the only road to success, it also sufficiently shows that such application is surely attended by no small measure of unpopularity."[122] [122] _Statement_, pp. 19, 26. How greatly Miss Nightingale's strict rules were resented is shown by attacks upon her administration printed by certain of Miss Stanley's nurses. The most bitter of these is to be found in the text and appendix of _The Autobiography of a Balaclava Nurse_, 1857 (No. 13, Bibliography B). See also _Eastern Hospitals_, 3rd ed., pp. 44-5, 52-3.