Hardy's Bill fell short of logical perfection. It was a tentative measure; it was largely permissive; it did something to separate the sick and the children from the ordinary paupers, but it did not do all. Moreover, so far as direct and express enactment went, it did nothing to improve workhouse nursing. Miss Nightingale pronounced the Bill, therefore, "a humbug." Its principles were "none"; its details, "beastly." She tried hard to get the Bill amended and extended. Sir Harry Verney, who might perhaps be described as "Member of Parliament for Miss Nightingale," gave every assistance that was possible; and Mr. Mill, inspired largely by his old friend Mr. Chadwick (with whom Miss Nightingale also was in constant correspondence), took a prominent part in the debates to the same end. But he seldom pressed his points to a division, and there was little life in the opposition. Mr. Villiers was as critical as he could reasonably be, but the real fact was that the Bill made a great and a surprising step in the direction which Miss Nightingale had pressed upon him. These were days in which Disraeli was educating his party in the political art of dishing the Whigs, and the difficulty was, as Mr. Jowett wrote to Miss Nightingale, to discover any clear difference between a Tory and a Radical. Mr. Mill, with the candour that became a philosopher, "had no doubt that the Bill would effect a vast improvement"; Mr. Villiers, with the determination of the politician to score a point, admitted that "the Bill would set the ball rolling," and reflected that anything might presently come from a party which had been converted "from pure Conservatism to Household Suffrage in 48 hours"; and Mr. Hardy, in his conduct of the measure, was careful to conciliate the other side. He agreed to all the objections "in principle," pleaded the difficulty of doing everything in a moment, and claimed for his Bill that it was "only a beginning." And so, in fact, it turned out; while, even at the time, the reforms made by the Bill, which became an Act on March 29, 1867, were sufficiently beneficent. The whole of the unions and parishes in London were formed, by an Order under the Act, into one district, "The Metropolitan Asylum District," for the treatment of insane, fever, and small-pox cases, which had hitherto been dealt with in the workhouses. Separate infirmaries were formed for the non-infectious sick, with a greatly enlarged cubic space per inmate. Dispensaries were established throughout the metropolis. Above all, the "Metropolitan Common Poor Fund" (the "Hospital and Asylum Rate" of Miss Nightingale's Memorandum) was established, and to it were charged the maintenance of the "asylums," medicines, etc., and the maintenance of pauper children in separate schools. When the battle was lost--or won--Miss Nightingale counted up the gains, and said, "This is a beginning; we shall get more in time."[85] And such has been the case. The Act of 1867 was the