improvement which saves health and life is worth its weight in gold." This address to the Peoples of India was the most widely distributed of all Miss Nightingale's missionary efforts. The Association translated it into Bengali. Sir Bartle Frere had it translated into other Indian languages. [114] Bibliography A, No. 56. VII Miss Nightingale's third sphere of missionary work was in the Sanitary Department at the India Office, to which, through her alliance with Sir Bartle Frere, she was a confidential adviser. Her action, in making suggestions and in seeking to influence officials in India, has been illustrated already. Her constant work was in helping to edit and in contributing to the Annual Blue-book containing reports of "measures adopted for sanitary improvements in India." The importance which Miss Nightingale attached to the publication of such an annual has been explained in general terms already (p. 145). She saw in it two useful purposes. First, the fact that reports from India were required and published each year acted as a spur to the authorities in that country; and, secondly, the introductory memorandum, and the inclusion of reports on Indian matters by the War Office Sanitary Committee, gave opportunity, year by year, for making suggestions and criticisms. The Annual was issued by the Sanitary Department at the India Office and edited by Mr. C. C. Plowden, a zealous clerk in that office with whom Miss Nightingale made friends; Sir Bartle Frere, as head of the Department, instructed him to submit all the reports to Miss Nightingale who in fact was assistant-editor, or perhaps rather (for her will seems to have been law) editor-in-chief. It was she who had prepared for the Royal Commission the analysis of sanitary defects in the several Indian Stations; who had written the "Observations" on them; who had taken a principal part in drafting the "Suggestions" for their reform. It was natural that she should be asked to report on the measures actually taken to that end. She was a very critical reporter. "Sir Bartle Frere hesitates a little," she was told on one occasion (1869), "as to the omission of all terms of praise, and says that the Indian Jupiter is a god of sunshine as well as thunder and should dispense both; he, however, sanctions the omission in the present case." Miss Nightingale's papers show that during the years 1869-74 she devoted great labour to the Annual. She read and criticised the abstracts of the local reports prepared by Mr. Plowden; she discussed all the points that they suggested with Dr. Sutherland; she wrote, or suggested, the introductory memorandum. She did this work with the greater zeal because it kept her informed of every detail; and the knowledge thus acquired gave the greater force to her private correspondence with Viceroys, Governors, Commanders-in-Chief, and Sanitary Commissioners. Her share in the first number of the Annual has been already described (p.