(_Lord Northbrook to Lord Salisbury._) CALCUTTA, _Dec._ 11 [1874]. I am much obliged to you for sending me Miss Nightingale's letter to you, and although at the risk of answering it imperfectly, I will not delay putting down what occurred to me till another mail--especially as one never can feel secure of one's time in India. First, I beg you to assure Miss Nightingale that I am not likely so much to forget my training under Sidney Herbert at the War Office as to feel indifferent about the health of the soldier in India. She knows as well as I do how much has been done of late years and how satisfactory the result has been, as is shown by the death and sickness returns, and admitted by the Army Sanitary Commission and Sir William Muir (the doctor) in evidence recently given before a Parliamentary Committee. Miss Nightingale is evidently more anxious for the future than dissatisfied with the past. The best thing I can say to reassure her is that in the face of the financial difficulties of last year I left the expenditure upon military public works untouched. It stands for the year at something more than a million, which is as much as we can afford and nearly as much as can be properly supervised. The year before, although most anxious to show a budget which would justify me in discontinuing the Income Tax, I gave an addition of £100,000 to the sum allotted to military public works at the request of Lord Napier. So much for my personal disposition and what I have done hitherto.