It seems to me so base to be writing while you are doing. Oh that I could come out to Calcutta and organize at least the Hospital accommodation for the poor wretches in the streets. There is nothing I should like so much. But it is nonsense to wish for what is an impossibility. I am sure you will be glad to hear that one of my life-long wishes, viz. the nursing of Workhouse Infirmaries by proper Nurses, is about to be fulfilled. By the munificence of a Liverpool man (who actually gives £1200 a year for the object, but desires not to be named), we undertake next month the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary (of 1000 beds)--the first Workhouse that ever has been nursed--with 15 Head Nurses, trained by ourselves, and a Lady (Volunteer) Matron (who underwent a most serious course of training at our Nurses' School at St. Thomas' Hospital), 15 Assistants, and 52 ex-pauper women, whom we are to train as Nurses.[36] I am sure it is not for us to talk of Civilization. For I have seen, in our English Workhouse Infirmaries, neglect, cruelty, and malversation such as can scarcely be surpassed in semi-barbarous countries. And it was then I felt I must found a school for Nurses for Workhouses, &c. The opportunity has come too late for me to do the Workhouse Nursing myself. But, so it is well done, we care not how. I think with the greatest satisfaction upon your re-union with Lady Lawrence and (some of) your children. God bless you.--I am yours devotedly, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE. _P.S._--The Calcutta Municipality does not seem yet to have wakened up to a sense of its existence. It does not know that it exists: much less, what it exists for. Still, you are conquering India anew by civilization, taking possession of the Empire for the first time by knowledge instead of by the sword.--F. N. [36] On this subject, see below, p. 128.