The primary explanation is simple. In a large class of questions which were occupying the attention of the War Office at this time Miss Nightingale was regarded as the first expert of the day. One sees this in the fact that she was consulted in connection with work, within her sphere, for other departments than the War Office. Thus in 1865 Mr. R. S. Wright (afterwards the judge) was appointed by the Colonial Office to prepare a Report on the condition of Colonial Prisons. He went to Miss Nightingale, asking (April 27) "to be allowed to submit to you for your criticism the conclusions at which I may arrive. Supposing them to be approved by you, it will be a great advantage if I may state that you approve them."[42] Then, in the second place,--to repeat a phrase which I have already applied to her, she was the official legatee of Sidney Herbert. Everyone who was behind the scenes knew that his work had also been her work, and Sidney Herbert's repute as a reformer stood very high. The official Army world at this time was divided into two camps--those who desired to complete Herbert's work, and those who tried to undo it. Miss Nightingale, as the repository of the Herbert tradition, was the indispensable ally of the former party against the latter. Her friend, Lady Herbert, put the case from her point of view, when she wrote (March 7, 1862), in reply to a letter telling of much weakness and weariness, "If you never wish to live for your own sake, yet bear to live, dearest, for a time to carry out his work, and to keep his memory fresh in the hearts of men." Some questions of reform arose to which Sir Benjamin Hawes had raised copious objections. "Would Miss Nightingale oblige the Political Under-Secretary by suggesting an answer to Hawes's points?" Sometimes she was the only person who possessed the necessary documents. "Have you got a copy of the Report of the Committee on the Organization of a Medical School? The War Office actually have _no_ copy, and the Army Medical Department only a proof not signed and supposed to have been altered?" [42] Miss Nightingale must have enjoyed the correspondence that ensued; for not only was Mr. Wright sound on sanitary matters ("it is no part of a prisoner's sentence that he should be black-holed"), but he wrote to her in a racy style. "I send you (Oct. 23) a specimen of the materials sent home by colonial prison authorities with the endorsement of a colonial Governor:--_Question_: What is the mode of treating lunatic or maniacal prisoners? _Answer_: Maniacles is not nor ever has been in use in this prison."