husbands, and all goes on well again until some new catastrophe horrifies people’s minds for a few days, or till something else more exciting takes its place there.
A more rigid system of inspection appears to be wanting. Inspectors ought to visit collieries a little before the danger becomes so great, and not, as usually happens, just after some awful explosion. No blame to them though, if, as is said, their work is so heavy that they cannot possibly visit each colliery, in their respective districts, more than once in several months, or even years.
There is a very obvious remedy, if the collieries are more numerous than the existing number of inspectors—able men as they are—can possibly visit; and that remedy ought to be applied. It was whispered at the time of the accident that the Bungle Colliery was being worked by the proprietors in a dangerous way, and solely with a view to the extraction of as large a quantity of coal as possible in a short time, and this never could have been the case had proper inspection taken place in time.
I saw enough of coal-mining, and of the almost daily accidents which take place, and are never heard of by the general public, but which collectively amount to a large number, to rejoice that no lives were under my charge in a system so carelessly worked; and I at length left the dust and smoke, and din of a Yorkshire colliery district, glad to be away from a neighbourhood where every minute might bring the intelligence that almost under my very feet two or three hundred fellow-creatures had been shattered, scorched, and “blown to pieces.”
REPRESENTATIVE WOMEN.
The Free Nurse.
catherine mompesson: mary pickard: florence nightingale.
By the Free Nurse I mean to indicate the Sister of Charity who devotes herself to the sick for their own sake, and from a natural impulse of benevolence, without being bound by any vow or pledge, or having any regard to her own interests in connexion with her office.
There is no dispute about the beauty and excellence of the nursing institutions of the continent, Catholic and Protestant. There can be no doubt that many lives are utilised by them, which would otherwise be frittered away from want of pursuit and guidance. Every town where they live can tell what the blessing is of such a body of qualified nurses, ready to answer any call to the sick-bed. The gratitude of their patients, and the respect of the whole community, testify to their services and merits: and the frequent proposal of some experiment to naturalise such institutions in England, proves that we English are sensible of the beauty of such an organisation of charity. My present purpose, however, is to speak of a more distinctive kind of woman than those who are under vows. However sincere the compassion, however disinterested the devotedness, in an incorporated Sister of Charity, she lies under the disadvantage of her bonds in the first place, and her promised rewards in the other. She may now and then forget her bonds; and there are occasions when they may be a support and relief to her; but they keep her down to the level of an organisation which can never be of a high character while the duty to be performed is regarded as the purchase-money of future benefits to the doer. Those who desire to establish the highest order of nursing had rather see a spontaneous nurse weeping over the body of a suffering child that has gone to its rest than a vowed Sister wiping away the death-damps and closing the eyes, under the promise of a certain amount of remission of sins in consequence. There is abundance of room in society for both vowed and spontaneous nurses, in almost any number; but, their quality as nurses being equal, the strongest interest and affection will always follow the freer, more natural, and more certainly disinterested service. The weaker sort are perhaps wise to put themselves under the orders of authority, which will settle their duty for them: but such cannot be representative women, except by some force of character which in so far raises them above the region of authority. The Representative Women among Nurses are those who have done the duty under some natural incitement, of their own free will, and in their own way.
It will not be supposed, for a moment, that I am speaking slightingly of such organisation as is necessary for the orderly and complete fulfilment of the nursing function. In every hospital where nurses enter freely, and can leave at pleasure, there must be strict rules, settled methods, and a complete organisation of the body of nurses, or all will go into confusion. The authority I refer to as a lower sanction than personal free disposition, is that of religious superiors, who impose the task of nursing as a part of the exercises by which future rewards are to be purchased. There cannot be a more emphatic pleader for hospital and domestic organisation, as a means to the best care of the sick, than Florence Nightingale: and at the same time, all the world knows that she would expect better things from women who become nurses of their own accord, and remain so, through all pains and penalties, when they might give it up at any hour, than from nuns who enter that path of life because it leads (as they believe) straightest to heaven, and do every act at the bidding of a conscience-keeper who holds the ultimate rewards in his hand.
It would lead me too far now to cite examples of the different institutions, Catholic and Protestant, and show the results of the religious and secular, the vowed and the free systems of organised nursing: but the subject is one of curious and deep interest.
The three women whose honoured names stand at the head of this paper, acted singly and spontaneously in devoting themselves to the sick, though their freedom was not of the same character, and their incitements were not alike. Not the less are they all representatives of the growing order of Free Nurses.
On this day two hundred years, Catherine Mompesson was beautiful girl of twenty, near her marriage with a clergyman, who was to intro-