dulled with satiety, or a consciousness that the day is hot and the walk long, a couple of coolies will appear round a corner, and the beauties of Nature will acquire fresh charms after a bottle or so has been uncorked. Then comes the stroll home in the cool, the planter pointing out affectionately this cane field or the other as you follow the grass roads through them towards home. Another dip in the river, and a dinner the counterpart of breakfast follows, and the evening finishes up with songs and ponche anglais. The memories of Mauritius I have carried away with me are full of pleasant recollections. Its kindly people, their unbounded hospitality, the planters welcoming you, a stranger, as if they had known you for years, listening to your broken French without a smile at the mistakes, and venturing themselves into English now and then to help you out-all these things have grown upon me as they have grown on many others, and have made me love to linger over the days spent in Mauritius. When you live in it you soon know everyone, and so there is a nod, or probably a shaking of the hand, with most people that you meet. There is a great deal of hand-shaking done in Mauritius, the people using the right or left hand indiscriminately. You get on board the steamer, and within an hour or two the land has sunk beneath the water, and you are entirely cut off from it and all therein. It is but a speck isolated from the world, a prey to storms and fevers and nameless ills. It is a wonder, after the cruel reverses its people have sustained, that there is any joy left amongst them. But true and kind hearts beat high in Mauritius, and the stranger there need not fear for a welcome; their houses will be at his disposal, their time will be devoted to his amusement, their own griefs will be hidden away, and he will be treated royally. Quaint little island, set in seagreen waves, it is time to bid you a loving farewell! W. E. MONTAGUE.. OF ON NURSING AS A CAREER FOR LADIES. BY GEORGE BARRACLOUGH, M.R.C.S. ENG. F late years, partly, I suppose, in consequence of the great increase of population, the question of remunerative occupation for single ladies of the middle classes has come to be one of some urgency. Various schemes have been set afloat, and many kinds of occupation have been suggested for ladies who find no sphere for their energies in the domestic circle, or who possibly feel themselves a burden there, ranging from domestic service and telegraph clerkships to the medical profession and practice in the law courts. Foremost amongst the propounders of these things have been those who advocate the claims of sick-nursing as a career for ladies. Not a few ladies have been already attracted to nursing, partly by the manner in which its claims have been urged, and partly, no doubt, by a feeling that it affords an occupation more consonant with the true function of women in the world, than some of the pursuits just mentioned. Many more are possibly contemplating a decisive step in this direction, without possessing any but the very vaguest notions as to what constitutes the realities of a sick-nurse's life, and quite unprepared with any adequate information as to the qualities, natural and acquired, which are requisite for achieving success in it, or of the trials which are to be encountered in the various schools and institutions devoted to the training of nurses for the active duties of their calling. It is with a view to throw some light on these points, so as to enable those meditating a step in the direction of nursing to ascertain something reliable about the nature of the work, their own fitness or unfit ness for it, and the measure of success to be achieved in it as a remunerative occupation, that I write what follows. Any ladies wishing to acquire a knowledge of sick-nursing outside the domestic circle, would find three courses open to them. It would be optional to join a religious sisterhood making sick-nursing a main feature of its society, and taking charge of the nursing department of some hospital or infirmary. Secondly, the aspirant might enter, as probationer, some training institution connected with a large hospital, where the religious element would be free and subordinate. Thirdly, the novice could enter any hospital as ordinary salaried nurse from the commencement, much as she would enter domestic service, picking up a knowledge of her duties through occasional hints from her companions, or casual instruction from the ward sister. Of the three modes I have enumerated, the first would be chosen where the religious life would be the chief attraction; the special kind of sisterhood being determined by a feeling of peculiar fitness for, nursing, or an innate love of it. The second, which would be chiefly selected by Protestant ladies, would be embraced by those who were actuated by a desire to earn their own living, and of ceasing to be a charge on relatives already burdened with too many claims on their resources, the choice of occupation being based on natural inclination, distaste for other pursuits, or on a knowledge that circumstances precluded any other course. The third, from the very outset, would fail to recommend itself to ladies, by reason of the companionship involved, the slender salary, and the absence of any prospect of promotion. In a school or institution of the second sort, attached to a large general hospital, it is usual for a lady probationer, on entering, to pay a moderate sum about equivalent to the cost of her board during the period of her probation, and sometimes to sign an agreement to place her services at the sole disposal of the institution for a space of time varying from one to three years, after which period she is presumed to have acquired sufficient skill and knowledge to enter on the duties of salaried nurse, sister, or lady superintendent. In addition to sleeping apartments, the hospital mostly provides a dining room, library and common sitting room, for the use of the probationers. The home is presided over by a lady superintendent, who is responsible to the matron of the hospital for the maintenance of order and discipline in the school. The probationers are instructed in their duties by the sisters of the various wards, who assign them a certain number of beds. In some cases, lectures are delivered to the probationers by a junior member of the hospital staff, who prepares them for the examination they are required to pass in the general structure of the internal organs, in medical Latin and the symbols and abbreviations used in writing prescriptions, and in the signs and symptoms of pregnancy, also as regards the ventilating and warming of wards and sick-rooms, the sources of infection and the means of disinfecting apartments, bedding, clothing, &c. Before discussing other matters, it will be as well to say a few words as to the unacquired or natural qualities, especially those of a physical kind, essential in a sick-nurse. Bearing in mind the nature of some of these essentials, we may almost affirm that a nurse is 'born not made.' Some women are absolutely unfitted to be nurses, merely by rea-son of their native characteristics. A heavy, inelastic tread, is one of these we all know the 'thump,' thump' of the heel-walker in the sick-room, and the nervous dread of the patient as it approaches his bedside. Not less unfitting is the loud, shrill voice, unconsciously rising to a shout at every little emergency-very different from that excellent thing in woman,' a low, soft voice. Who is there, that has lain with the dry tongue and wakeful brain, that has not felt the soothing effect of this latter, and the torment of the former? Whatever may be the case with the whole, to the sick there is in a voice something which goes far beyond its physical nature, whether for charm or torture. A heavy rough hand, with its unpliant fingers, is dreadfully awkward in smoothing the heated brow, or conveying the cup to the parched lips. The making of beds and the moving of patients requires considerable bodily power, and lifelong injury may be sustained by persons engaged in this latter operation if deficient in strength. is in this matter of physical strength that ladies lie under a disadvantage as compared with nurses drawn from the same rank as domestic servants, who have been familiarised with the wash-tub and the scrubbing brush from childhood. If a rational kind of physical training formed part of the education of ladies of the middle classes, the advantage would in the present case be rather on their side, especially as such a training would, at least, lead to the appreciation, and perhaps pave the way to the adoption, of a more sensible mode of dress in place of the irrational and posi tively injurious fashions now prevailing in all classes. So universal, however, is the influence of vanity, that women of the lower classes, notwithstanding their laborious lives, are even greater offenders in It the matter of tight stays and tight boots than are the classes above them; and the nature of their work makes them greater sufferers. See that nurse; she is drawn from the humbler walks of life, but the experienced eye can detect in her the varied effects of tight lacing. Not long since, she was engaged in assisting to lift a heavy dropsical patient. Years of downward pressure from those abominable stays have been ill-endured by an important internal organ; now-the last feather has reached the camel's back-down goes the organ, and that nurse is rendered infirm for life. If work of a light description cannot be found for her, she must return to her previous mode of life at a grave disadvantage. Under the present system, the more highly educated and the more intellectually trained a novice in nursing may have been, the more has the absence of physical training enabled her education to prey on the physical forces of her corporeal frame, in such wise that though practice brings strength, this, in her case, arrives so tardily and the fatigue entailed by her new duties is so prolonged, that despair of ever becoming efficient may be engendered, and lead her to relinquish a pursuit for which she possibly has many valuable qualifications. I presume that the majority of those entering such a school as that under contemplation, do so under some sort of pressure. Disappointment in affairs of the heart may have happened; and thus active life may be sought in order to banish painful regrets early youth is not the age at which the severe discipline of a training institution is voluntarily encountered. Thus, the prime of a woman's life may have been passed before her novitiate commences, and habits and tastes formed to forego which may entail a greater trial on the patience and temper than the active and positive duties of a new vocation. And this trial will be greatly enhanced if, as not unfrequently happens, the school is presided over by a lady superintendent actuated by a petty and martinet-like spirit, to a degree that harasses the brief periods of refreshment and recreation with needlessly vexatious rules and regulations. Of course, such contingencies must always be expected, but I just mention them for the consideration of those who are not perfectly childlike in temperament. Akin to these matters, and not inferior to them in importance, is the question of diet. An inexperienced person might reflect, that if faultless cookery and a perfectly healthy diet might be expected anywhere, they might be looked for in the training school of a hospital. But a person knowing anything of the mode in which these things are managed in an English hospital would be the last to indulge in any such reflections. So far as the nurses' table is concerned, the diet is sadly monotonous and unvaried. In the winter time, especially, when the markets which supply the labouring classes are abundantly furnished with green food, good in quality and as varied as it can be in the winter season, as anyone can see who visits the localities where they are situated, the nurses' table is woefully deficient in such articles, or, if supplied with them, the supply is so limited that a very moderate sized spoonful is about an average dose for the recipient, irrespective of the possible fact that she may, through habit or stitutional need, have supported herself mainly on a vegetable diet. In fact, nurses have even assured me that they preferred to forego the favourite morsel, and thus increase the allowance of the less strongminded, rather than merely tickle their palates with a relish, the craving for which could not be satisfied. As to that portion of the con meal which consists of animal food, sufficient light will be thrown on its nature by what I shall have to say in the sequel. When we regard the nature of a nurse's duties, and consider the long hours and exhaustive character of the work assigned her, the depressing influences which surround her, the unceasing contact with pain, disease, and death, things to which a well-regulated mind never becomes callous, and that, under the most favourable circumstances, the air she breathes is more or less contaminated with morbid exhalations, it requires no special training to perceive that her stomach needs a supply of food ample in quantity, varied as to material; and, most important of all, prepared and cooked with such skill and knowledge as shall make the task of a digestion probably enfeebled by the indoor work of its possessor as light and profitable as possible. Bright and cheerful accompaniments to the social repast are also of no little importance to the hardly-worked nurse. But I venture to think, on making inquiry, we shall find indigestion and its accompaniments sadly prevalent amongst hospital nurses, and mainly accruing from a character of diet very much the reverse of that which I have claimed as the nurse's due. The circumstances of a nurse's life preclude her so largely from personal intercourse with her friends and relatives, and yet the very nature of her work, cast, as it is, entirely amongst strangers, renders personal communication with them such a needful solace, that it is not surprising she should make the brief hour or two allotted to openair exercise an opportunity for flying visits to the nearest friend or relative. But, then, the exhausted atmosphere of cabs, omnibuses, and underground railways, and the hurry and worry attendant on punctual return to hospital duties, is a most injurious substitute for quiet exercise afoot in the open air. Much injury to health results in this way, and I fear the space of time allowed for exercise is rather a failure in its results. Hence we see that hospital nursing is not highly conducive to the preservation of health. Nor will the reader be surprised to learn that a craving for stimulants, such as brandy and whisky-not to mention chloral and opium-is not unfrequently generated under such conditions of life, even amongst sisters (secular) and head nurses, to the further loss of health, and ultimately, perhaps, of reputation. The commencement of this use of stimulants appears very innocent-it is just a teaspoonful of brandy for the indigestion-' that heartburn is so dreadful '-'I was so overtaxed I could not sleep till I had taken a little water with just a dash of brandy in it.' Here we stand face to face with a peril which the most strong-minded would do well not to under-estimate. I may as well, in this place, call attention to a point the consideration of which may possibly not have occurred to ladies who desire to fit themselves for nursing by serving in a general hospital, and that is the horribly bad language they may occasionally be compelled to hear from patients of the lowest class. I have myself heard a tramp in the semi-delirium of fever use language to his nurse of such a nature as to make one's very blood run cold. Respectable women of the labouring class find this painful enough, but how much more painful must it be to a woman of gentle birth and breeding? They who enter on the career of a nurse through the agency of an ordinary training institution can hardly fail, in the course of years, to degenerate socially and intellectually. sphere of a woman's life is so bounded by the affections and the The |