THE COSMOPOLITE.
SISTERS OF CHARITY.[7]
All the world, that is, one out of the two millions of people in this great town, know, that the above is the title of a somewhat romantic drama, in which Miss Kelly is fast monopolizing the tears and sympathies of the public by her impersonation of a Sister of Charity. To witness it will do every heart good; and this is the highest aim of a dramatic representation. The performance has had the effect of drawing our attention to the original of the character, which is intensely interesting, though at the same time overtinged with romance.
Every six weeks' tourist has seen or heard of the Sisters of Charity on the Continent. They are nurses in the hospitals there, but on a system very different from the hireling attendants in similar institutions in England. Indeed, they may be said to have quitted the world to devote themselves to the relief of those unfortunate persons, who people the abodes of misery and distress. They form, it appears, a numerous body, consisting of several thousand members, who are said to perform or superintend the administration of 300 hospitals in France. They are united under several denominations, as nuns of those monastic communities which escaped the storms of the revolution. Many of them are in the prime of life, and though not bound by absolute vows, devote the whole of their time, and even die in the act of doing good. In spiritual matters, they are under the jurisdiction of the bishop of the district in which the hospital is situated; in temporal concerns they are subject to the authority of the heads of the establishment to which they belong; but they are chiefly under the guidance of the superior of their order. They are fed and lodged at the expense of the hospital, and receive in addition, a certain stipend for the purchase of clothes. In the hospital at Lyons, (which forty or fifty years ago, was the only hospital in France which was not in a barbarous state), there are about 150 of these Sisters, wearing a uniform dress of dark worsted, and remarkably clean. They receive the trifling sum of forty francs a year for pocket-money, and sit up one night in each week; the following is a day of relaxation, and the only one they have. During the siege of Lyons, when cannon-balls passed through the windows, and struck the walls every moment, not one abandoned her post near the sick.
Every one will rejoice at the existence of such offices as the Sisters of Charity—benign, nay almost divine; and until this moment, we thought that such had been their real character. Our belief has, however, been somewhat staggered by an article in the last number of the London Review; in which the services of the Sisters are represented in a much less amiable light than we have been accustomed to view them. This notice occurs in a paper on a work by Dr. David Johnston, of Edinburgh, on the Public Charities of France. The Doctor, whose book abounds with evidence of considerable research, thus speaks of the Sisters of Charity:—
"The inmate of an hospital is alone qualified to speak with justice of the blessings which such attendance affords. Possessed of superior education, and from their religious profession placed above many of the worldly considerations which affect nurses in general, the Sisters of Charity act at once as temporal and spiritual comforters, watch over the sick bed, soothe the prisoner in his confinement, and penetrate into the worst abodes of misery, to comfort the distress, and instruct the ignorant."
Such we also thought had been their portraiture, although we could not so far speak from personal evidence. But the reviewer gainsays all this, and even does more. After drawing a comparison, and not altogether a just one, between the "Sisters of Charity in France," and ladies of fortune who unostentatiously visit the sick poor in England, he says—
"It is matter of fact, generally observable in the instances of the soeurs de charité, that in the performance of their duties towards the sick, during the first three or four months, they display all that tender solicitude and devotedness, which romance ascribes to them as constant and habitual. After the first feelings have subsided, the soeurs are found to consult, in all their actions, first, their own interests, in ease and comfort; next, those of their order, and of the servants on the establishment personally connected with them; and, last of all, those of the patients. On an unprejudiced examination it will be found, that a body so constituted as the soeurs, are extremely unfit for the performance of such functions as are entrusted to them in these establishments. It is essential to the good performance of the duties of a nurse, that she should be responsible to the medical officer for their omission. The soeurs are entirely independent of any such control, and their usual answer to any complaint is, 'Je reponds a mon crucifix.'"
"It is a great mistake to suppose that these nuns are enlightened, or well born, or well educated. In general they are ignorant women, too poor and too deficient in personal qualities to find husbands. They are proud, arrogant, and bigoted; and, with a few interesting exceptions, it may be said of them, that they become nuns for want of better occupations; that they are characterized by the ill temper of disappointment, at the world having neglected or rejected them, rather than by any sublime elevation of feeling, which could have led them to reject the world. It is a delusion to suppose that all the more important duties, on the due performance of which the success of medical treatment mainly depends, devolve upon the soeurs. The fact is, that it is one of the most serious defects of the French hospitals, that proper persons are not procured to perform these services: such as waiting upon the patients, changing their linen, moving them, and administering to their little wants, in a proper manner. In Paris there is a class of men, the refuse of the working classes, who, when all means of support fail, apply to the hospitals, and become infirmières. It will scarcely be believed, that to these men are entrusted the important duties to which we have adverted, and which the Doctor seems to suppose are chiefly performed by the soeurs. These infirmières receive for their services only six-and-eightpence per month, besides their board and lodging in the house; and, as they can earn more at any other occupation, they seldom remain long in their situations. The infirmières, or female servants, are much of the same description: badly appointed, badly paid, negligent and rapacious, often pilfering a portion of the allowance of provisions and wine prescribed to the patient for his recovery. The general interference of the soeurs is prejudicial. Frequently, on the strength of their own medical opinions, they will neglect the prescriptions; frequently they harass a patient about his confession, when a calm state of mind is indispensable for his recovery. They also often exercise their united influence against a medical man, to protect favourite servants. They encumber all exertions for improvement, so that, whenever any change is discussed, one of the first subjects for consideration is, whether the soeurs are likely to interfere. Of late, however, their power has been somewhat checked. Under good regulations they might, no doubt, be rendered serviceable; but every alteration of their condition, with regard to the hospitals, to be an improvement, must bring them nearer to the superior condition of responsible nurses, chosen for their aptitude, and remunerated according to their merits."
"We have been compelled to state thus much of these orders. The associations connected with persons of their sex and supposed rank, who have taken the veil; their apparent devotedness to such amiable and pre-eminently serviceable duties; their solemnity of exterior, and other incidents—are so calculated to strike the eye and possess the imagination of the beholder, that we are not surprised to perceive that they have misled the judgment of the Doctor, since they constantly impose on others, who have better opportunities for observation. The soeur de charité is too fine an object for the effusion of sentiment and romance, not to be made the most of in these worldly and unpoetic times; and were it not that the illusions thrown around this object might lead to practical errors, we should have refrained from disturbing them."
Feelings similar to those professed by the reviewer, have induced us to present the reader with his new light, which we hope is a just one. Of the little system of plunder carried on in some institutions at home, we can speak of one instance with certainty:—A relative near and dear to us as life's blood, had by money and comforts, (which but for this incident would have been kept secret), for many months relieved an inmate of a London hospital. The patient was a poor, old female, in the last stage of decrepitude, and fast sinking beneath the sorrows of life. She had seen happier days, and the only relic which she possessed of better fortune, was a pair of silver framed spectacles; which, on her death-bed, she bequeathed to her benefactress. The poor old woman's relations were dead, and this guardian-spirit who soothed her path to the grave, was her only friend. Such an act of gratitude was, therefore, extremely affecting, and her benefactress was anxious to possess the legacy—heaven knows, not for its intrinsic value—but as a testimony of rare and unaffected gratitude; yet, will it be believed, that the tempting bit of silver had not escaped the clutches of the nurses of the ward, and the spectacles were not to be found! Our informant related the circumstance with tears of indignation; we threatened to investigate the matter, yet her meek and mild spirit implored us to withhold: she too passed from us a short time after, and is, we hope, gone where her good deeds will not be forgotten.
PHILO.