VII
The Report of the Commission was written by Mr. Herbert in August 1857, with much assistance from Miss Nightingale. “A thousand thanks,” he wrote to her (Aug. 5). “The list of recommendations and defects is very clear and good. I have noted one or two additions.” A comparison of the Recommendations at the end of Miss Nightingale's Report with those at the end of the Royal Commission's Report shows how closely the latter document followed the earlier. The Report was not issued to the public until January 1858. The reason for the delay is intimately connected with the story of Miss Nightingale's life during the latter half of 1857. The salient feature of the Report was its adoption and confirmation of the appalling figures which she had first tabulated many months before. “It is of infinite importance to the success of all you have still to accomplish,” wrote Sir John McNeill (Nov. 9) when she sent him a proof of Mr. Herbert's Report, “that the accuracy of your statements as to the condition of the Barracks has been established beyond question. It deprives interested cavillers of all right to be listened to when they desire to question your other propositions.” It was shown conclusively by the Royal Commission that, as Miss Nightingale had said, the rate of mortality in the Army at home in time of peace was double that of the civil population. A comparison of the civil and military mortality in certain London parishes was yet more startling. In St. Pancras the civil rate was 2·2; the rate in the barracks of the 2nd Life Guards was 10·4. In Kensington the civil rate was 3·3; the rate in the Knightsbridge barracks was 17·5. Every one who knew the contents of the Report perceived that this was the point which would cause a sensation. The Crimean War and its muddles were beginning to fade into the past, especially in view of the Indian Mutiny; and reorganization of a department of the Army would never be likely to arrest popular attention. But the case was different with facts and figures showing that the health of the Army, even when at home and in peace, was shamefully sacrificed by official neglect. There was to be a sitting of Parliament in December, and nasty questions would assuredly be asked unless something were done. There was a masterful and importunate woman behind the scenes who was firmly resolved that something should be done. Without a moment's rest, without thought of recess or relaxation, Miss Nightingale flung herself into a new campaign.
CHAPTER III
ENFORCING A REPORT
(August–December 1857)
The Nation is grateful to you for what you did at Scutari, but all that it was possible for you to do there was a trifle compared with the good you are doing now.—Sir John Mcneill (Letter to Florence Nightingale, Dec. 1857).
Reformers, who are familiar with the ways of the political world, more often sigh than rejoice when they hear that a subject in which they are interested has been “referred to a Royal Commission.” They know that the chances are many to one that the subject, like the Report, will be placed on a shelf and stay there. Sometimes the reference is a well-understood euphemism for such an intention; and even when it is not, there are many things which may bring about the same result. The Commission will perhaps produce a litter of Reports from whose discordant voices no definite conclusion can be drawn. In any case the Report, or Reports, will have to “engage the earnest attention” of His or Her Majesty's Government, and the attention, earnest or otherwise, is sure to be prolonged. Before the process has come to an end, many things may have happened to overlay the subject in question. Every generation of reformers sees a certain number of subjects on which its heart has been set deeply interred under a pile of Blue-books.
This was the danger with which Mr. Herbert and Miss Nightingale were confronted in August 1857 in the case of their Royal Commission on the sanitary condition of the British Army. Against the risk of an equivocal Report they had, indeed, guarded themselves in advance; but the danger of a definite Report leading to no immediate action had still to be met. Mr. Herbert was no less anxious than Miss Nightingale to meet it. He had devoted unsparing toil to the Commission; his toil would be reduced to futility if the Report were merely to be pigeon-holed. They laid their plans on the consideration mentioned at the end of the last chapter—namely, the effect which the disclosures of the Royal Commission was likely to have on public opinion. Mr. Herbert communicated the gist of the Report privately to Lord Panmure. It could be officially presented and published sooner or later as the negotiations with Ministers might go. Mr. Herbert pointed out to Lord Panmure that the Report was “likely to arrest a good deal of general attention”; that there was time to take measures towards reform before the Report became known to the public; that the simultaneous publication both of its recommendations and of orders and regulations founded upon them would “give the prestige which promptitude always carries with it.” Mr. Herbert would gladly give every assistance in his power towards that end. He put the case with his usual suavity. But there was iron within the velvet. The publication of the Report could properly be postponed for a while, but not indefinitely. Lord Panmure had to choose between committing himself to instant reform, so as to whitewash the Government beforehand, and postponing reform, in which case he would have to reckon with a public opinion inflamed by the disclosures of the Report. And meanwhile Miss Nightingale still held her Report in reserve, for use in an appeal to public opinion, should the negotiations fail to secure any guarantee for prompt reform.
The plan of active reform agreed upon between her and Mr. Herbert was that four Sub-Commissions should be appointed, with Mr. Herbert himself as Chairman of each, to settle the details of reform, and in some measure to execute it, in accordance with the general recommendations of the Report. These Sub-Commissions were severally (1) To put the Barracks in sanitary order, (2) To organize a Statistical Department, (3) To institute a Medical School, and (4) To reconstruct the Army Medical Department, to revise the Hospital Regulations, and draw up a Warrant for the Promotion of Medical Officers. This last, from its comprehensive and cleansing scope, was called by Miss Nightingale “The Wiping Commission.” Mr. Herbert sent these proposals to Lord Panmure on August 7,[267] and two days later he wrote to Miss Nightingale: “Panmure writes fairly enough, but he has gone to shoot grouse. I have asked Alexander to meet me at the Burlington on Wednesday at 3, to discuss and settle things. So I have disposed of your time and rooms.” The grouse, however, were not quite ready, and on the 14th Mr. Herbert caught Lord Panmure on the wing. Mr. Herbert seemed to carry his point, the four Sub-Commissions were agreed to in general terms, and, as he sent word to Miss Nightingale on the same day, he was “able to leave for Ireland with a lighter heart after seeing Pan. But I am not easy about you. Here am I going to lead an animal life for a month, get up early, pursue your animal, catch him, eat him, and go to sleep. Why can't you, who do men's work, take man's exercise in some shape?… This is my parting sermon. I use, for the purpose of scolding you, a liberty which nothing gives me but my hearty regard and affection for you.”
Mr. Herbert had well earned his month's fishing. But as Dr. Sutherland presently wrote to her, “one thing is quite clear, that women can do what men would not do, and that women will dare suffering knowingly where men would shrink.” Miss Nightingale would not, and could not, take man's rest because she felt her cause too intensely; she could not be of so light a heart as her friend, because she knew “her Pan” a little better than he did. Dr. Andrew Smith, she heard, was putting up a stiff fight against reform. Lord Panmure stayed on in the Highlands late into the autumn, paying only a flying visit or two to London. His subordinates were as laborious as ever in piling up objections. He became frightened at his own acts, and at one time revoked (but afterwards, under pressure, reinstated) the authority he had given for the Wiping Sub-Commission. Mr. Herbert returned to England in September, and came up to London to see Miss Nightingale before the first meeting of the first Sub-Commission. Many weeks elapsed before all of them were set on foot. She meanwhile was incessantly at work, and Dr. Sutherland, who lived at Highgate, was constantly with her. She wrote reminders to Lord Panmure, “although I hear you saying, There is that bothering woman again,” and she begged Mr. Herbert to do the like. She drafted instructions and schemes for each of the Sub-Commissions. As each of them set to work, there were meetings in her rooms to settle the procedure. There were periods, as Miss Nightingale afterwards recalled, “when Sidney Herbert would meet the Cabal, as he used to call it, which consists of ‘you and me and Alexander and Sutherland, and sometimes Martin and Farr,’ every day either at Burlington Street, or at Belgrave Square, and sometimes as often as twice or even three times a day.” A few extracts from her correspondence will show the extent of her work and the eagerness of her temper:—
August 7 (Miss Nightingale to Sir J. McNeill). The reconstitution of the Army Medical Department as to its government has been carried by the commission almost in the form which you recommended. I have been requested by Mr. Herbert, who went out of town last night for a few days, to draw up a scheme as to what these new men are to do. And I now venture to enclose it to you, earnestly begging you to consider it and send it me back with your remarks in as short a time as you possibly can. We have carried the Barracks Sub-Commission with Panmure, Dr. Sutherland to be the Sanitary Head.