Though Miss Nightingale attached importance to notices in the press, she was equally eager that the Report itself should attract the attention of influential individuals in and out of Parliament. And here at the outset she met with a severe check which, however, by her energy and resource was turned to the greater advantage of the cause. The Blue-books were of enormous bulk, and a smaller edition had been prepared, apparently by the Clerk. Owing to what was officially described as “a mistake,” it was this smaller edition that was “presented to both Houses of Parliament by command.” It alone was placed on sale to the public; the 1000 copies of the complete work (of which the printer had been ordered to break up the type) were reserved for the press and for official purposes. They could be obtained (on application) by members of Parliament, but were not accessible to the public. The smaller edition, which the officials designed for public use, did not contain Miss Nightingale's “Observations” (though these were referred to in the Report) and did not contain the evidence from the Indian Stations. It gave instead a “précis of evidence” made by the Clerk. This, as Miss Nightingale thought, was badly done, and, moreover, referred in the margin to passages which again were not accessible to the public. Miss Nightingale was naturally and justly indignant at a proceeding which thus left the recommendations of the Commission unsupported, so far as the public were concerned, by the essential facts. She set herself with characteristic energy to rectify the official “mistake,” or, as she suspected, to circumvent the design. If indeed there were any intention to withhold from the public eye the full extent of the terrible state of things in India, the authors of the design had counted without the formidable Lady-in-Chief. As for the partial suppression of her own “Observations,” that was easily rectified. Dr. Sutherland and Dr. Farr, incensed at the treatment which she had received, promptly made arrangements with a publisher for the separate issue of her “Observations.”[22] This little “red book” had a large sale, and was widely reviewed in the press. Thereby the subject received a second series of notices. “It is not a book,” said one of the reviewers, “but a great action.” But Miss Nightingale herself was more concerned with the wide circulation of the Blue-books themselves. First, she wrote round to every member of Parliament whom she knew, informing them of the facts and begging them to apply for the unmutilated edition. One of the answers she received was from Lord Shaftesbury (Aug. 22): “I will immediately apply for the copy of evidence you mention, but ought we not to insist when Parliament meets that it be fully circulated like any other document? Sir C. Wood may have made a ‘mistake,’ but a far greater mistake would be to bury this important matter in the ‘tomb of all the Capulets.’ … You have achieved very grand things; and you must thank God that He has called you to such a work, and has so blessed it. I have much to talk to you about.”[23] Secondly, she extracted a promise that inquirers at Hansard's office should be informed that copies of the unmutilated edition could be obtained by the public on application at the Burial Board Office.[24] She took very good care that they should not be buried there. She prompted all sorts and conditions of persons among her acquaintances to apply, and there was a run on the book. Next, and chiefly, she was anxious that the essential parts of the Report should come under the notice of every officer and every official in India who was in any degree responsible for the health of the army and who might be brought by a knowledge of the facts to further the cause of sanitary reform. The way in which she achieved her purpose was characteristic. Miss Nightingale had a personal grievance in this matter; and she used it, as on a previous occasion she had used her personal prestige, to gain a public end. To an intimate friend in the War Office, she was downright: “Done in some way or other, I am determined it shall be.” But to the great men above him, she was suave—insidiously and dangerously suave. She entirely agreed that it would be expensive to reprint, and absurd to circulate widely, two enormous Blue-books of 2028 pages. Nobody would read them. But on the other hand was it not a little unfair to her to circulate an abridged edition, from which was excluded all the material upon which, at the request of the Commission, she had spent years of labour? But what was to be done? She knew how busy all Government officials were; but she would willingly undertake the task of putting together an amended edition of the smaller issue. Would the Treasury object to the cost? If so, she would bear it. In one way and another, she said, she had spent £700 in connection with the former Report on the British Army; the cost of similar work in connection with India would be less, and she would gladly defray it. Lord de Grey authorized her to proceed on August 26, and for the next three months she was busy in preparing the Report in the form in which it was to be circulated among military and medical officers.[25] But she was not quite satisfied yet. She had provided means for bringing her horses to water, but who was to make them drink? Her amended report was to be circulated amongst the Army in India, but would it be read? She was afraid not, unless the Secretary of State specially commended it to the attention of his subordinates. Did the War Office shrink from taking initiative in a matter which also concerned the India Office? “But surely Sir Charles Wood will be very grateful to you for remedying his mistake.” The Minister assented, and a preface was added to Miss Nightingale's edition of the Report, in which the Secretary for War explained that it was circulated “with a view of affording information on the subject to Commanding, Engineering, and Medical Officers.” Of course there were official delays, and this edition of the Report was not issued till August 1864, but it gave Miss Nightingale opportunity of organizing yet another press crusade. Through Sidney Herbert's friend, Count Strzelechi, who was also a friend of Delane, she was able to secure a series of articles in the Times on the sanitary needs of India.[26] The Count was very proud of what he had been able to do for her. None of Miss Nightingale's official works obtained a wider circulation than the “Observations”; nor, I suppose, did any Blue-book on such a subject ever attain a greater amount of publicity.

VI

But all this was only a preliminary. Public attention had been aroused, and every one said vaguely that something must be done. It remained for Government to do it. The steps which Miss Nightingale took to this end, the obstacles which she encountered, the measure of success which she attained, will be described in the next chapter.

The work, which has been described in foregoing pages and which Miss Nightingale continued during the following year, was very heavy, and it was all done under grievous physical disability. In 1857–58, when she was doing like work in connection with the Royal Commission on the Home Army, though she was in very delicate health, she had yet been able to move about. When Sidney Herbert could not come to see her, she could go to see him. But now in 1863, when work for the Commission on the Indian Army was at its height, she was bedridden. When she invited a nursing friend to her house, the formula was “Will you come and spend Saturday to Monday in bed with me?” She could only receive her visitors, if at all, in her own room, and all her writing was done in bed. She was sustained through these disabilities partly, it may be, by the consciousness of power and by satisfaction in its exercise, but principally by passionate devotion to her cause. And there was another feeling which gave her strength, as appears from many a passage in her private letters. She was carrying out, as best she could alone, the “joint work” which had been left “unfinished” at Sidney Herbert's death. “There is no feeling more sustaining,” Sir John McNeill had said to her, when Arthur Clough was also taken from her, “than that of being alone.” So, in some sort, I think, she found it. And sometimes, as to one who stretches out his hands in yearning for the further shore, there seemed to come to her voices of encouragement. “I heard the other day,” she said in 1863, “of two Englishmen who were nearly lost by being caught by the tide on the coast of France, and a little French fisher-girl ran all along the wet sands to show them the only rock, half a mile from the shore, which the tide did not cover, where of course she was obliged to stay with them. It got quite dark, the water rose above their knees, but presently they heard a sound, faint and far off, and the little girl said, ‘They think the tide is turning, they are shouting to cheer us!’ I often think I hear those on the far-off shore who are shouting to cheer me.”

CHAPTER III
SETTING REFORMERS TO WORK
(1863–1865)

I am more hopeful than you appear to be in regard to the good likely to be effected by the Report. Although our Indian administration has great difficulties to contend with owing to the nature of the country and the people, it is both honest and able; and I never knew a public measure, the advantage of which was generally admitted, which ultimately was not properly taken in hand.—Sir Charles Trevelyan (Letter to Florence Nightingale, Aug. 24, 1862).

In the last chapter we traced Miss Nightingale's hand throughout the famous Report of the Indian Sanitary Commission. We saw how she worked for the inclusion, in the Commissioners' recommendations, of machinery for getting the other recommendations adopted; we saw, too, how cleverly she manœuvred to obtain wide publicity and discussion for the whole subject. But this was not enough for her. She had created a favourable atmosphere; she had provided suitable machinery; it remained to set the wheels going round. “Reports are not self-executive”: she applied her words in this fresh direction; and, as in the case of the Home Commission five years before, so now she gave not a moment's rest to herself or to anybody else whom she could influence until reforms, recommended by the Report, were set on foot.

Miss Nightingale was as eager, in as great a hurry to begin, as determined to have her way, as before; but the difficulties were now greater. In the case of the Home Army, only one department (though that, to be sure, was a dual one) was concerned; in the case of Sanitary measures for the Army in India, there were the India Office and the Government of India to be considered as well as the War Office. And everybody, who knows anything about public affairs, knows what it means to the cause of prompt efficiency if departments begin wrangling with each other. And then Miss Nightingale had no longer her “dear master.” Lord Stanley, the Chairman of the Indian Commission, was friendly, and sincerely desirous to see things done; but he was not an enthusiast. His temperament was cool; his judgment, critical. But, as I have already said, he had a great belief in Miss Nightingale, and though she did not always find him an easy man to drive, she did it. The moment the Report was signed she was up and at him. He must do as Sidney Herbert did; that is, go at once to Ministers and insist on immediate steps being taken to put the recommendations of the Report into operation. Otherwise, all their labour might dissolve in air. Lord Stanley proposed to wait and see:—

(Lord Stanley to Miss Nightingale.) July 10, 1863. … Do not fear that Lord Herbert's work will be left unfinished: sanitary ideas have taken root in the public mind, and they cannot be treated as visionary. The test of experience is conclusive. The ground that has been gained cannot be lost again.——July 12.… The first step is to ask what the War and India departments will do. If on consideration they consent to the appointment of the commissions recommended with or without modification of our plan, the thing is fairly started. I am inclined to believe that they will be found willing. But we must give them time to read the report. If they object to do anything, other methods may be tried. We have friends in the Indian Council, and Lord de Grey is a Sanitarist. I quite agree in what you say as to its being a duty to help the ministry of the day in working out their plans. Practically I have acted on this rule. Few matters pass in the India Office that do not come before me. But such help cannot be offered by an outsider—it must be asked by those who are responsible. If Sir C. Wood desires assistance in giving effect to the sanitary projects, I will not refuse it. There is ample time to consider all this.