"The Hospicio of Cadiz is at once a poor-house and a house of industry, a school, a foundling hospital, a hospital, and a mad-house; that is, it supplies the places of all these institutions. It is imposing in its form, embellished in its interior, and as unlike in all its attributes and effects as anything can be to the edifices consecrated to the remedying of human misery, by our own charity and wisdom.
"Hospital De La Sangre, (Seville.)
"This is a noble edifice, composed of several grand courts and of two stories; the lower one for summer, and the upper one for winter. I think I may say that to each patient is allotted at least four times as much space as in any similar European establishment, and the very troughs in which the dirty linen is washed are marble: the patients have two changes of clean linen in the week. The kitchens are all resplendent with painted tiles and cleanliness, and there seemed abundance of excellent food. In these institutions, in Spain, the inmates are completely at home. Soft and blooming girls, with downcast look and hurried step, were attending upon the poor, the maimed, and the suffering. The lady-directress had told the servant who accompanied me to bring me, after my visit, to her apartment, which was a hall in one of the corners of the building; she said she had heard that England was celebrated for its charity, and asked if our poor and sick were better off than in Spain. I was obliged to confess that the reverse was the case. She asked me if it was not true that we hired mercenaries to attend on the sick, and abstained from performing that duty ourselves; and if our charity was not imposed as a tax? She told me that there were eight hundred of her order in Spain; that it was the only one that had not been destroyed; that none were admitted but those of noble birth or of gentle blood; and that they took all the vows except that of seclusion, and in lieu of it took that of service to the poor and sick. The Saint Isabelle of Murillo was the model of their order. The Hospital de la Sangre was founded by a woman."
Mrs. Jameson [Footnote 10] pays a just tribute to the Hospital Lariboissière, in Paris, "a model of all that a civil hospital ought to be—clean, airy, light, lofty, above all, cheerful. I should observe," she says, "that generally in the hospitals served by Sisters of Charity, there is ever an air of cheerfulness, caused by their own sweetness of temper and voluntary devotion to their work. At the time that I visited this hospital, it contained six hundred and twelve patients, three hundred men and three hundred and twelve women, in two ranges of building divided by a very pretty garden. The whole interior management is entrusted to twenty-five trained sisters of the same order as those who serve the Hôtel Dieu. There are, besides, about forty servants, men and women, men to do the rough work, and male nurses to assist in the men's wards under the supervision of the sisters. This hospital was founded by a lady, a rich heiress, a married woman too. She had the assistance of the best architects in France to plan her building, while medical and scientific men had aided her with their counsels."
[Footnote 10: Sisters of Charity, Protestant and Catholic.]
In the General Report on the Condition of the Prisons of Piedmont, to the Minister of the Interior, we find this paragraph:
"It is an indisputable fact that the prisons which are served by the sisters are the best ordered, the most cleanly, and in all respects the best regulated in the country. To which the minister of the interior adds: Not only have we experienced the advantage of employing the Sisters of Charity in the prisons, in the supervision of the details, in distributing food, preparing medicines, and nursing the sick in the infirmaries, but we find the influence of these ladies on the minds of the prisoners when recovering from sickness has been productive of the greatest benefit, as leading to permanent reform in many cases, and a better frame of mind always; for this reason, among others, we have given them every encouragement.
"Among the other reasons alluded to, the greater economy of the management is a principal one. It is admitted, even by those who are opposed to them, that, in the administration of details, these women can always make a given sum go further than the paid officials of the other sex. Their opposition to the sale of wine and brandy to the prisoners, except when prescribed by the physicians, is also worthy of note.
"One of the directors of the great military hospital at Turin told Mrs. Jameson that he regarded it as one of the best deeds of his life, that he had recommended and carried through the employment of the Sisters of Charity in this institution. Before the introduction of these ladies, the sick soldiers had been nursed by orderlies sent from the neighboring barracks, men chosen because they were unfit for other work. The most rigid discipline was necessary to keep them in order, and the dirt, neglect, and general immorality were frightful. Any change was, however, resisted by the military and medical authorities till the invasion of the cholera; then the orderlies became, most of them, useless, distracted, and almost paralyzed with terror. Some devoted Sisters of Charity were introduced in a moment of perplexity and panic; then all went well—propriety, cleanliness, and comfort prevailed. No day passes, said this director, that I do not bless God for the change which I was the humble instrument of accomplishing in this place. Very similar was the information received relative to the naval hospital at Genoa.