Daisy (One Year’s Training in a General Hospital).—General hospitals—the qualifications of which carry weight in the nursing world—almost invariably receive probationers for not less than two years’ training. Three years is an ordinary limit, and even four years are required by some of the best training schools. The only alternative course you could pursue is to enter some hospital as a paying probationer. You would be required to pay thirteen guineas per quarter; this would cover board, lodging, and tuition, but not uniform or laundry. It is possible that at the end of six months a paying probationer, who has shown an aptitude for nursing, may be invited to join the regular nursing staff of the hospital. If such an invitation were made to you, you would do wisely to accept it, for your position as a private nurse would be strengthened by the fact that you had undergone a full course of hospital training. We advise you to offer yourself as a paying probationer to the Middlesex Hospital, Mortimer Street, London, W., or the Royal Free Hospital, Gray’s Inn Road, London, W.C. If you prefer to remain in Scotland, you might apply to the Matron of the Northern Infirmary, Inverness. Here candidates are received for one year only and are paid a salary. This institution, however, is much smaller than either of the London hospitals above-mentioned, and could not offer you so complete a knowledge of nursing in all its branches.
Doris (Hospital Training).—Hospitals do not receive girls as probationers who are so young as eighteen. You must wait patiently, we regret to say, till you are two or three and twenty. In the meantime try to discover whether any evening classes are being held in your neighbourhood at which you could study ambulance work. Perhaps you could attend a polytechnic and learn other things as well, such, for instance, as cookery, which is a most useful subject for a nurse to understand. Indeed, if you occupied the next few years in obtaining complete expertness in all the domestic arts, you would find in later life that the time had been well spent.
A. E. T. (Situation as Under-Nurse).—As you are young and have not yet been out in service, it might be better for you not to come to London at first, but to seek a situation in your own locality. The Matron of the Girls’ Boarding Home, 5, Abbey Street, Carlisle; or Mrs. Chalker, Ladies’ Association for the Care of Girls Training Home, 8, George Street, Carlisle, would doubtless be kind enough to give you the address of some thoroughly respectable registry office in the North of England, through which you could seek a situation. You are too young to enter any hospital.
M. D. de J. (Veterinary Surgeons).—The Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons does not at present admit women to membership; consequently women cannot practise in this country with the English qualification. There are many women who breed horses, and who, no doubt, are quite capable of acting as “vets” in an amateur capacity. But women have not gone further in this direction at present.
MISCELLANEOUS.
Rosebud.—White velvet, if not very much soiled, can be cleaned at home with flour rubbed in well, and then brushed out; and this process may be repeated till it is clean.
Thelma.—If you do not wish to mark your underlinen with your own initials, why not wait till you are married, and mark it then with your new ones? The father of the bride should pay for the carriages in which the bridal party goes to church; the bridegroom pays for his own, and also for that in which the newly-married pair depart from the church and the house.
Theo.—1. The great writer on the subject was Lavater, and there is a cheap edition of his book, but most libraries contain it.—2. We cannot suggest methods of earning money when we do not know what you can do, nor your age and position.
Eve.—1. There are exhibitions held in a large number of provincial centres, at any of which you might exhibit your paintings. There is one at Newbury, Berks, and many towns in that part of England, but as you do not give an address, we cannot help you.—2. You must make an arrangement with some shop (a greengrocer, perhaps) to sell your flowers.
Fritz C.—The word “lacustrine” is derived from the Latin lacus, a lake. It means anything pertaining to lakes or swamps. It is used especially of those lake dwellings which have been found at various times and places, in which prehistoric peoples have lived for protection and better security. The most famous of these were discovered a few years ago in the Lake of Bienne, in Switzerland.