HOLLY LODGE—THE CONSERVATORY.
From a Water-Colour Drawing by Warne Browne.
How much his captivity must have grieved his friend can only be faintly surmised by her scheme, in conjunction with a few friends, for opening up communication with Khartoum by means of a Morocco merchant, who, disguising himself, managed to convey to poor Gordon the last letters and papers he ever received from England.
No efforts were made by us to rescue him; and well and nobly did the Baroness publicly plead on behalf of her friend. The shame and the disgrace made men and women blush for their country; and when Lady Coutts's letter found its way into the Times, it awoke a universal thrill from all classes. We mourn still the loss of his noble life; and some of us wonder at the necessity of the public appeal for funds by the late Lord Tennyson in order that the Boys' Home, a work dear to the brave General, could be carried on. Is it that we forget?
I might keep on indefinitely telling you of the different things taken up by the Baroness, for everywhere I turn I have something to remind me of such. Now it is the portrait of a most handsome bouquet which had been presented to her by a deputation of Irish women. Everybody knows how again and again the Baroness has spent immense sums in relieving this unfortunate people: in famine and sickness she has come forward for years past and tendered timely help, always seeking, as she herself said, "to improve their moral as well as their material condition." Of the amount of money, food, fuel, clothing, etc., disbursed I cannot give you any correct total, spreading as the work has over so long a period; but I can tell you how, thirteen years ago, she offered the munificent sum of £250,000 to the Government for them to use beneficially in aid of the Irish destitute.
Some of this great work was carried on in the fishing villages, where dire famine had made such havoc, that craft had either gone or was in such a battered condition for want of repair that fishing was practically impossible. Scots were actually fishing in the Irish waters, and selling the same fish to those of the Irish who had money to buy with. Then the Baroness made loans to the deserving men of sums of £300, in order that they might purchase new boats, the loans to be repaid by small yearly instalments. Later on, her ladyship established a Fishing School, in which four hundred boys from all parts of Ireland could be thoroughly initiated into boat-building, net-making and mending, etc., carpentering, coopering, and fish-curing. This school the Baroness opened herself in the year 1887, and can it be wondered at that when their well-tried friend came among them, arriving at night by yacht, flags, table-cloths, and pocket-handkerchiefs bedecked the place, the people came together in huge crowds, and large bonfires gave ruddy lights on all the surrounding hills? When the actual opening took place on the next day, the scene of enthusiasm was almost unexampled—not in any degree lessened by the presence of a large number of deputations to present addresses.
When I come to the question of her private and individual charities, I must honestly confess that this is a subject upon which I can give you no information. As you may imagine, begging letters arrive in batches, and few that are really deserving apply altogether in vain. Of this the public learns nothing, neither did I, beyond the actual fact above stated.
Everyone was glad when the honour of a peerage was conferred upon Miss Coutts in 1871. This is an instance unique when connected with a woman for her own worthy deeds. The bestowal, to my mind, conferred as much honour upon the Queen who gave it as upon the subject who received it. The Baroness also wears the Orders of the Medjidieh and the Shafakat, given by the Sultan in token of his gratitude for her services to the unfortunate refugees. In addition to this she has had the freedom of several cities conferred upon her.
The last undertaking I shall mention is a literary one; this, by the way, not the first. The Chicago Exhibition is now a thing of the past; but Lady Coutts has given us a work in connection with it that deserves a place on the shelves of every library in the land. I refer to the book, "Woman's Mission," undertaken by the Baroness at the express wish of H.R.H. the Princess Christian. Certainly the Princess could not have placed the commission in more able hands; and the result confirms her judgment. The Baroness set about it in the very best possible manner, and instead of collecting reports, statistics, etc., which would only have proved dull and uninteresting, she put herself in communication with a large number of such well-known ladies as Florence Nightingale, Miss Agnes Weston, etc., and from them obtained accounts of the different works in which they were engaged as women for women—each and every paper being stamped with an individual personality which gives life and interest as well as facts and truisms. No fewer than thirty-five of such papers are here presented to the readers of the book, two of them written by the Baroness herself, who has, in addition, also written a lengthy appendix touching upon each; and a preface of remarkable power and earnestness, treating, as it does, of the progressive education of women during the last sixty years.
