After consultation with some of the leading doctors, public meetings were held in Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto, and representative committees were formed in these and other cities for the promotion of the scheme. On the advice of the friends of the movement in Montreal it was decided that only fully trained hospital nurses, holding a diploma from a recognized hospital school, after training in maternity and district work, should be admitted into the order. Very strict rules were made forbidding the nurses to go to cases where no doctor was in attendance, placing the nurse in all cases under the control of the doctor and limiting the nurse’s attendance on the patient to visits of short duration, thus safeguarding the interests of the ordinary professional nurse.
It was agreed to administer the order through a central board and local boards of management who would supervise the nurses’ work and be responsible for their salaries, board and lodging. It was hoped that enough money would be collected for the permanent endowment of the order for work in all parts of Canada, but, owing mainly to the strong opposition of the large majority of medical men who misunderstood the objects of the order and pronounced against it, public opinion was adversely affected and only a tithe of the money required was collected and that mainly for local purposes. So many new facts, however, had been brought to light emphasizing the great need for such a nursing order throughout Canada that it was decided to make a start with the money in hand and four training centres, namely, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax, were established under district superintendents with a New Brunswick lady, Miss Charlotte Macleod, of the Waltham Training School, as chief lady superintendent.
Meantime a constitution and by-laws had been drawn up and an application made to Her Majesty for a royal charter for the new order, which was duly granted in 1898. By the end of the following year there were eighteen Victorian Order districts throughout the country with thirty nurses. Today in Montreal alone we have ten districts, with seventy-one Victorian Order nurses, while in Canada generally there are two hundred and thirty-two. Cottage hospitals have been started all through the country districts and in addition to these there are small centres with two nurses who attend patients scattered over a wide area and also receive emergency cases at the homes.
As the aim and object of the order became better understood the opposition on the part of the doctors and nurses changed into cordial sympathy and co-operation and the Victorian Order have now no better friends than the medical and nursing professions. So happily inaugurated with Lady Aberdeen as its first president, the order has always enjoyed the warm support of the successive governors general of Canada and their consorts. Lady Minto’s exertions secured the money for the Cottage Hospital fund, Lady Grey raised the necessary funds for the country nursing centres, and it was owing to the interest and energy of H.R.H., the Duchess of Connaught, that a large sum of money was collected last year for the central fund. The Victorian Order has been fortunate in attracting to its service devoted women to whose singleness of purpose no less than to their highly trained intelligence must be ascribed its marvellous growth and success.
IV
MOVEMENTS FOR THE “UNFORTUNATES”
FALLEN WOMEN—LA MISERICORDE—THE SHELTERING HOME—GIRL DELINQUENTS—THE “GOOD SHEPHERD”—THE GIRLS’ COTTAGE INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL—BOY DELINQUENTS—ECOLE DE REFORME—SHAWBRIDGE BOYS’ FARM—THE JUVENILE COURT—THE CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY—THE MONTREAL SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CANADIAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. NOTE: COURT COMMITTALS.
The care of fallen women was early tentatively engaged in by Madame d’Youville before British rule. Doubtless this was also desultorily undertaken at a later period by her companions and other religious communities of women, but it was not specifically and regularly undertaken as a special work until Madame Jetté founded her work which is perpetuated in the Hôpital de la Miséricorde.
THE HOPITAL DE LA MISERICORDE
The Hôpital La Miséricorde owes its origin to Mgr. Ignace Bourget, to whom so many of the Catholic works of charity and education of the city owe their inspiration and encouragement during his thirty-six years in the episcopate, from 1840 to 1876. His name is written in indelible characters in this city. In the year 1845, after having long thought of means of founding some establishment for fallen girls he called to his aid a pious widow, Madame Jetté, who had been engaged in much private charity in helping unfortunate girls, and invited her to found a community to perpetuate the good already commenced by her. The first home, opened with one “penitent,” was called the Hospice Ste. Pélagie, a garret reached by a ladder above a dilapidated wooden building on St. Simon Street, in the tenement now numbered 208 St. George Street. Her family thought her demented and said that she was disgracing them, and there were not wanting the criticisms and sarcasm of the cynics. Madame Jetté was joined on July 20th by another devoted widow, Madame Raymond, who had worked towards the founding of the Good Shepherd Institution in Montreal. A more comfortable building was shortly secured on Wolfe Street (now numbered 207 and 209). More penitents were able to be received.