patients, its attendants, have always been in the foreground of the
picture. Never have the inseparable miseries of warfare been so well
understood and so widely realised, thanks in part to that new
literary force of the Victorian age, the _war correspondent_, and
chiefly, perhaps, to the new position henceforth assumed by the
military medical and hospital service. To the same source we may
fairly attribute the great improvements wrought in the whole conduct
of that distinctively Christian charity, unknown to heathenism, the
hospital system: the opening of a new field of usefulness to educated
and devoted women of good position, as nurses in hospitals and out;
and the vast increase of public interest in and public support of
such agencies. Even the Female Medical Mission, now rising into such
importance in the jealous lands of the East, may be traced not very
indirectly to the same cause.

The Queen, whose enthusiasm for her beloved army and navy was very
earnest, and frankly shown, who had suffered with their sufferings
and exulted in their exploits, followed with a keen, personal,
unfaltering interest the efforts made for their relief. "Tell these
poor, noble wounded and sick men that _no one_ takes a warmer
interest, or feels more for their sufferings, or admires their
courage and heroism more than their Queen. So does the Prince," was
the impulsive, heart-warm message which Her Majesty sent for
transmission through Miss Nightingale to her soldier-patients. Her
deeds proved that these words were words of truth. Not content with
subscribing largely to the fund raised on behalf of those left
orphaned and widowed by the war, she took part in the work of
providing fitting clothing for the men exposed to all the terrors of
a Russian winter; and her daughters, enlisted to aid in this pious
work, began that career of beneficence which two of them were to