21 MARCH 1874, Page 23

CURRENT LITERATURE.

English Matrons, and their Profession. By L. F. M. (Sampson Low and Co.)—We had marked many things for unfavourable comment in this volume. L. F. M. is sometimes, we cannot help thinking and saying, a little unreasonable and petulant. How absurd, for instance, it is to talk of men (as opposed to women) as an "amazing sex " 1 And through- out her book there is an angry tone which is most unprofitable in the discussion of the grave, social questions with which she deals. But we wish to call the attention of our readers to the very interesting chapters which deal with the subject of nursing. If L. F. M.'s statements are time, and they are certainly made in good faith, by a writer who, though using initials only, does not affect concealment, there are monstrous abuses in the nursing department of the groat hospitals. She distinctly states that young nurses and female patients are sometimes subjected to very gross conduct from the students and young medical officers of the hospitals, and she specifies other abuses in the department of the hos- pitals which are only less hateful than this. We can form no opinion as to the correctness of these statements, but here they are made, and they ought to be looked to. It would be a good thing for the Conserva- tive Government to show that they really value sanitas, by appointing a Royal Commission to inquire into the management of the great endowed hospitals. Another statement that L. F. M. makes we take the oppor- tunity of bringing before those whom it may concern to contradict it. Can it be true that a committee presided over by Mr. Rogers, of St. Botolph's, having collected £5,000 for a girls' school, "applied the whole sum for what may be more properly called the ornamentation than the want of a boys' school"?