The South African Hospitals Inquiry continues its course, the balance
of evidence being, on the whole, on the aide of the efficiency of the hospitals. The examination of the patients at Netley produced some excellent replies. One man had fought in the Indian Mutiny, China, and Abyssinia, and left New Zealand as a Volunteer, paying his own expenses. His evidence was short and vigorous. "Wounded in the spine at Paardeberg. Never was more surprised in his life than when he went down to the field hospital and found the comfort provided for the sick and wounded. Only one in a hundred made any complaint, and those ought to take their mothers with them wherever they went." Mr. Kipling, who gave evidence on Wednesday, admitted the serious sufferings, but thought that on the whole the cause lay in circumstances beyond the control of the Royal Army Medical Corps. He declared that there was everywhere "a quiet complaint about the exceeding slowness of getting any- thing from the stores," and the nurses were very glad to accept pyjamas and pillow-slips privately from Mr. Kipling. He also said that "there was no enthusiasm about nursing enterics,—they were long and troublesome, and not as inter- esting as the wounded." All this is perfectly natural, but in no way implies a failure of duty. The nurses were terribly overworked, and we can Well understand that they undertook the nursing of enteric patients without enthusiasm ; and in the matter of supplies, there must always be delay when they can only be got through the medium of an office. The moral is, break red4ape bonds without compunction, as Mr. Kipling did, when you find they are killing men. Florence Nightingale ordered the sentry to break in the door of a drug and store cupboard with the butt-end of his musket, and no one ever dared to court-martial that sentry. Officials who break rules wisely and fearlessly will not experience any want of protection.
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