The sum remaining from the Women's Jubilee Offering to the
Queen, after defraying the comparatively small cost of the eques- trian statue of the Prince Consort,—a sum of 270,000,—is to be applied to providing nurses for the sick poor in their own homes, —a central institution to be chosen for this purpose in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. The nurses are to be well.educated as well as well-trained nurses, and are to have a special training in district nursing and in maternity hospitals so as to be qualified to attend poor women in childbirth. It is proposed that there should be two ranks of these nurses, the higher of which should indicate either length of service, or remarkable skill, or devotion to duty. We never approved of the disposition shown to dictate to the Queen how she ought to use an offering which was in- tended to mark personal respect and affection for herself; but as the Queen has chosen to comply with this rather unmannerly suggestion, we may say that we do not think that she could better have marked the new passion which her reign has conse- crated and so widely diffused for cementing the bonds between the cultivated and relatively uncultivated sections of English society, and for expressing the new and very tardy sense of duty felt by the former for the elevation and improvement of the latter class. We only wish that the Queen had been allowed the credit of herself suggesting the appointment of the Royal Commission which has made this admirable recommendation.
Previous page
