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14

DISTINCTION IN DRESS.

the new party arrived, to our dismay we found that the home authorities had not thought well to learn experience from those who had to struggle with difficulties on the spot; they still held to similarity in dress, and the ladies and nurses all wore the government costume. When we received them at Koulali we expressed our surprise and vexation at the mistake, and our conviction that the ladies would very soon follow our example and make a distinction in dress between themselves and the nurses, and the event proved our expectations correct.

The ladies soon found it was necessary for their own comfort and for the good of their work that in every possible way the distinction should be drawn. None but those who knew it can imagine the wearing anxiety and the bitter humiliation the charge of the hired nurses brought upon us, for it should be remembered that we stood as a small body of English women in a

FRESH ARRIVALS AND FRESH TROUBLES. 15

foreign country, and that we were so far a community that the act of one disgraced all. After this period, it is true, we had no longer to encounter the hardships some had endured in the winter, but as long as the work in the East lasted so long were there difficulties to be surmounted and trials to be borne of no common character.

On April the 21st, a second party of three ladies and seven nurses joined us. They had travelled under the escort of Mr. Wallace, a clergyman of the Church of England. Immediately on their arrival he informed the lady superintendent that one of the hired nurses had behaved so badly on the passage out she ought to go home; it was fixed she should return by the next ship that left.

Before the party of nurses he had escorted out went to their work, Mr. Wallace wished to address a few words to them, but upon their assembling in the sitting-room one of declared she did not

the number, Mrs.

16

THE SCHEMER DISAPPOINTED.

wish to hear it, as she did not intend to stay. No, the life was "different to what she had expected "she had been two days in the East-and the nurses 66 were an ungodly set she could not live among. She was a Christian, and Christians must not live among the ungodly." Upon inquiry we discovered that Mrs.'s husband was a bandmaster, that she had come out intending as soon as she reached the East to leave the service of the government and join him, but on her arrival she found he had been sent home, and now she wished to go back. The superintendent said she could go if she liked, but she would

not pay her passage home. This quite upset

Mrs.'s calculations, as she had reckoned upon a free passage to England. She became very insolent indeed, and was obliged to be reminded that, if she did not submit to the rules of the house, we were in a military hospital and could call in the assistance of the authorities. The vision of

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A GOOD RIDDANCE.

17

rather frightened her, she contented herself with warning us what we might expect when she did get back to England-she would expose all our doings.

One of the nurses came to report her threats in great terror.

"Oh, if you please, ma'am, she does say such dreadful things that she is a-going to do. We shall be as good as massacreed when she gets home!"

"Well, never mind," we said, "let her only go away and get home, and we will see when the massacre comes.' ""

She left the house on the day the vessel for England was to sail, went to the British Consul, and I believe prevailed upon him to give her a passage to Malta. He probably did not want her among the British subjects at Constantinople. The other discharged nurse was sent to Galata to embark for England, but contrived to get away from the person in charge and ran into Constantinople. We

VOL. II.

с

18

THE WRONG PERSONS.

never could trace her afterwards.

Such was

the consequence of sending out women of inferior character to such a work of trial and temptation. We felt it bitterly when we wished so much that a good example should be set to the men, and that we should raise and influence them for the better; it would have been all undone by these women, while to them, poor creatures, a military hospital was the very worst place that could be imagined -rife with every sort of temptation.

A few weeks only had elapsed since the departure of the two women I have mentioned, when disgraceful misconduct caused the dismissal of a third. Ere a passage could be had for her another was obliged to go, from her habits of intoxication, and she had been one most highly recommended; and to hear her talk you would think she was a very religious person. These two left together. The chaplain himself offered to see them on board, and his task was no light one, for

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