General Hospital, London,
May 1894.

It is a long time since I last wrote to you, but there has not been much of interest to write about.

I tried very hard to get into some London hospital last autumn, but could not find a vacancy in any really good one, so I made up my mind it was better to wait for a vacancy here—where I had always wanted to train—than to slip in anywhere, where I did not know that the training was good. So I have just stayed at home, and in the summer played tennis and cricket, and learnt to make butter and jam, &c., and in the winter had a little hunting (on rather a stupid horse that was always doing something foolish, and one day distinguished himself by lying down at the meet!), and helped to teach in the night-school, where big lads and men, who had been cutting turnips for the sheep all day, came in the evenings to learn arithmetic, geography, &c., with much perseverance.

I went to help at the N. General Hospital for a month in the autumn, as they had a lot of nurses ill. It was rather funny, as I was sent to a men's ward (35 beds) as staff nurse; and of course I had had to do only with children before, so I had to pretend to know rather more than I did.

I had been there only a few days when the Sister of my ward went off duty with influenza, and there did not seem to be any one to come in her place; so we had to muddle along without a Sister. But everything went on all right, and the patients did well.

The Matron asked me to stay on permanently; but I thought a London certificate would be more valuable afterwards, so I only stayed until their sick nurses were able to return to duty.

I rather enjoyed my time there. The rough cleaning work that we had had to do at the Children's Hospital was all done by ward-maids, so we were able to give all our attention to the actual nursing; also our food was better, and more plentiful. But in spite of these things, there seemed to be a great deal of grumbling amongst the nurses. I was not accustomed to this, and I was not there long enough to learn whether they really had any good cause for their complaints.

The work was certainly hard, but that was partly because so many sisters and nurses were off duty ill; and when the doctors found that I was doing the Sister's work as well as my own, they were most considerate in trying to save me trouble.

I had been promised a vacancy here "in the summer" as an ordinary probationer for three years' training. Then, one day early in February, I had a wire from the Matron asking me whether I would like to enter as a lady pupil "if my fees were arranged for," and if so, I was to go up to see her the next day. I could not understand a bit what it meant, but thought I had better investigate. So up I trotted to town, and the Matron explained to me that they have a system here of working in two ranks, officers and privates. The officers are the sisters, and they are recruited from the lady pupils; the privates are the probationers, who might rise to be staff nurses, but beyond that there is no promotion from the ranks. Therefore, if I entered as a probationer, as I had arranged, I could never rise to be a sister.

Then she told me that it was probable there would be two or three vacancies for sisters in about a year, and a lady who was interested in the hospital had offered to pay the fees for some lady pupil, who would otherwise have entered as a probationer, so that she might have the advantage of the chance of promotion; and the Matron had decided to give me the offer, partly on account of my having had previous training. Of course there is no promise of promotion, as that must depend on one's work; but there is the chance of it. Did you ever hear of such good luck?

Of course I was only too glad to accept, and they wanted me at once; so I had to get my kit ready in a hurry, and began work here in February.

This is a huge place, quite a little town in itself, and I am very happy here.

I think I have been lucky in being first sent to a men's medical ward of forty beds. The Sister is a first-rate nurse and a splendid manager. She works hard herself, and expects every one else to do the same; so the ward always looks trim, and the patients are very comfortable.

My short experience at N. has been very useful to me, and I don't feel so much at sea in doing things for the men.

I find that, as lady pupil, I am really acting as "sister's assistant." I go round with Sister with the doctors, and if she is engaged with one doctor and another one comes, I have to escort him round; and it is necessary for me to know all about the cases, so as to be able to report about them. Another of my duties is to give all the medicines, and that for forty medical cases takes up a good deal of time. I also have charge of four beds, and do everything for the patients in them.

There are two staff nurses and two probationers (also two ward-maids), and I fill in my spare time with helping them in bed-making, carrying round meals, &c.; but I don't seem to be expected to do any of the cleaning work, and if I am busy helping Sister, the routine work goes on just the same without my assistance. I am not quite sure that it is a good arrangement, as one of the staff nurses in this ward has been here for years and years, and the other one for over three years, so of course they know more about the cases than I do; and I should think a brand new lady pupil, who had had no training before, might find it rather difficult. But I must say the staffs have been very nice to me. I didn't mean to let it be known that I "had been out before," but it leaked out.

There are about twenty of us lady pupils, and we live in the Matron's house. We have all our meals in the large nurses' dining-hall—but at a separate table—except supper, which we have in the sisters' dining-hall. The food is ever so much better than it was at the Children's Hospital. Some of the nurses grumble at it; but I think wherever people feed in a crowd there are always some who grumble. At any rate, it is not necessary to buy food here.

At first I had rather uninteresting cases in my beds, but now Sister is giving me some good ones. I have one jolly fat baby of two and a half with tonsilitis, who was sent to us from a women's ward, because they were not sure that he was not going in for diphtheria, and they had other children in the ward. I had to do a good deal of treatment for him at first, and he hated it; but now he has forgiven me, and we are excellent friends, and all the men are doing their best to spoil him.

Then I have a poor man with Bright's disease, who is very ill. He is a curious-looking object, as he is quite bald, and he likes to wear a red knitted cap in bed. He is often delirious now in the evenings, and then he uses very bad language. When Sister is out in the evening, I have to read prayers in the ward. At first I was very shy of reading before all these men, especially when some of them are of quite a superior class; and when I was in the middle of prayers the other evening, my bald-headed man chimed in with a lot of bad language. It was really very trying, and I knew if either of the nurses went to remonstrate with him, he would only continue in a louder voice; so I had to shorten the prayers somewhat. If he continues like this, I am afraid he will have to go to the strong-room; but up there they have only male attendants, and we are rather loth to send him off, as he is really very ill, and needs a lot of nursing.

A sad thing happened the other day. We had an old man in very ill with angina pectoris; he had great difficulty in breathing, and could not lie down at all. I was always trying to prop him up and make him comfortable. He got very little rest, but he was always so good and grateful. He was not one of my own cases; but he was on several medicines (to be given as required), so I had to go to him very often for one thing and another. One day I was going round giving the two o'clock medicines, and when I got to his bed, he was lying back on his pillows apparently asleep. It was so unusual for him to look at all comfortable, I thought I would certainly not disturb him for his medicine. Sister was talking to a doctor a few yards away, and I was just going to point out to her that the old man was resting, when something made me turn back and look at him more closely, and I found he was quite dead. Poor old fellow, he was indeed "resting." I just pulled a screen round him, and then called Sister and the house surgeon; but he was quite gone, and even the man in the next bed had not noticed any change.