The Secretary of State, however, declared these Homes to be 'an important part' of the nursing scheme, 'and indispensable to its practical working,' but considered that they should be provided by private subscription, a condition my wife undertook to carry out.

She appealed to the Army in India to help her, and with scarcely an exception every regiment and battery generously responded--even the private soldiers subscribed largely in proportion to their small means--so that by the beginning of the following year my wife was able to set about purchasing and building suitable houses.
[Illustration: LADY ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR.
_From a photograph by Messrs.

Johnson and Hoffmann._] 'Homes' were established at Murree, Kasauli and Quetta, in Bengal, and at Wellington[1] in Madras, and by making a further appeal to the officers of the army, and with the assistance of kind and liberal friends in England and India, and the proceeds of various entertainments, Lady Roberts was able to supply, in connexion with the 'Homes' at Murree and Kasauli, wards for the reception of sick officers, with a staff of nurses[2] in attendance, whose salaries, passages, etc., are all paid out of 'Lady Roberts's Fund.' My wife was induced to do this from having known many young officers succumb owing to want of care and improper food at hotels or clubs on being sent to the Hills after a hard fight for life in the plains, if they were not fortunate enough to have personal friends to look after them.

Although it is anticipating events, I may as well say here that the nursing experiment proved a complete success, and now every large military hospital in India has its staff of nurses, and there are altogether 4 superintendents, 9 deputy superintendents, and 39 nursing sisters, in India.

There are many more wanted in the smaller stations, where there is often great loss of life from lack of proper nursing, and surely, as my wife pointed out in her first appeal, 'when one considers what an expensive article the British soldier is, costing, as he does, L100 before landing in India, it seems certain that on the score of economy alone, altogether setting aside the humane aspect of the question, it is well worth the State's while to provide him with the skilled nursing care' which has up to now saved so many lives.
That officers as well as men might benefit by the devotion of the 'nursing sister,' I was able to arrange in all the large hospitals for some room, or rooms, used until then for other purposes, to be appropriated for an officers' ward or wards, and these have proved a great boon to the younger officers whose income does not admit of their obtaining the expensive care of a nurse from one of the large civil hospitals in the Presidency towns.
The next most interesting question, and also the most pressing, which had to be considered by the Viceroy's Council during the summer of 1886, was the pacification of Upper Burma.