ABSTRACT
The internal constitution of our English Regiments, special and peculiar as it is, has happily not as yet become matter of history. A regiment is a family, or, except when on actual campaign, a collection of families, carrying into the grim domain of war the amenities and civilising influences of family life. The wives of our officers and soldiers accompany their husbands from station to station, sharing with them their long exiles in India, Australia, and other distant colonies; and so beneficial is this practice deemed to be, that the presence of the female "element" is formally recognised in Military administration, and a well-known professional phrase indicates that the wives and daughters of our soldiers are the "strength," not the weakness, of a regiment. It has given us great pleasure to see this view of the matter so fully recognised by Lord Sandhurst, in his recent Circular Memorandum on the utilisation of the benefits of the Dublin Garrison Female Hospital. A wiser, a more humane, or more sensible production never issued from the pen of any military commander. Lord Sandhurst points out in clear detail the uses to which a female garrison hospital should be put. Women are not to be packed off to hospital and removed from their children and homes in cases of slight disease,—but when the inevitable troubles of maternity have to be gone through, or any of those grave accidents occur which are incident to that condition, in short, in the case of all severe affections [sic], then, Lord Sandhurst shows that careful nursing having become necessary, the hospital must be resorted to without hesitation. His Lordship appears fully to recognise the latent objection that lurks in many minds against these institutions, and he combats them in advance with a care and forethought which speak equally well for his Lordship’s head and his heart.
