Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 3 (1908).djvu/127

1855] THE HOSPITAL QUESTION 113 yesterday at four o’clock. A few hours previously we had learnt that his condition was hopeless. The news is sudden and most unexpected, and we are naturally very anxious to learn details. His departure from life at the present moment cannot but make a particularly strong impression, and what the consequences of it may be the All-knowing One alone can foresee. Although the poor Emperor has died as our enemy, I have not forgotten former and more happy times, and no one has more than I regretted that he himself evoked this sad war. To you I must address my request to express to the poor Empress, as well as to the family, my heartfelt condolence. I cannot do it officially, but you, my beloved friend, you will surely be able to convey it to your sister- in-law as well as to the present young Emperor in a manner which shall not compromise me. I have a deep, heartfelt desire to express this. To your dear, honoured mother convey, pray, my condolence on the death of her brother. . ..

Queen Victoria to Lord Panmure. BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 5th March 1855. The Queen is very anxious to bring before Lord Panmure the subject which she mentioned to him the other night, viz. that of Hospitals for our sick and wounded soldiers. This is abso- lutely necessary, and now is the moment to have them built, for no doubt there would be no difficulty in obtaining the money requisite for this purpose, from the strong feeling now existing in the public mind for improvements of all kinds con- nected with the Army and the well-being and comfort of the soldier. Nothing can exceed the attention paid to these poor men in the Barracks at Chatham (or rather more Fort Pitt and Bromp- ton), and they are in that respect very comfortable; but the buildings are bad—the wards more like prisons than hospitals, with the windows so high that no one can look out of them ; and the generality of the wards are small rooms, with hardly space for you to walk between the beds. There is no dining- room or hall, so that the poor men must have their dinners in the same room in which they sleep, and in which some may be dying, and at any rate many suffering, while others are at their meals. The proposition of having hulks prepared for their reception will do very well at first, but it would not, the Queen thinks, do for any length of time. A hulk is a very gloomy