ATTENTION TO DETAIL

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12975, 30 November 1907, Page 7

ATTENTION TO DETAIL

During the Crimean war we find the Queen took a keen personal interest in all rhat concrrnod her soldiers. She wroto at length to Lord Panmure, Secretary ot' War. on the subject of hospitals. iiie following passage is typical of her close attention to the details of the subject:—

''Nothing can exceed the attention paid to those poor men in tho barracks* at Chatham, and they are in that respect very comfortable: but the buildings are bad—the wards more like prisons than hospitals, with the win-dowyt-o high that no one can look out of them, ami tho generality of tho wards aro email rooms, with hardly spaco for you to walk between tho beds. There is no dining-room or hall, so that thp poor men must have their dinners in tho same rooms in which they sleep, and in which some may b<? dying, and, at any rate-, many suffering, while others are at their meals. The proposition of having hulke prepared for thoir reception will do very well at first, but it would not. tho Queen thinks, do for any length of time. A hulk is a very gloomy place, and theeo poor men requiro their spirits to be cheered as much as their physical sufferings to be attended to."'

A letter written to the Duke of Somerset, in June, 1860, indicates the importance she attached to the feeling of the navnl and military services:— 'Before sanctioning tho proposed change in the naval uniform, the Queen wishes to know what tho Stato. occasions are on which the full-dress is to bo worn. She has always understood the service to cling very much to its present uniform, and she would bo sorry to shock their feelings.''

Her Majesty also on another occasion checked an attempt that was to he made to prevent military bands playing the troops to church on Sunday, because it wae an old custom of the service-, +o which many of the men were attached.

Many of her comments show greater perspicacity than wns possessed , by her Ministers; none, more so than this of July 26tb, 18.56:—"Th0 existence of these Free States (the Orange River Colony and the Tranevaal) mny possibly be a, source of danger to the security of British dominion in South Africa."