BUTTERFLY NURSES.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume II, Issue 511, 29 September 1915, Page 4

BUTTERFLY NURSES.

LADY WARWICK SPEAKS OUT. It is rapidly besoming apparent that the voluntary nursing service of Great Britain is breaking down/ The official statement is that it is to be "reorganised." The only volunteer women in the New Zealand hospitals, so far, are those supplied by the New Zealand Volunteer Sisterhood, and the age-limit for membership in that society was 30 to 50, with preference given to women between 35 and 40 years of age. These women have received nothing but praise for their work, and it is certainly to be hoped that the grave dangers pointed out by the Countess of Warwick will be avoided in the future, as they have been in the present,, so far as New Zealand is concerned. Young excitable girls, no matter how eager for service they may be, are humanly unsuitable for the work of military nursing. In the London "Chronicle" of June 28 last, Lady Warwick speaks of the "very large of young women to whom war is little more than a new sensation, '' and who in these dreadful times have still continued tbeir dances and dinner parties. "Unfortunately," the Countess continues, "the people I have in ipind must Sample Every Sensation that the seasons provide. They have invaded the sanctuary of the hospital nurse. Scores have found their way to the great London hospitals in town to face what they are pleased to regard as training; I have known some who have danced till 3 a.m. and have presented themselves at the hospital at 8 o'clock! Everybody knows that the training of a real hospital nurse is a very serious matter; it makes full demand upon physical and mental capacity, and that a long period is required to bring the seed of efficiency to flower or fruit. The social butterflies have made no such sacrifices; they have acquired a trifling and superficial knowledge of a nurse's work, and have then set their social in-

fluenee to work in order to reach some one of the base hospitals where they may sample fresh experience. If they were really useful there it would be unkind to offer a protest, but the general opinion is that they do more harm than good. They subvert discipline, they are a law to themselves, they are too highly placed or protected to bo called to order promptly, they have neither the inclination nor the capacity for sustained usefulness.

They Want Limelight. One hears repeatedly that this girl or that has gone to the front, and .one imagines devotion, self-re-straint, and a dozen kindred virtues. Unfortunately, it is chiefly in the realm of imagination that these virtues exist. For the rest the interlopers want limelight, and plenty of it, their pictures flood the papers, and to read what is written of them the experienced person might imagine that they are bearing the heat and burden of the day, the solitude and anxiety of the night, while in very truth they do no more than search for fresh sensation in an area that should be secred. '' Somewhere in France.''

If there are any who are prepared to think 1 have over-stated the case or have traduced the young women who are at present "somewhere in France," let them find out from their particular heroine how much time she gave to training, how she received her appointment, and how much real hard work she does day by-day. That a few have striven hard and nobly I would be the last to deny, but these are not enough either to leaven or purify the mass or to elevate the action of a class that might be better employed. Let us remember, too, that suffering is always with us, and that, even when war is over, there will be far too much in all the great of our own country. Are these, butterfly nurses prepared to remember in the future the profession they have invaded to-day? Will they respond to the calls that are made to help, not young, attractive, and valiant men, but men, women, and children in every phase of helplessness and hopelessness? I do not think so. There is neither notoriety nor limelight in the sober, serious life of the hospital nurse and sister. Above all, there is a hard and necessary discipline that calls for much more courage to render it tolerable. Physical courage is seldom lacking either in men or women who are well-bred, and it may be freely granted that a fcertain measure is demanded of the butterfly nurses; but there is no redemption in this. To savour the full sense of life without courage is impossible. One might as readily make an omelette without breaking eggs. In this case it is courage misdirected, energy misspent. Woman's Wartime Service.

I feel very strongly about this scaifdal —so strongly that I have* not 'hesitated to write what is bound to offend some of my own friends; but there times when it is impossible to be silent if one would live on tolerable terms with oneself. I feel that in these days woman is called upon to make supreme sacrifices, that what she is giving even now is less than will be required of her later on, that her war record and her record when peace is about to return will be scanned closely and critically by generations of really free women yet unborn. To know of a blot upon woman's war-time service record and to make no attempt to erase it is impossible. The record of the real nursing sisterhood is brilliant in the extreme. Why should it be obscured for the sake of a few highly-placed and foolish young women who seek with the minimum of labour to make the maximum effect? It is unjust, ungenerous, and altogether unworthy of tlie representatives of families that in many cases have earned their ample -honours legitimately enough.

Great Britain owes more than it can ever repay to the nursing sisterhood; and it is intolerable that while their silent heroism passes with so little recognition, any girl of good family who assumes a uniform she has not won the right to wear should pose as the representative of a sisterhood she is not worthy to associate with, of whose tradition she is ignorant, of whose high discipline and complete restraint she is intolerant.''

A cable message recently received in Melbourne states that Sergt. Crozier Durham has been given a commission (says the Melbourne "Argus"). Lieut. Durham, who left with the Ist Australian Expeditionary Force, is a New Zealander by birth, being a son of the late Dr Durham, who was in practice near Christchurch for some years. He was one of the landing party at Gaba Tepe on April 25.