WOMEN IN TIIK TKANSVAAI * WAK.
When Surgeon Troves bluntly de
clared at a recent dinner , given in his
honor by the Reform Club of London ,
that "so far as the sick are concerned
there are two plagues in South Africa
the plague of flies and the plague of
women , " ho little realized what an
extraordinary outburst of resentment
his remarks would cause in England.
Indignant women wrote to the papers
and reminded the world of Florence
Nightingale and the noble work done by
the women nurses all over the world , as
well as in Soutli Africa. Against these
women Mr. Troves , of course , had
nothing to say ; for them he had nothing
but praise. In a scathing reply to the
attacks made on his speech , he says :
"Cape Town was , at the time of which
I spoke , packed with women idlers , the
majority of them 'society' or 'smart'
people , who , yearning for new excite
ments , had come out to South Africa to
make a holiday. I say , and I say it
very earnestly , that the condition of
affairs , as brought about by the presence
of these ladies , was on absolute disgrace
to our country. The hotels of Cape
Town ( I will say nothing of Durban )
were crammed with these people in the
enjoyment of what to them was apicnic
on a large scale. The Mount Nelson
Hotel was packed with them , and if a
sick or wounded officer came down from
the front in search of accommodation ,
he had not the slightest chance of get
ting into a decent hotel. These ladies
had not the faintest pretext for being in
South Africa beyond their own desire to
make the campaign a means of obtaining
new pleasures and excitements. "
That , however , was not the worst side
of their presence :
"When and other
dinner-parties jun
keting grew wearisome , they would
make up parties to visit the hospitals.
What shall we do today1 'Oh , let's
go and see the wounded , ' would be the
preparation to an invasion of the base
hospitals and an incalculable amount of
interference with the work of the medi
cal staff. Officers in charge of wounded
would , in the course of their duties , be
interrupted by ladies bearing permits
signed by personages whose request the
officers dared not or did not care to re
fuse. You know , perhaps , what influ
ence means in the matter of promotion ,
and so the women would be taken rouuc
the wards and the wounded shown to
the utter disorganization of discipline
and duty. There were cases in whicl
the wounded men , aroused half a dozen
times in succession by these meddle
some intruders , turned from them a
last saying : 'Good heavens , shall I
ever get any peace ? " In another in
stance , a certain medical officer com
plained that it was already late in the
day , and ho had not seen one of hi
patients professionally owing to the
horde of busy-body women who had
nado his hospital the show-place for the
day. These are the women to whom
Sir Alfred Miluer referred , and of whom
I have spoken as a plague women who
are making the scene of war and suffer-
ng a place in which to satisfy morbid
curiosity and find now enjoyments. For
ho woman who is giving everything in
ho cause of tenderness and compassion
I have a profound admiration ; for the
other sort I have only disgust. "
But Surgeon Troves has been very
generally supported by the English
press , who applaud him for his courage.
3ere are pome extracts from a letter
written by a bona-fide army nurse at
the front , which reecho his charges :
"The 'lady amateur' crops up every
where when military excitement is
going on. Lord Kitchener himself took
most stringent measures to keep her out
of the Sudan , but she has succeeded
beyond all precedent in this South
African campaign. The 'society ladies'
who shipped as nurses many of them
; hus escaped paying their own passages
all wear silk gowns and the flimsiest
caps and aprons , and look like the
nurses' of fancy fairs. If amateurs
came as 'additional' nurses , they could
alay around brow-smoothing , and not
do much harm ; but in many instances
the war office authorizes only a certain
number of nurses in hospitals and on
transports. When society women , with
no technical training , take these posts
they fill posts which ought to be filled
by certificated nurses. Real nurses , as a
consequence , are too few in number and
terribly overworked by doing their own
and the amateurs' duties. "
No end of trouble has been caused by
these masquerade nurses to doctors ,
nurses , and poor , sick , wounded
Tommies :
"They get in everybody's way and
have no intention of working. Their
idea is to take posts of authority and
'boss' the trained nurses , who have
borne the heat and burden of many
years in hospital. We don't grudge
them going round the wards in fancy
dress , distributing flowers , and petting
Tommy Atkins. They can do this
picturesquely enough. But interference
with the nursing of the sick soldier is
too serious a matter. Many of these
amateurs were actually sent to the front.
'Somebody' in authority had the courage
to send several of them back to the
headquarters responsible for their ap
pointment. Social influence has no
right to count when it conies to war
nursing. It would astonish English
people did they know how many of these
'nurses' , without one day's hospital
training in their lives , are trying their
'prentice hands on Tommy sick. And
if over patients called for good nursing
it is these poor fellows from the front
with terribly shattered wounds , enteric ,
and dysoutary. Meanwhile hundreds of
South African highly trained nurses are
out of employment owing to the war.
Nurses from Kimberley and Johannes
burg and Oapo Town sit with idle hands ,
many almost destitute , while the
amateur nurses take salaried positions.
Some of them give their services ; others
have government posts and receive
government pay. Very often they
spend it in cologne and cushions for the
patients ; but that does not make it
easier for the trained certificated nurse ,
who has 'got no work to do. ' There are
many ways in which the leisured society
woman may help the sick soldier , but
the sooner she realizes that her province
does not lie in the wards of a military
hospital the better. "
Contrast this picture of the elaborate
ly dressed English women masquerading
in summer toilets and arranging picnics
about Cape Town with another drawn
by Douglas Story , in which he shows us
the splendid manner in which the Boer
women have toiled for their cause.
Hero is his description of a Pretoria
market :
"Two long rows of wagons stood axle-
deep in the mud , with their curtains
rolled up and their interiors showing.
In each was a Boer woman , sometimes
a couple , and always a youngster or two.
But there was no man , and people re
frained from reference to the absentees.
Gowned in black , with her sallow ,
wrinkled face set far back in her black
kappie , the Boer woman sits on a bundle
of clothing in the hinder part of the
wagon eyeing the crowd. Before her
on a wisp of straw are the eggs , pump
kins , or potatoes she has brought to
market. But there were other keen-
eyed women on the market square that
morning women who stood guard over
heaped wagons of forage and heavy
loads of potatoes in bags. Their immediate - j
mediate object was business , and I stood
curiously by while the auctioneer dis
posed of their bringings. Anxiety sat
on every line of these women's rugged
faces. They scanned the crowd and
rearranged the potatoes in the mouth of
the bags until the auctioneer's quick
hammer had cleared the lot. Then they
clambered silently into the wagon again
and resumed their interrupted toilet.
Crowded market square or solitary veldt
brought no blush to their cheek , and they
braided their hair in the full presence of
the towns-people without a sign of em
barrassment. Blushes are the luxuries
of the rich and the grace of the effete
dwellers in towns. The veldt woman
has no use for such fopperies , and
despises them. "
Meanwhile the potatoes and mealies
were passing under the hammer , and
Mr. Story noted the prices they fetched
in war times :
"I and other ignorant persons had
predicted a failure in the food supply
consequent upon the absence of the
men upon commando. We had reckoned
without the Boer vrouw and a remark-