It is not necessary that we should adopt a system on any continental model to provide our army with horses, but it is absolutely necessary that our mounted troops should be mounted in fact and not merely on paper; and, as has been shown in the preceding pages, various forces have been at work which now render the work of the remount officers almost impossible of accomplishment. It is not necessary to enlarge upon the difficulty. It is very generally known that our cavalry regiments and batteries of horse and field artillery in Britain do not possess anything like the number of horses which they would require if placed on a 'service footing.' It is well known that the horses cannot be obtained at the price (401.) to which the remount officer is restricted; and, as the writer has endeavoured to show, the horse which can be sold at the price the Government will pay is steadily disappearing. It has been said that England will be able to obtain from private stables all the horses she requires to mount her troops and horse her guns in the hour of emergency. That proposition may be granted at once. In grave emergency, such as invasion, we may take it for granted that private individuals would place at the disposal of the country, hunters and polo-ponies, carriage and van horses in numbers which would enable us to keep the field and replace casualties for as long as might be necessary. But can we be content with this? Can we teach men to ride, can we teach them the secrets of horse-mastery between the hour when invasion threatens and the hour that brings the storm upon us? Can we teach troops to manœuvre in large bodies, or can the ablest officers learn to handle them in a period that may be measured by weeks, if not days? It is not enough that we should have horses in the time of emergency, we must have horsemen; and the trained horse-soldier cannot, it is presumed, be made at a few days' notice. Without claiming any knowledge of military matters, the writer merely reasons that, inasmuch as the most apt pupil requires a certain time to learn to ride and acquire the elements of horse-mastery, he must require at least a little longer apprenticeship to learn in addition the duties of a soldier. For this reason it is urged that the mounted branches of the army should be kept supplied in time of peace with as many horses as will enable our soldiers not only to learn to ride, but to manœuvre in large bodies. THE REMEDY Different classes of horse are required for the several branches of the army the animals suitable for heavy and light cavalry and mounted infantry, and for artillery and transport work, necessarily differ one from the other in type; but in some respects they are tried by a common standard: they must be five years old, they must be undocked, and they must not cost more than 40%. per head. Now, the British farmer cannot breed a horse, keep it till it is five years old and then sell it for 40l.; if he does so he sells at a loss. It is necessary, therefore, that the Government should adopt one of two courses: (1) buy the horses at three and four years old, or (2) raise the limit of price for five-year-old horses. From the pecuniary point of view it matters little which course is adopted, as if threeyear-old horses are purchased they must be kept at the public expense until fit to take their places in regiment or battery. Five years is the minimum age at which any horse can safely be asked to perform the often trying work exacted of a troop horse, and to put a younger animal to such hard work would simply mean to fill the stables with broken-down invalids. The purchase of horses of three and four years old would be the preferable plan, for the reason that few private purchasers care to buy animals so young. Therefore, if the remount agent were permitted to buy horses of three and four years old when their breeder could afford to take 35l. to 40l. a head for them, the army would secure the pick of the home market instead of the refuse, as it does under the existing system. Were the farmer thus assured of a fairly profitable market for young horses he would gladly breed more of them. Nine Englishmen out of ten would rather breed a horse than a cow or a sheep if he could afford to do so; it is simply because our farmers are obliged to consider every detail of their business from the monetary point of view that they have in so many cases desisted from horse-breeding. Since horses of three and four years old cannot be put to work it becomes necessary to arrange for their maintenance and training till they can be drafted to regiment and battery. This could be done by the establishment of remount depôts. It is assumed that if the mounted branches of the army at home be maintained at their full strength, about 4000 horses per annum will be required to replace losses from age, accident, and disease: therefore ten such depôts each to contain 400 horses would be wanted. We would establish six in England, two in Scotland, and two in Ireland. Each depôt would comprise stabling for 400 horses, with a riding school wherein the young animals might be handled and broken, a field or two for outdoor work, the necessary loose boxes for sick animals, the usual offices, and the needful accommodation for the staff of fifty hands (one man to every eight horses), the supervising officer, and his subordinate. The stabling should be of cheap and economical construction; horses for campaigning must not be pampered, or they become soft and liable to disease when exposed to hardship and bad weather. These depôts with their riding schools would answer some useful purposes beside that for which they are primarily required. They · would, for example, provide much needed facilities for teaching soldiers to ride and for teaching them the elements of horse-mastery. The staff, consisting of picked good-conduct men who have retired after service in the army, preferably in a mounted branch, would form a valuable corps of trained horse masters and buyers. Careful calculations show that these ten depôts could be established with all the necessary buildings, land, &c., for a capital sum of 250,000l., about one quarter the cost of a single first-class battleship. The remount depôt scheme which has been thus briefly outlined might well be adopted in our Colonies-in South Africa, for instance-with great advantage to our military efficiency. I refrain from taxing the reader's patience with a more detailed sketch of this scheme, having dealt with the subject at some length in a pamphlet ' published two years ago. WALTER GILBEY. 7 "Horses for the Army: A Suggestion; 6d.; published by Vinton & Co., 9 New Bridge Street, Ludgate Circus, E.C. THE STATE REGISTRATION OF NURSES I DURING the last few months the subject of State Registration of Nurses has been much discussed, and partisans of both sides have circulated literature on the subject. In this Review there have been two excellent articles, one by Lady Helen Munro Ferguson, in February last, in favour of State registration, and one by Miss Lückes, matron of the London Hospital, against it. I will preface these few remarks by saying that I began studying the question with an open mind, but was naturally a little biassed against registration by the views of Miss Florence Nightingale, the pioneer of skilled nursing, and by the formidable list of experts which was sent me, who object apparently to any form of registration. But a careful study of the question has inclined me to believe that some form of organisation would be of enormous service, not alone to the members of the profession of nursing, but to the general public. It is the point of view of those who employ skilled nurses that I shall try and put before those who may be interested in the subject, At present all nurses are classed' together, those who have the highest qualifications, and those who have none at all. Registration will at least eliminate the wholly untrained or imperfectly trained. The general public has no means of finding out what training, if any, the nurse has had, except by personal investigations, which are not always possible. It will be seen by a circular issued by those in favour of State registration that the census of 1901 showed that there were about 80,000 women engaged in nursing the sick in the United Kingdom. Some it must be presumed have qualified in all branches, some have nursed four years in a London hospital, some have spent a few months in a 'special' hospital or country infirmary-in fact, there is no end to the variations of so-called training; but all these women have the right to call themselves trained nurses, they adopt the usual uniform, and can be, and are, employed without discrimination by those requiring skilled attendants. It was with great surprise I noted that Miss Lückes (who is head of one of the best, if not the best school for nursing in the United Kingdom) seemed to attach so little importance to technical training. From the point of view I have adopted, surely the question of technical training is the whole point. Before the days of Miss Nightingale, any woman was supposed to be able to nurse an invalid. When pain and anguish wring the brow, But when medical and surgical science have made the strides they have, the absolute necessity for having skilled nursing is indisputable. Should only a good-tempered, high-charactered, nice woman be required, who could thoroughly be trusted, most establishments could provide one, either a relation or a trusted old servant who could do all that love and affection could suggest for the patient; but when a trained nurse is required, the public should surely be able to get one, and have some guarantee of her efficiency. No amount of amiability or unselfishness is of any use in the operation theatre without professional skill; the importance of technical knowledge in a nurse is increasing every day; in operations, the sterilisation of the instruments, the aseptic precautions, &c., the intelligent watching and understanding of symptoms between the visits of the doctors, are all left to the nurses. This is recognised by the larger hospitals, who are making examinations more and more a feature of hospital training. No nurse failing to pass them is certificated. I know that the following example is not considered a parallel-why, I know not-but in the case of any one employing a doctor or a lawyer who is an unregistered or even unqualified practitioner, he does so at his own risk. Why should it not be the same with nurses, and a minimum standard be registered by a Council? What the advocates of the State registration suggest would be A GENERAL NURSING COUNCIL, abody empowered to deal with all educational matters affecting nurses, who would define the curriculum through which every woman must pass before she can be certified as a trained nurse, settle the period of her training, and the subjects of her education. The certificate signed by the matron of the training school would testify as to a nurse's general good conduct and practical proficiency, while the lecturers upon the different subjects of the curriculum would testify that she had attended the regulation number of lectures and demonstrations on each subject. It would be the duty of the General Nursing Council to appoint examiners, hold examinations, and grant to candi· dates who passed those examinations a State certificate in nursing. The first result, therefore, of the appointment of such a Council would be that a system of nursing education and a minimum standard of qualification would be established throughout the United Kingdom. It would be the duty of the General Nursing Council to compile and |