the former subscribers, and secured once more
their help and patronage. She had changed the system on which the Home
had been run to such an extent that it served as a model for
institutions of its kind, and where the unfortunate women that lived
there had been on the verge of actual physical suffering, they were now
well cared for and contented.

Then war broke out between England, France and Turkey on the one side
and Russia on the other,--a war that was brought about among other
reasons by the desire of the Russian Czar to seize and hold the port of
Constantinople. Great Britain and France supported the Turks and active
fighting commenced. The theater of war soon shifted to the Crimean
Peninsula where the British and French laid siege to the town of
Sebastopol which was Russia's most important fortress and chief base of
supplies. Before the walls of Sebastopol there took place severe
fighting, which continued until bitter winter rendered further
campaigning impossible.

While the war was going on thousands of sick and wounded British
soldiers were pouring into the base hospitals at Scutari, where no
provision for their care had been made. With the constant flood of
wounded men, and men who were dying of dysentery and cholera, with no
medical supplies and little food, with no nurses and only a few
doctors, the condition of the British wounded soon became terrible
beyond description. As there were no field dressing stations they had
to be carried for days with their wounds undressed before they reached
the hospital, and when they arrived it was often some time before the
harassed doctors could care for them. They were brought in with their
uniforms covered with filth and blood, and were laid in long rows on
the floors of the hospital where few cots were to be found. Vermin
crawled over the floors, over the walls and over the bodies of the
helpless men. Rats gnawed the fingers of the wounded who were too weak
to drive them away. There were no conveniences of any kind and many men
died of exhaustion because no food adequate for the sick could be
prepared. All the food, we are told, consisted of beef and vegetables
boiled together in one huge caldron, into which new supplies were
thrown indiscriminately as fast as they were delivered. The bread was
moldy and the beef too tough even for well men to eat.

Owing to the efforts of a war correspondent of the London _Times_, the
people at home were soon informed of the stat