e of justice would have seen it righted long before.
Workhouses were to be found all over the land, yet the public seemed not
at all curious, much less interested, in the question whether they were
properly managed or not. The guardians were often ignorant men, and were
very slow to admit visitors, perhaps from a foreshadowing suspicion of
the exposure which was in store for them, and the consequent necessity
and expense of change, so that we need not wonder that the opposition
which was called forth when first the evils of the workhouse system were
exposed was tremendous, and that the task of awakening real interest
seemed well nigh hopeless.

In the Liverpool Workhouse the state of things was no worse than in many
others, and in many respects it was not so bad. There was a good
committee, and therefore there was nothing like the wholesale starvation
and cruelty which existed in too many other workhouses There was also
some measure of thoughtful care for the sick ones, for Agnes Jones in a
letter written after her first visit, says:--"There seemed care for the
patients too; a few plants and flowers, _Illustrated News_ pictures on
the walls, and a 'silent comforter' in each ward, not the utterly
desolate look one often meets in such places." Still, there were no
trained nurses, and it was impossible for any committee, however
zealous, to counteract all the evils of pauper nursing. The need for
reform was great, and happily for Liverpool and for the country at
large, there were not only eyes to see the need, but a mind which had
grasped the only solution of the difficulty, and a large and sympathetic
heart which prompted the hand to open wide the purse to accomplish it,
for Mr. William Rathbone, ever foremost in all schemes for ameliorating
the condition of the poor and needy, had long been alive to the
necessity of substituting for pauper nurses trained paid ones. He it was
who not only suggested the change, but offered himself to bear the whole
expense of the scheme for three years, feeling assured that by that time
the guardians would be so convinced of its practical good that they
would adopt it permanently.

Having obtained the committee's consent to the trial of his plan, Mr.
Rathbone offered the post of lady superintendent to Agnes Jones, then at
the Great Northern Hospital in London. After consultation with Miss
Nightingale and Mrs. Wardroper, the Lady Superintendent of St. Thomas's
Hospital, and receiving their