e for nurses and doctors; the reply was,
'there were none to spare.' _Peace was absolutely necessary!_"

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT RAWLINSON.

_From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry._]

Sir Robert referred to all this very quietly, but the value of this work
will never be estimated or known. Sir Colin Campbell--afterwards Lord
Clyde--who led the Highland brigade at the Battle of the Alma--called
him the "Inquisitor General," a compliment, indeed; and to-day the
veteran field-marshal, Lord William Paulet, never meets him without
gripping his hand and exclaiming: "I'm glad to see you, Rawlinson--had
it not been for you I shouldn't be here to-day."

The wound from the cannon ball was the cause of Mr. Rawlinson's return
home from the Crimea, but he continued to act until the end of the war.
The late Emperor of Germany, Prince Bismarck, and Count Moltke have all
acknowledged his services in sanitary matters. In 1864 Lord Palmerston
made him a C.B., in 1885 Mr. Gladstone recommended him for Knighthood,
and in 1889 Lord Salisbury for a K.C.B. Sir Robert has served on three
Royal Commissions; water-works have been constructed under his
directions in Hong Kong--the name Hong Kong curiously enough means
'fragrant streams'--and Singapore; and Sir Robert conceived and
established a system of main sewerage which has had not a little to do
with the health of the people.

Then as we sat together by the window opening on to the green lawn we
talked of many a famous man Sir Robert had known. He spoke of the blunt
ways of Garibaldi--rough, uncouth, though not lacking in the heartiness,
however, inseparable from a sailor. Then of Lord Shaftesbury, Carlyle,
and many more.

"I remember a little incident that happened one day when I was staying
with Lord Shaftesbury," said Sir Robert. "We were walking together in
the grounds when a gardener approached him, and asked for a gun and
packet of cartridges to shoot the blackbirds and thrushes which were
ruining the fruit trees.

"'No,' said Shaftesbury. 'You may get nets if you like and cover the
fruit, or hire a boy to keep the birds away, or sit up yourself; but if
you shoot a bird in my gardens you must go about your business.'

"Next day I was standing with him on the steps. A gun went off.

"'Shooting?' I said.

"'Yes,' he replied; 'that's the keeper shooting your dinner.'

"'Well,' I said, 'if I have to come again into this world I'd be a
blackbird or a thrush; I wouldn't be a pheasant