hing wrong has actually happened in consequence of her
absence, which absence we will suppose to have been quite right, let her
question still be (_not_, how can I provide against any more of such
absences? which is neither possible nor desirable, but) how can I
provide against any thing wrong arising out of my absence?

[Sidenote: What it is to be "in charge."]

How few men, or even women, understand, either in great or in little
things, what it is the being "in charge"--I mean, know how to carry out
a "charge." From the most colossal calamities, down to the most trifling
accidents, results are often traced (or rather _not_ traced) to such
want of some one "in charge" or of his knowing how to be "in charge." A
short time ago the bursting of a funnel-casing on board the finest and
strongest ship that ever was built, on her trial trip, destroyed several
lives and put several hundreds in jeopardy--not from any undetected flaw
in her new and untried works--but from a tap being closed which ought
not to have been closed--from what every child knows would make its
mother's tea-kettle burst. And this simply because no one seemed to know
what it is to be "in charge," or _who_ was in charge. Nay more, the jury
at the inquest actually altogether ignored the same, and apparently
considered the tap "in charge," for they gave as a verdict "accidental
death."

This is the meaning of the word, on a large scale. On a much smaller
scale, it happened, a short time ago, that an insane person burnt
herself slowly and intentionally to death, while in her doctor's charge
and almost in her nurse's presence. Yet neither was considered "at all
to blame." The very fact of the accident happening proves its own case.
There is nothing more to be said. Either they did not know their
business or they did not know how to perform it.

To be "in charge" is certainly not only to carry out the proper measures
yourself but to see that every one else does so too; to see that no one
either wilfully or ignorantly thwarts or prevents such measures. It is
neither to do everything yourself nor to appoint a number of people to
each duty, but to ensure that each does that duty to which he is
appointed. This is the meaning which must be attached to the word by
(above all) those "in charge" of sick, whether of numbers or of
individuals, (and indeed I think it is with individual sick that it is
least understood. One sick person is often waited on by four with les