the funds placed at his disposal in the purchase of such articles as scrubbing-brushes, towels, and basins-trifles of hospital furniture, the almost utter absence of which occasioned great delay and difficulty in the hospital duties Miss Nightingale and her companions had taken upon themselves. As was stated in a former page, the almoner purchased the apparatus, and rented the building, which enabled Miss Nightingale to establish a laundry where the proper authorities were in too sad confusion to render this very necessary duty. Considering the rigour of routine observable in the departments of the British army, it is scarcely matter for surprise, perhaps, that the distribution of gifts among the troops in the Crimea was discountenanced by some of the higher authorities, as being inconsistent with military discipline; on this ground, the almoner found more difficulty in carrying out his good work at Balaklava or the camp than at Scutari; yet is it placed upon undoubted evidence that the Sick and Wounded Fund was the means of partially clothing many shivering troops, even at the camp itself, who might have sunk into death without such aid. An application has been made to me,' said Mr Macdonald in one of his letters, 'for warm clothing, by the surgeon, on behalf of a regiment arrived direct from a hot climate to the Crimea, and totally unprovided with the means of withstanding so sudden a change of temperature. The application was made on the ground that " prevention is better than cure ;" and I knew so much of the mortality that had taken place among the last regiments sent out, that I did not think I should be justified in refusing. I undertook to supply what was wanted conditionally; for if, on arriving at Balaklava, the things were not found to be requisite, they were to be handed over to the Rev. Mr Hayward and the other chaplains there, for the use of the sick and wounded. This arrangement was thankfully acceded to; and yesterday I had put on board the Golden Fleece for the 39th foot (660 strong), a stock of flannels, drawers, and socks, which I hope will keep them warm and in good heart until they get into Sebastopol.' This extraordinary case related to a regiment, not shattered and prostrated by wounds and illness, but going out to commence a career of service in the Crimea, so utterly unprovided with proper clothing, that the officers begged for a supply from an eleemosynary fund. The surgeon had heard of the miserable scenes at the camp, and, knowing that the regiment had come from Gibraltar without any winter-clothing, boldly broke through official routine by asking for extraneous aid. Every man in the regiment was supplied in this way with flannel under-clothing-a supply never repaid by the state, for the authorities' could take no formal cognizance of so unusual a proceeding.

It is instructive to glance over the lists given by the almoner of the articles provided out of this Fund; lists shewing how deplorable and general must have been the lack of those things most

urgently needed by sick men. These commodities were supplied-mostly to the Scutari hospitals, but some also to the camp, the hospital at Balaklava, the ships bringing invalids thence to Scutari, other vessels conveying convalescents to Malta or England, and the floating-hospitals in the Golden Horn. On one occasion, the almoner was enabled to announce important discoveries made in the tumuli of the purveyor's department; among them is a case of linen and lint, sixteen feet long by eight feet wide, and eighteen inches deep'— shewing that stores had really been sent out from England, and buried in heaps which the bewildered officials had forgotten or neglected. When, on another occasion, the almoner, at the urgent request of some of the surgeons, who made known their wants under great apprehension of reprimand from their superiors at such a breach of military routine, sent a store of blankets to the camp-hospitals in the Crimea, he expressed a natural astonishment that such a want should have been permitted to exist: he did not know, nor did the nation know until many months afterwards, that there were large bales of warm winter goods at that very moment in the government stores at Balaklava, unissued by reason of technical formalities between the various governmental or military departments. One of the two principal hospitals at Scutari was presided over by a physician who offered every encouragement to the exertions of Miss Nightingale and the almoner; while the other was under supervision so jealous of any non-official interference, that the voluntary workers of good felt their exertions to be paralysed in that quarter; but, willing or not, the authorities repeatedly accepted aid of a kind not easily to be conceived in England. In one instance, a body of convalescents, about to be sent home to their own country, could not start because they were entirely without clothes; the purveyor applied to for a supply had none to give; the Nurses' Fund and the Times' Fund gave what could be collected together on a short notice; and those whom this supply failed to meet were deposited in the Floating Hospital, mourning over the strange fact that the want of a few garments should interfere with, and for a time prevent, their return to England.

The almoner has recorded how, among many active men, Dr M'Shane of the Caradoc, and the Rev. Mr Hayward, army-chaplain at Balaklava, strove unweariedly, against official coldness and discouragement, to distribute effectively such supplies as he felt enabled to send to the Crimea; how that he forwarded, in one ship, arrow-root, wine, brandy, preserved meats and vegetables, sugar, tea, and other comforts, to the value of £2000; how that these were conveyed up to the camp, and all appropriated within a week among the regiments employed in the front:' a mere trifle compared with the requirements of the army, but comprising such items as the regimental surgeons, utterly unable to procure them from the

proper quarters, eagerly welcomed and applied to the wants of the emaciated, toil-worn, sick-worn, hungry, half-naked troops. Some of those regimental surgeons came personally from the camp down to Balaklava; others wrote, describing their position as having the care of hundreds of sick men without medicines or comforts to give them, and begging for a little from the almoner's store; or, if medicines were at hand, there was an almost total absence of those dietetic comforts which might alternate with the salt rations so utterly unfitted for men afflicted with diarrhoea, dysentery, scurvy, frost-bite, and low malignant fever.

The middle of February having arrived, the almoner found that he had fully expended the sum of £10,000 or £12,000 intrusted to his keeping. He was not at that time aware that the urgent activity of the British public had placed in the hands of, or almost forced upon the Editor of the Times, a second sum of nearly equal amount, to be applied in a similar way. His health was considerably broken by three months' attendance in those dreadful hospitals, and he returned to England to render a faithful account of his stewardship. The pages of a history of the war may perhaps scarcely be a fitting place wherein to record a list of articles pertaining rather to a provision-merchant's or a slop-seller's stores; yet the circumstances under which this Sick and Wounded Fund was placed in the hands of the anonymous editor of a newspaper, and under which the fund was administered as a palliative for evils caused by governmental neglect and incompetency, were so extraordinary, so wholly unprecedented, that it may be only just to transcribe Mr Macdonald's account of the manner in which he appropriated a sum of about £11,600 during thirteen weeks subsequent to the battle of Inkermann.*

REMEDIES-THE BALAKLAVA RAILWAY.

Chaotic as were the scenes in the Crimea and at Scutari during the memorable winter now under notice, the home authorities were not wanting in earnest desire to inquire into the causes of misrule, and to devise speedy remedies, if such were possible. Laxity and apathy had been exhibited rather in the autumn, before the troubles commenced, than

*Articles of Diet and Nutriment.-Tea, 20 chests. Arrow-root, about 33 cwts. Sago, 14 cwts. 2 qrs. 14 lbs. Tapioca, 70 lbs. Sugar, 1074 cwts. 20 lbs. Preserved soups, meats, &c., 4024 canisters or about 80,000 portions. Preserved vegetables, about 80,000 portions. Port wine, 3134 dozen. Marsala, 24 quarter-casks, and 3 dozen. Brandy, 70 dozen and 200 gallons. Fowls, 18 dozen. Calf-foot jelly, a large quantity. Bottled ale, 33 dozen. Jams, 74 dozen. Macaroni and vermicelli, 14 cwt. Pearl-barley, 1 cwt. Tamarinds, 2 cwts. Lemons, 366 dozen. Biscuits, 12 canisters. Butter, 2 kegs. Isinglass, 11 lbs. Gum-arabic, 5 lbs. Figs, 12 drums. Pepper, 15 packets. Mustard, 20 bottles. Vinegar, 20 bottles.

Articles of Clothing and Personal Use.-Cotton-shirts, 7133 dozen. Flannel, worsted, and woollen shirts, 9323 dozen. Flannel drawers, 3053 pair. Socks and stockings, 10,542 pair. Night-caps, 311 dozen. Comforters, 492 dozen. Gloves, 377 dozen. Woollen sashes, 125 dozen. Slippers, 1865 pair. Quilted gowns, 365. Pocket-handkerchiefs, neck-ties, &c., 1100. Tatar stockings, 50. Tatar boots, 50. Flannel in pieces, 9274 yards. Calico, for sheets

during the winter itself. Even in the War-office, the functionaries of which bore a heavy share of reproach for the mismanagement displayed, there was no lack of exertion; but there was a want of power to bring harmony into the discordant working of the several government departments; and this powerlessness was rendered more marked by the fact, that the reins of government were not held by a master-hand, one possessing energy and determination sufficient to control those under him. The cabinet was, in one sense, too strong; it contained an unusually large number of ministers already distinguished as statesmen-men of such mark and ability, that the prime-minister shrank from the exercise of command over them. The political changes hence arising will be treated in the next Chapter: it will suffice here to advert simply to the fact, that the want of consensus, harmonious action, among the ministers themselves greatly checked the power of inducing remedial measures for the evils made manifest.

One remedy, however, strikingly characteristic of the present age, was successfully administered in sufficient time to palliate a particular class of evils pressing heavily on the troops in the Crimea. This was the construction of a railway from Balaklava to the camp, as a substitute for the wretched track-way which had broken the strength of so many men and horses. This trackway has been sufficiently pictured in the letters and extracts already given; and the share it bore in the destruction of the army has been pointed out. Sir Charles Trevelyan, Secretary to the Treasury, expressed before the Sebastopol Committee his conviction that the want of this bit of good road effected more towards the wasting of the army than any other single cause; for, before the existing track-way became soddened and disrupted by the November rains, the means of conveyance were adequate to the requirements of the troops. There was abundance of stone at hand to improve the road, but no labour available. It was about the end of November when the government-and perhaps the public, through the medium of the newspapers, somewhat earlier than the government-received information of these road-miseries; and, as usually happens in such difficulties, many suggestions were volunteered in non-official quarters. One writer, founding his plan on the well-known fact that men

and shirts, 1310 yards. Soap, 1840 lbs. Paper, 56 reams. Envelopes, 1200 packets. Ink, 114 bottles. Steel-pens, 30 boxes. Sealing-wax, 10 lbs. Wafers, 20 boxes. Stationery, 1 box. Postagestamps, £14, 10s. Clay-pipes, 7044. Tobacco, 1347 lbs.

Articles Pertaining to Hospital Use.-Towels, 379 dozen. Quilts, 200. Mattresses, 75. Basins, 702. Bowls, 99. Blankets, 780. Bedpans, 290. Close-stools, 20. Kitchen-stove, 1. Tin drinking-caps, 80. Tin pails, 30. Gamelles, 80. Knives and forks, 64] dozen. Spoons, 62 dozen. Corkscrews, 2. Tea-spoons, 10 dozen. Kettles, 6. Scrubbing-brushes, &c., 27 dozen. Dust-pans, 3. Sponges, 12. Chloride of lime, 27 lbs. Sacking to wash floors, 3 pieces. Shoebrushes, 22 sets. Sadirons, 6 pair. Starch, 3 ewts, and 331 lbs. Washing-tubs, 3. Hair combs, 4 dozen. Wall-lamps, 100, Oliveoil, 3 cwts. Oiled-cloth, 130 yards. Carpet-mats, 20 pieces. Mosquito-muslin, 2 pieces. Marking-ink, 4 bottles. Cotton-tape, 3 pieces. Needles, 12 boxes. American-clocks, 12. Castor-cil, 2 cwts. Charcoal, 1 ton 15 cwts. Mill-board, 150 sheets, Calico for towelling, 4 pieces.

are able to sustain with ease, for a few seconds, a weight so considerable as to break down their strength if borne many minutes, proposed that Turks, or any other non-combatants, should be employed in a ratio of about 1000 to a mile, to form a zigzag line from Balaklava to the camp, and to hand from one to another, throughout the length of their line, packages, casks, planks, and stores of every kind, in parcels each light enough to be borne for a few seconds by one man. Another, assuming that timber and labour were at hand, calculated the cost of a plank-road, made of common spruce-fir planks, nine inches in width, to form a road eight miles long and nine feet broad: he shewed, in figures at least, that the timber for such a road would cost £6000, and that 500 men could with these materials make the road in a month. Sir Francis Head, familiar with the plankroads of Canada, recommended the adoption of some such system; and other persons, conversant with the details of the Peninsular war, pointed out an analogous case. It appears that in 1808, when Napoleon was marching an army towards the Spanish frontier, it was found that the moving sands of the Landes-a dreary waste between Bordeaux and Bayonne-not only retarded the progress of the troops, but actually prevented the transport of the artillery and siege-material: he proceeded in person to the spot, observed the nature of the difficulty, ascertained that fir-trees grew at no great distance, quickly constructed a plank-road, or rather what is termed in America a corduroy road' of logs, and conveyed his army speedily and safely over the sands. Many projectors thought that Lord Raglan might have adopted some such plan in the Crimea. Other persons suggested contrivances partaking of the nature of portable railways; in which the trackway would be formed in sections about twenty feet long, each section consisting of two planks and two rails, and susceptible of adjustment to other sections at the ends. Suggestions in varied form were numerous; but the government decided on the adoption of a railway, constructed in the usual manner for traction by steam-power.

Among the many novelties introduced into the military art during the Russian war, certainly this was one of the most remarkable-the formation of a railway in an enemy's country, the more effectually to besiege a town belonging to him. The singularity of the exploit is only equalled by the sadness of the fact that any mode should be needed of employing for destructive purposes one of the most precious boons presented by mechanical art to commerce. When the government determined that a railway should be formed from Balaklava up to the camp, there was no want of men able and willing to effect the work. Messrs Peto, Brassey, and Betts, eminent railway-contractors, having signed an agreement with the government, advertised for artisans and labourers who would consent to go out as railway-makers in the Crimea. The war being

popular, and public sympathy being aroused in favour of the suffering soldiers, the appeal was warmly responded to; and an ample number of excavators, masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, platelayers, engine-drivers, and others, offered their services. Many of those chosen had been employed under Mr Beatty in the construction of Canadian railways, whereby they had become acclimatised to great variations of heat and cold; and they were placed under the same managing engineer for the Crimean service-all engaged at high wages and for six months certain. The energy, precision, and promptness with which all the arrangements were made by the contractors, engendered a general if not universal feeling in the public mind that this was likely to be a happy departure from the desolating routine of official working; orders were given to manufacturing firms in various parts of the country, for the numerous articles required in the formation and working of a railway; and shortly before Christmas the first consignment of men and materials left England. If it were a late date to commence operations available during the current winter, this was due to no shortcoming in the contractors, who completed their arrangements in a wonderfully brief space of time. Ten or twelve ships were either purchased or chartered, and fitted up for the special service required. The railway material comprised 1800 tons of rails and fastenings, 6000 sleepers, 600 loads of timber, and about 3000 tons of other material and machinery, consisting of fixed engines, cranes, pile-engines, trucks, wagons, barrows, blocks, chain-falls, wire-rope, picks, bars, capstans, crabs, and a variety of other plant and tools; besides sawing-machines, forges, carpenters' and smiths' tools, &c. This material was distributed over the different vessels in such a manner that, should any one or two vessels be lost or disabled, it would not endanger the efficiency of the whole thereby avoiding the example of government blunders, such as that of shipping bedsteads in one vessel and bedstead-legs in another. The ships conveyed the men in parties varying from fifty to eighty, each party under the charge of a foreman and assistant; as well as a surgeon to each vessel, and a clerk to attend to the victualling and care of the stores. The allowance of provisions was liberal; and each man was provided with apparel suitable in the first place for the voyage, and then for working in the Crimea during cold or wet wintry weather -indeed the wardrobe-list was such as might well have excited the envy of the poor ragged soldiers. Besides several huts, each capable of housing forty men, there were 100 railway sheets or tarpaulins, generally used to cover goods-wagons, a large quantity of boards and scantlings, and temporary tents and huts impervious to wet, which could in a few hours be erected and again easily removed; the sheets would also afford temporary covering to provisions or fuel likely to be injured or destroyed by water. Coal, coke, and firewood

On

were furnished in large quantities. To each party of ten a cooking-stove was provided, portable in character, and fitted to boil, bake, and fry food in the open air. The staff consisted of a wellorganised body of engineers, clerks, and storekeepers; and while everything was provided to render their work efficient, the sanitary condition of the men was not forgotten. The medical staff consisted of a surgeon, four assistant-surgeons, and four nurses, selected from the hospitals in London; an ample stock of medical stores and comforts was provided; two missionaries or religious teachers accompanied the men, and a selection of books was provided for their use. arrival at Balaklava, one of the sailing-ships was to be appropriated as a store and hospital-ship, the rest of the squadron being employed as circumstances might render expedient. All these details, technical and mechanical as they may appear, deserve attention, illustrating the striking differences between the organisation of private commercial firms and that of government departments-every one, in the former, knowing the precise nature of his duties, and the amount of force, mental or material, necessary to their fulfilment; and almost every one, in the latter, doubtful how far his responsibility extended, and unable to command the proper amount of force, mental or material, in the right place and at the right time. The same men who failed in the Crimea under the government, might perhaps have succeeded under private merchants or manufacturers; for the faults, in most instances, were rather in the system than in the men.

It was not until the close of January or the beginning of February that the railway flotilla arrived at Balaklava; but, once anchored, the ships were speedily disburdened of their contents; and, the instructions from home being definite and complete, the manager immediately proceeded to lay out his plans. With unbounded astonishment the Turks at that place gazed upon the stalwart excavators or 'navvies,' clad in their warm garments, and handling the pick and shovel as such implements are never handled in the East; they saw wretched hovels demolished, masses of filth and rubbish cleared, huge fires made of such débris as was combustible, pools of slush swept or laded away; they saw surveyors, booted to the thigh, measuring and levelling, and laying out curves and gradients, by the aid of strange-looking implements; they saw strong able horses landed, stables built, forage provided for the horses, provision-stores opened for the men, portable houses set up, work-yards laid down, planks and rails brought on shore in apparently endless quantity, machines and engines brought to light such as had never before met their view; in short, Balaklava speedily became a sort of miniature Wolverton or Swindon, marked by those striking symptoms of energy and system so eminently exhibited in the arrangements of the great railway-contractors of modern times.

No

one, manager or workman, required to suspend his labours while documents were travelling about from department to department to be signed and countersigned; each knew exactly what he had to do, and did it. The military officers, looking on at these works, sighed to think how far in arrear of private enterprise is the machinery of government; and the soldiers, on their part, sighed -or something worse-when comparing their tattered garments with the comfortable apparel of the railway labourers and artisans. Some of the older officers, wedded to military etiquette and conventional usages, looked doubtfully and somewhat scornfully at these extraordinary adjuncts to siege-works; while others, more ready to appreciate and welcome improvements consistent with the spirit of the age, thought that if Sebastopol were ever to be captured, this railway would contribute in an important way to so desirable a result, by aiding the transport of guns, ammunition, and stores of various kinds to the front. Wherever the railway labourers began to dig and delve, there did a speedy metamorphosis present itself. 'I was favoured,' says Mr Russell, writing early in March, by a striking proof of the energy of the proceedings of the navvies the other day. I had left my quarters in Balaklava, as I do each week, to spend some days going from division to division, and regiment to regiment, and left my detestable premises in their usual condition : a court-yard of abominations unutterable, the favourite resort of Tatar camel-drivers, when they had a few minutes to devote to the pursuit of parasites, and of drunken sailors who desired dignified retirement from the provost-marshal's myrmidons, was surrounded by a wall which enclosed a wooden-shed, in which stood some horses and a few old poplar-trees. I left on one post-day and returned on another, and it was with difficulty I recognised the spot. A railway was running right across my court-yard, the walls were demolished, a severance existed between the mansion and its dependencies, and just as my friends and myself entered the salon and bedchamber-a primitive apartment, through the floor of which I could investigate the proceedings of my quadrupeds below-the navvies gave us a startling welcome by pulling down a poplar right on the roof, which had the effect of carrying away a portion of the balcony, roof, and pent-tiles, and breaking in two windows.'

The railway being required to extend from Balaklava beach up to the camp, and thence to branch out in various directions to the respective 'attacks' or siege-works, it necessarily devolved upon the chief-engineer so to take his levels that the ascent might be made with gradients suffciently easy for ordinary working. It was found that the first mile or two from Balaklava would be nearly level, having a gradient of only one foot in sixty; that the next half mile would have a steep gradient of one in fifteen, followed by another of one in twenty-five during a distance of

one and a half miles; after which, the gradients would be slight. The first portion, one mile and a half nearly on a level, was completed by the middle of February; and within a week from that time, the works were extended to the village of Kadikoï, where a railway depôt was established. Few mechanical works reward the worker more readily than a railway, since every finished mile facilitates the transport of men and materials to the portions yet unfinished; thus it was in the Crimea, where each section became practically useful from the day when the rails were laid down. While the

works were in progress, nearly 1000 men were employed; the chaplain with his portable church, and the surgeon with his portable surgery, were instrumental in maintaining the moral and bodily health of the men; the purveyors and clerks attended to the necessary supplies of food, materials, and money; and the men themselves indulged their fancy by giving the designations Victoria,' Napoleon,' 'London,' 'Blackwall,' and 'Peto' to the rows of huts erected for their accommodation, or perchance yielded to the too British inclination for a pugilistic encounter among

Striking was the contrast afforded between the rail and the wretched track-way it superseded. One horse was enabled to draw an enormous pile of planks for soldiers' huts; and it became sorrowfully evident that many valuable lives might have been saved had this useful work been commenced earlier. The blasting of rocks, the bridging of small streams, the levelling of hillocks, the

There had been two routes from Balaklava to Sebastopol : one coincident in the greater part of its length with the excellent Woronzow Road; and the other a mere farm track-way, steep, irregular, and untouched by the skill of any engineer. Until the 25th of October, the date of the battle of Balaklava, the British had possession of the Woronzow Road, and were enabled to carry supplies up to the camp without much difficulty; but after that date, Liprandi's corps being encamped in the plain or broad valley of the Tehernaya, through which this road ran, the Allies were compelled to withdraw their exterior line of defence further to the south and west, whereby the advantage of the Woronzow Road was lost. All the road disasters of the subsequent winter related to the wretched track-way, the only route then available; and Liprandi thus occasioned a heavier loss to the British than he himself perhaps supposed.

When each portion arrived at a certain stage of completion, half the men were employed during the day in laying down the sleepers and rails, and the other half during the night in boxing up with earth and stones the spaces between the sleepers. It is recorded, as an instance of the celerity and good management with which the operations were conducted, that on one particular evening a pile-driving engine was landed at Balaklava, carried piecemeal to a spot at some distance, put together, employed in driving piles for a stout wooden bridge across a small but muddy stream, taken to pieces, and removed; that the bridge was built, and 100 yards of rail laid down beyond; and that all this was effected within twenty-four hours after the landing of the pile-engine. As soon as the line was finished to the heights above Kadikoï, a stationary engine was fixed there, to draw up the incline, by the aid of a revolving drum and ropes, trains of trucks laden with various commodities. And then, engineering and

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