On the 22nd November the correspondent of "The Times" thus wrote:-"The commissariat department of this army, in spite of unforeseen calamities, in spite of deficient transports, of bad roads, of sea delays, of winds and waves, have continued to feed the men wonderfully well." The people of this country, who are somewhat too much accustomed to think that a sufficiency of food may dispense with many of those auxiliary necessaries which we call comforts, were little prepared for the horrible tale of suffering which was so soon to follow this announcement. Towards the end of November the siege had made little progress. The first unsuccessful bombardment of the 17th October had been followed by the battles of Balaklava and Inkermann, in which the most heroic courage had satisfied the world that the ancient spirit was not dead; but the battles had led to no decisive results—the fall of Sebastopol was as distant as ever. Impatience at home was followed by the gloom of disappointment; but nobler feelings were roused when England came to learn that her army was without shelter and clothing-that her sick and wounded were perishing for lack of medical stores and medical skill. The first duty was to supply the wants from private benevolence; and they were amply supplied. The second was to find out what was unavoidable in these shortcomings, and what was neglect and mismanagement. For three months grief and indignation filled the land, at every fresh communication from Balaklava and Constantinople, of the privations which were far more destructive than the fire of the enemy. Here was a noble army, officers and men alike, with clothes worn into tatters-exposed to rain and storm-exhausted by trenchwork-suffering with fever and dysentery and cholera—and their excellent rations at length falling short through the impassable nature of the roads. Through "a black, dreary, wilderness of mud," men and horses had daily to struggle four or five miles to Balaklava, to obtain subsistence for the army. Reinforcements daily arrived from England. In November, and in the three first weeks of December, 10,000 English had joined the besiegers. The new troops suffered more than those who had been acclimated, upon whom these sufferings came with a gradual severity. The amount of labour required to convey food from the harbour to the camp was in itself exhausting; but shot and shell had to be carried up that ascent of slush by the mere force of human labour. Horse power was nearly exhausted. The long-promised huts had not arrived at the beginning of January. After working for twelve hours" in a trench like a canal," twelve or fourteen were huddled into a tent "pitched, as it were, in the bottom of a marsh." To warm them there was little fuel, and the stoves sent out were ill-constructed. With snow three feet deep about their tents, they had to grub into the earth for roots and stumps to light their fires. Their coffee came to them unroasted and unground. Amidst all this wretchedness there was no despondency amongst those who still bore up; but with the sick there was that listlessness and indifference to life which marks an entire prostration of the nervous system. In the middle of January warm clothing relieved some of the causes of disease, but adequate shelter was still wanting. The army that had landed in the Crimea had

melted away; there were the flags of the regiments, but other brave hearts had to rally round them. On the 22nd January "The Times" correspondent writes, "We are gradually relinquishing ground to our allies, and the front, which it cost so much strength and so much health to maintain, is gradually abandoned to the more numerous and less exhausted army. Some of our regiments are reduced below the strength of a company." From the 1st of December to the 20th of January, 8000 sick and wounded men had been sent from the camp to Balaklava, and thence on shipboard. This number did not include those who remained sick in the hospitals of the Crimea. They were conveyed to Scutari. The fate which awaited them there roused the indignation of the British people almost to madness. To pursue this "sad eventful history" through its frightful details, as they were from day to day exhibited in the letters of the newspaper correspondents-of whose general truth no one now doubts would be unnecessary even for warning in the future. They formed the subject of a solemn Parliamentary investigation; and in this brief historical summary the Report of the Committee of Inquiry of the House of Commons affords us the materials for judging of the general character of the evils, and of the maladministration which produced them.

According to the Report, the Ordnance Department, upon which rested the supply of all munitions of war, was in a state of almost hopeless disorganization. Lord Raglan, the head of the department, was in the Crimea. The Cabinet revived the office of the Lieutenant-General, in the belief that he would have the same authority as the Master-General. The Surveyor-General was also employed abroad. It was found that the Lieutenant-General had no supreme authority like the Master-General, and no responsibility. He was only a member of the Board. At a time when urgent business required their attention, they were engaged in disputes, in preparing statements, and in making appeals to the Secretary of State for War. The department of Ordnance fell into disorder for the want of one directing mind. The arrangements of this office for the supply of warm clothing, huts, and minie-rifles were imperfect and dilatory If the army had been provided with canvas for doubling the tents and planks for flooring, there would have been effectual shelter for the troops at an early period. The corps of artillery was admirably equipped, and efficient armament was provided for the navy. But there was no mind to conceive the necessity of meeting sudden exigencies-no foresight to anticipate probable wants-no energy to enforce promptitude in the execution of orders.

The transport service was, in some respects, ably conducted. Within a year 150,000 men and 7000 horses were conveyed, principally by steam, to a distance of 3000 miles for the greater number, besides stores to an enormous amount. But in the management of some cargoes of stores there were grievous errors, particularly as to mixed cargoes. It is undeniable that some articles were sent out to the Crimea and brought back in the same vessels. Stores for the army remained three or four months without being delivered to the Commissariat. Ships were so loaded that the position of parts of

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the cargo was unknown, and the vessels went their way without delivering the required stores. The articles wanted for the sick at Scutari were carried to Balaklava. The Committee cannot say where the blame should rest, but they say, the unnecessary sufferings of the soldiers, directly referable to this neglect, form one of the most painful portions of the evidence. Lamentable above all was the fact that the provision of ships for the conveyance of the sick and wounded from Balaklava was forgotten before the necessity arose, and neglected when it was manifest. Between the 30th of September and the 17th of February, 13,800 sick and wounded were removed from the seat of war. Of the number that perished for the want of the means of removal we have no record. There was divided authority at Balaklava, as everywhere else. There was one authority over the transports, another over the harbour, and another on shore. There was no system and no harmony. It was the same in the Bosphorus.

The Commissariat was overloaded with duties which did not belong to that department. They had abundant stores at Constantinople; but there were no transports for their conveyance, and when they reached Balaklava there were no means of conveying these necessaries to the camp. The land-transport failed early in November, and it soon ceased to exist. There was no effective communication between the camp and Balaklava. Upon the want of such a road as would have rendered this communication easy and certain the Committee are somewhat severe :-"As far as the information obtained enables your Committee to form an opinion, it appears to them that in this matter there was a want of due foresight and decision. Early in November, when the probable necessity of wintering in the Crimea was contemplated, energetic means should have been taken to provide and maintain an effective communication between the camp and Balaklava. The road had then already been injured by the traffic, and its condition had excited the apprehensions of the Commissary-General, who had called attention to the subject; if a military force could not be spared, measures should have been taken to obtain other labour in the East, or application should have been made to the home Government, who might have sent labourers from England." No doubt, if a winter in the Crimea had been contemplated, the first duty was to provide a road from the harbour to the camp. But even with ample labour and materials, seven miles of road are not made in a few weeks through a quagmire. The only efficient road would be a railway, and till that was formed the difficulties of a want of communication could not be effectually removed. For want of a road, and well-regulated sea transport from Constantinople, the army was starving, with plenty at an easy distance. There were 6000 head of cattle provided, and yet the soldier had no fresh meat. Vegetables were rotting in the harbour, while the scurvy produced by the want of them was raging in the camp. There were tons of rice provided at Constantinople, when it wes wanted for the hospitals in the Crimea. Green coffee was served out to the men, whilst Commissary-General Filder and the Treasury were corresponding about the volatile aroma of the berry, and

the best mode of packing it. The men were upon insufficient rations; the cavalry horses utterly perished for lack of forage. The great officials were disputing about authority; the heads at home were uninformed; the subordinate officers of the Commissariat alone did their duty.

In the medical departments at home and abroad there was the same conflict of authorities. Dr. Smith, the Director-General at home, dreaded to incur responsibility for any expenditure, however urgent, which was not guarded by an infinity of forms and documents. The Duke of Newcastle issued no directions about hospitals, because that duty belonged to the Medical Board. Dr. Smith says that his interference would have caused confusion. The superintendent of the hospitals at Scutari was incessantly engaged in reporting-quarterly reports, monthly reports, weekly reports, daily reports. He had no time for his duties of superintendence. The whole management fell into confusion and irresponsibility. The purveyor insisted upon acting independently; and when the Medical Board was about to remove an unfit man, he was retained in office by a superior authority. In the apothecary's department at Scutari there was no account of stores, and no entry in his books for two months, and yet the most cumbrous forms impeded the issue of medicines of absolute necessity; and although there were thousands of articles of hospital comfort-bedsteads, bedding, hospital dresses, linen and flannel shirts-the most extreme misery was endured, alleviated only by private benevolence. The want of an energetic governing authority was felt in every detail connected with the due care of five or six thousand brave fellows, prostrate with disease, or disabled by wounds in the battle-field.

The Committee of the House of Commons thus sum up the evils which we have attempted to describe :—

"From the 16th of September, when the army landed in the Crimea, until the end of October, or, as some witnesses state, until about the middle of November, the troops suffered from overwork and from dysentery, but were not, upon the whole, ill-provided with food; eyen at this period there was a want of clothing for the men in health, and a painful deficiency of all appliances for the proper treatment of the sick and wounded. As the season advanced, the causes of sickness increased, and the army, with its number of effective men daily diminishing, became more and more disproportioned to the amount of duty which it had to perform.

"From the middle of November this army was, during a period of many weeks, reduced to a condition which it is melancholy to contemplate, but which was endured both by officers and men with a fortitude and heroism unsurpassed in the annals of war. They were exposed, under single canvas, to all the sufferings and inconveniences of cold, rain, mud, and snow, on high ground and in the depth of winter. They suffered from overwork, want of clothing, insufficient supplies for the healthy, and imperfect accommodation for the sick." Although there was much sickness and suffering in the French army during this calamitous winter siege, the condition of its men in general was very superior, when contrasted with the privations in

the British lines. But it must not be forgotten that the French soldier is much more prepared to shift for himself than the British. Sir John M'Neill, who was sent out by our Government in the spring, to inquire into the lamentable circumstances which could no longer be doubted or concealed, has very fairly put this point, in a lecture which he recently delivered. After showing how the minute division of labour, which was a result of high civilization, had a tendency to carry men back to a condition analogous, in some respects, to a state of primitive barbarism, he said that “a part, and not an inconsiderable part, of the sufferings of the British army in the Crimea, during the last winter, arose from this very circumstance. He believed there never was a better army. He did not believe that there ever was actually brought together by any country an army of the same numbers that could have stood against it on the field of battle. The British troops that stormed the heights of the Alma, and stood their ground at Inkermann against six or seven times their own number, were the admiration of our chivalrous allies and of every nation in Europe. The manner in which both officers and men endured the hardships and privations of the last winter, was, perhaps, even more heroic than their conduct in action. Yet, with all their indomitable courage and energy in action, and all their fortitude and high moral bearing, most of them were in some respects very helpless fellows. Few of them could handle a spade or a mattock with any dexterity; fewer still an axe or a saw, a hammer, or a trowel. Few of them could even mend their own clothes tolerably, and fewer still could mend their own shoes; they were bad cooks, and all, except the old soldiers, bad hands even at lighting a fire. In short they could hardly turn their hands to anything except fighting, and that, it must be admitted, they could do as hardly any other men could."

It would be well if this truth could be borne in mind in the training of our militia regiments; and that the young recruits should learn some principles of self-reliance, and some practice of useful industry, as well as the manual exercise and the goose-step.

In looking back upon the calamities which thus stirred the heart of England to a degree that has scarcely been paralleled in modern history, it is satisfactory to know that they were not the results of any false economy; and that the Government spent freely what the people gave liberally. It was very different in 1811, when Wellington wrote, "The soldiers in the hospitals die because the Government have not money to pay for the hospital necessaries, and it is really disgusting to reflect upon the distresses occasioned by the lamentable want of funds to support the machine we have put in motion." It is also satisfactory to reflect that the patriotism of the collective nation, and the self-devotion of individuals, did not vent itself in complaint, but adopted the most practical means to repair what was so manifestly the consequence of official incapacity and negligence. Public opinion, however, soon roused that administrative energy without which no private exertions could have been effectual. Large reforms were accomplished in every department. Bold measures were resorted to, that human labour might be econo