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    x . Spooneb , also spoke against the motion , which is supported by Mr . R . Phiixiwobe , Lord Stanley , r . Edwabd Bali , and Mr . Mtmrz . —Lord Palmer--on adverted to the difficulties which beset the lestion ; but , conceiving that some alteration of the w should take place , even for the sake of the lurch itself , and thinking that the proposed meare merited consideration , he would not oppose the otion , which was accordingly carried by 155 to 76 . KDUCATJON . Mr . Milner Gibson obtained leave to bring in A II for the establishment of free schools in England i the secular plan ; and Sir George Grey stated at it was not intended to proceed with Lord John lssell ' s bill on the 16 th of April , but that it would proceeded with after the return of his lordship from enna . —Mr . Gi bson ' s bill was subsequently introced , and read a first time .

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    THE SEBASTOPOL COMMITTEE . tE Hon . and Rev . Sidney Godolphin Osborne was extined on Friday week , and stated that he went out to atari on his own account , and acted as assistantiplain . Nothing could be worse than the state of the leral hospital at Scutari . There was no system , and ire was a lack of the commonest necessaries . As an tance of this , he mentioned that one of the chaplains ring been seized "with cholera , it -was found impossible idminister to him an ordinary draught for want of proper drugs . A Russian prisoner had a shattered , and required the stimulus of spirits ; but none was be had . Miss Nightingale often complained to wits of wanting necessary articles . From the absence of

    rating tables in the hospital , he and the surgeon had hold the patients in their arms during operations , ich were always performed in the ward ; but at length ) crazy tables , which shook very much , were used the purpose . He thought a larger staff and an efliat responsible head were needed , and that , under the mmstances , no one individual could be blamed . Dr . nzies had said nothing was wanted , but the fact was , rything was wanted . There was no responsible head the hospitals , for Dr . Menzie ' s , though nominal head , not seem to be virtually so . With regard to the igation of raw meat , the witness asserted that he had

    luently seen it served out to the men . He had also l men , w ho were not fit to walk ten yards , obliged to k the whole distance from the "transport ships to the pital . In his opinion , Dr . Hall should have made vision for the accommodation of the sick and aided : he believed stores could have been got from d Redcliffe if the purveyor had applied . Dr . azies , in answer to repeated inquiries from Lady Icliffe , had said nothing was wanted , but at length admitted that some bedsteads were required , and that t was all . The force of public opinion had certainly to improvements in the hospitals , but the witness bted whether even now all the stores had been sent

    from England . The mystery , however , would not cleared up until the matter was put in the hands of y different inquirers—namely , those of the police . mghterS ) - — — ' MONDAY . ) r . Andrew Smith was again examined ; but his eviice was for the most part only an amplification of it has been already given . He stated that in Nolber and December last there was a liberal supply of lical comforts at Scutaii . There was plenty of linen all the purposes of the hospital . If the soldiers had sheets , it was the fault of the purveyor : large quanj ' s of sheets had been sent ouk It is the duty of the veyor , according to the regulations , to look to the

    ire economy of the cleanliness of . the hospital . He . power under the reglations to enter into contracts all the washing , and the hiring of persons to wash 1 to keep the hospital duly cleaned ; and if this were done , it would be his fault . If the purveyor found ordinary force for this insufficient , he could apply to inspector-general and hire more . Jr . Layard . —I have received a letter from the mea , dated the 1 st of January , from a general officer ihargc of the First Division , stating that the regiitnl surgeons do nothing , that the men are without Iter , without medicine , without warm clothing , withmcdical comforts , without the means of transporting l who are dying from dysentery from the wet ground which they are covered only by n wet blanket , and

    ined down , as it were , by the sea , to bo overwhelmed tho first advancing tide . —Is that , Dr . Smith , n cor-; or proper state of things ? ) r . Smith . —It does not agree with tho reports I have Bivod . 3 r . Menzics waa called , and said he was deputy pector-general of hospitals . lie looked upon tho Tack hospital nt Sutari as a moro mako-ahift . Tho lerol hospital was superior , but still it was defective many respects . Ho reported on tho accommodation tho hospitals , in triplicate , to Major Sillory ( tho nmjindant ) , Dr . Andrew Smith , « nd Dr . Hall . Ho orted that the two hospitals might be able to ommodato two thousand patients . Ho also reported it some of tho rooms in tho hospitals wore in a fityhy te , and that ho had applied in August or early in

    September to the commandant , before the arrival of the sick , to have them cleansed and whitewashed , which was done . He ( witness ) took the whole charge of the two hospitals from the 26 th of June until the 1 st of January of this year . He also stated in his report , that he had represented to the commandant that repairs and alterations were necessary in the . drains and privies connected with the hospital , ' which alterations and repairs , to a certain extent , were made . When he returned to this country he was asked by Dr . Andrew Smith to make a statement of the difficulties he had experienced in the hospitals at Scutari , and he did so . He had previously stated those difficulties in the weekly reports he sent home to Dr . Smith . The report

    which he made to Dr . Smith was dated the 14 th February last , and he complained in it of the occasional want of medical assistance in the hospitals ; of the advanced age of the purveyor , Mr . Ward , and of the inexperience of the clerks in Mr . Ward ' s department ; the wapt of bedding for the sick and wounded in the barrack hospital , which he attributed to the purveyor ; the delay in the return to Scutari of the bedding and other stores which had been taken to Varna , when the armies removed there , from deficiencies in the transport service ; the bad conduct of certain corporals who acted as ward masters ; and the want of orderlies . He often called the attention of the purveyor to the necessity of keeping the hospitals clean ; he ( witness ) , at least , made every effort to keep

    them clean , but he was never satisfied with the condition in which they were . Mr . Wreford arrived at Scutari on the 16 th of September , and became purveyor from that time ; but witness could not say the hospitals were in a much cleaner state after that . The barrack hospital was filthy no doubt , but its state had been much overdrawn . He must say he never saw the floors covered over with fasces of the patients . He could not help observing the filthy state of the men as he went round the wards , and he told the purveyor to supply everything that was necessary . He believed there were several occasions when the purveyor could not , even with money in his pocket , obtain in Constantinople what was wanted in the hospitals . It was possible for a man to have died

    in the hospital from the want of the common necessaries of life without his ( witness ' s ) knowledge ; but he had never heard of it . He admitted having made a report to Lord-Stratford that nothing was ^ -wanted in the hospitals . That report would most likely be sent to England to Dr . Smith ; and it was probable that upon that report Dr . Smith grounded the opinion which he expressed to the Times' commissioner , when that gentleman visited Scutari , that there was then nothing wanted in the hospitals ; but he ( witness ) never wrote home to Dr . Smith directly to that effect . He was informed that the washing in the hospital was performed by contract . No official complaint was made to him that washing was wanted , though he had noticed that the clothes of the sick and wounded were filthy .

    TUESDAY . Mr . William Henry Flower , assistant surgeon to the 63 rd Regiment , stated that on the regiment landing at Varna , a small bell-tent was furnished for the sick ; but the rest of the regiment was about six weeks without tents . —The dew was very ~ heavy , amLthe men suffered in health from exposure . The bedding was not brought out till ten weeks after they landed . There were no means provided for the transport of the sick . The first day they got a waggon to carry them . They left a great many men to die on the road , having no ambulance waggons . Some were on the beach , but they were shipped again . If they had had litters or mules , they could have brought these sick men on . The witness then

    repeated and confirmed the evidence of previous witnesses as to the insufficiencj' of ambulances , the defective nature of the arabas , the want of knapsacks , which were left behind , the inconvenience of the packs which the men had to carry , and other arrangements . Speaking of the hospitals , he said : The English had no operative table , and all the French operations were finished the day after tho battle , and the sick removed . The sick of the English were about . three weeks without tents or marquees . The tents used for tho sick at first did well , but after rain became wretched . They were not waterproof , and were made worse from tho ground being covered with mud . Tho men were wet through nearly always , and there were no means of drying their mudcovered garments . The smell was very ' offensive . There

    was no boarding to bo had , but merely the bare ground for the sick . The men lay in thoir clothes , which dried on them . Ho attributed much of tho mortality that took place to tho hospitals being in that state . They had very few orderlies who knew their entries . Somo of tho best died on their way from England . There was a deficiency chiefly of opium , one of the most important medical agents , as tho men wore suffering chiefly from cholera and diarrhooa , in which cases it was a most useful drug . Tho knapsacks were landed two months after tho men landed ; they were brought up and piled in tho middle of the camp , and were not issued to tho men until a few days before ho loft . Ho heard that this was in consequence of an order from tho colonel of tho regiment . Mr . Layard . —Then , cvon although tho mon wore perishing for want of clothing , their knapsacks wore not given to thorn ?

    Witness . —No . Mr . Layard . —What were the men doing ? Witness . —Digging some large holes or pits fourteen feet in diameter , for placing the tents in to prevent them being blown away ; but the tents were not placed Ut them , because the holes became filled with water . ( This shocking statement was very strangely received with laughter . ) Witness attributed much of the illness of the men to the want of clothing . Up to the time he came away , some of the men had not changed their clothesat all for nearly three months , ' but lay in them day and night . The covering of the men in the trenches was

    only that of their usual clothes , with the blanket , for twenty-four hours together , exposed to all weather . He heard the men say they had generally been two nights out of three at work in the trenches . They had tea twice a week . The coffee was always green , and had to be broken up by cannon-balls , or pounded with a stone , and roasted or charred on the tops of the camp kettles . It tasted very much like charcoal and water . ^ Laughter . ) The witness also referred to the occasional stoppage of rations , and to the want of all provision for the sick on board the invalid ships , where they lay on the bare deck , and where the only " conveniences" they had were large tubs , emptied during the day .

    Dr . Menzles was re-examined , and said he had a direct charge over the general hospitals , but not over the barrack hospitals . He entered into a variety of professional details , and in the course of these admitted that at Scutari great delay occurred in the patients getting their meals , and that the sick suffered very much in consequence ; but he was not aware that they ever went the greater part of the day without food . He had complained to the purveyor ; but that officer did not always conform to his orders . The purveyor seemed to think he was only responsible to the Secretary-at-War , and disputed the point with witness . He ( witness ) really did not know what his duties were ; and many others were in the same predicament . He did not know whether he

    went round the wards of the hospital or not ; but he was quite satisfied that none of the wounded on whom operations had been performed died from the bad sanitary state of the hospital . In June , and again in the latter end of October , he applied to the purveyor and apothecary of the hospital at Varna to have the medical jtores which had been left there when the army moved on to theJCrimea sent to Scutari , but they-did not arrive at Scutari until the latter end of November . The delaywas owing to the want of transports . Several other points-were touched upon by Dr . Menzies , the general tendency of whose evidence was to throw the blame on the purveyors .

    Wednesday . Dr . Menzie ' s examination was resumed ; but his testimony merely enlarged upon the general details which we have already given . Dr . David Dumbreck , Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals , was next examined , and testified to the filthy state of the hospital at Varna , and to the want of proper arrangements . He stated , however , that there was no lack of surgical appliances in the Crimea ; and he thought Dr . Menzies was a fitting man for his post . He said

    they had great difficulties to meet . They had no purveyors' department , —no hospital corps ,-no -nurses , no trained orderlies . Dr . Menzies was completely overworked . He was put in a position which no one man could have coped with . Witness had made a report containing certain suggestions ; but ho did not know that they had been attended to . The hospitals at Balaklava were not properly organised ; but he had never seen them in any thing like the state described by Mr . Stafford . The hospital tents were in a filthy state .

    Do you think there is a fear of incurring responsibility on the part of the medical men in our general hospitals?—Decidedly ; they are liable to be referred to and questioned if they have ordered anything for a patient that appears extravagant . Do you think having to keep so many accounts , and fill up so many forms , interferes with the medical duties of the surgeons ?—Most distinctly ; that is decidedly the evil of our whole medical system ; we have far too much writing to do . In answer to questions from Lord Seymour , witness stated that ho had been in the medical service of the nrmy since 1825 . He thought the ordinary duties of regimental hospitals in time of pence had not created an experience that fitted tho medical officers at once to perform all the service of a general hospital .

    TIIUKSIMV . Dr . Forrest , who went out to tho East originally as a staff-surgeon to the Third Division , but who was subsequently appointed , pro tern ., deputy-inspector of the hospital at Scutari was tho "rs t witness examined on Thursday . Hi * evidence was to tho effect that tho condltion of the hospital was not ho bad as lias boon rcpre-JS , y other witnesses ; but ho admitted , that tho dead house at Scutari was in a room In tho corridor . nine atoly under one of tho ward- of the hospital . It was very » ff .. n « ivo , ho added , and prejudicial to tho health oftho patents ; and ho subHcqucntly caused It to bo moved to a little distance . There wa * a want of modicinoH iincr | Novon . bcr in tho Third Divinion ; and the tcntH for the wick and wounded being overcrowded , the smell was very offensive .

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    Mabch 31 , 1855 . ] THE L E AJ ) E B , 293

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), March 31, 1855, page 293, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2084/page/5/