The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-24 00:00:00

276 Original gettas from ttt 6rimta. Wig have received the following letter from Scutari : Scutari, Feb : 28th, 1855. The changes here are so regular and unmarked by any great events that it is difficult to convey any true idea of the state of the hospitals. The daily im provement is felt rather than seen ; but it is suffi cient to inspire us all with a hopefulness to which we were once strangers. The transport steamers and ships, which have been so justly complained of, are now greatly im proved. Only large first class steamers are used, and a proper quantity of sick sent down in each. Two hundred mea now are allowed double the space occupied by four or five hundred when the sick first came down in great numbers. Permanent surgeons are appointed to the ships which have been fitted up, and the horrors of the passage from the Crimea can Low never be repeated. This great improvement is marked by tLe decrease in the number of deaths, ' since not more than three or four now die on the passage of the sick fresh from the Crimea. The surgeons do not always escape. I grieve to say that Assistant-Surgeon Frank Smith, who had brought down more than one ship in admirable order, died at Balaklava, alter his last voyage, in the house of our good friend Hayward. In poor Smith we grieve for the loss of an excellent and most promising officer, and a kind-hearted and religious friend. To-day the steamer Ottawa has gone up with 480 men, all sent out of our hospitals cured and fit for duty. I saw the warm clothing served out to these men; each had .a waterproof cap and coat, strong long boots, reaching above the knee, and a double set of new warm under-clothing. The men seem very pleased with this clothing, and in great spirits about going up. While in the part of the barrack hospital used for stores, I marked with pleasure the abundant supply of bedsteads on the French model; and as these are all supplied with other necessaries, they promise comfort to the new:arrivals. Once only the cold stones awaited sick and wounded; now, thank God ! it can be so no mord.' At the end of this corridor, in quartets which were once mine, a bath-room is now erected, wi h hot and cold water pipes laid on. As the room is convenient for the entrance, it will be an improvement over the baths and washing in dis tant wards. This room appears a great improvement over the old plan, and strongly contrasts with that time when a bath was not even hoped for. r Extra diet kitchens are opened in various parts where needed ; and from these sago, arrowroot, broths, chickens, &cc., are supplied to the den, while at the men's bedsides a liberal supply of oranges, lemons, eggs, and wine is seen. At the Hydir Pasha Serai, where the means of providing comforts for the men are least, they are contented ; but here, again, a kitchen on a good model is built in place of the old Turkish one, and other things are rapidly being com pleted for the comfort of the men there. Though so many things are done and doing to cheer our poor fellows, yet all is not bright; many, very many, are the distressing cases of emaciation, sickness, and, above all, of frost-bites. All that has been written of them conveys only a just idea of the worst individual cases; but though the individual cases are terrible, yet the majority of cases are slight, sod the men in a fair way of recovery. It is only by daily visits from bed to bed that the true state of the men can he known; and however keenly we are com pelled to feel the worst cases, yet it would be unfair not to look at the improving ones. Naturally the mind is filled with one or two sights of pain or mutilation, and then is little able to appre ciate the true state of things. Besides this, num berless small things are continually added for the comfort of the sick, which, to an unpractised sore, seem unimportant or are overlooked. Hanging shelves between each bed, low tables for the worst sick and amputation cases, trays to form a tempo rary table on the knees, drinking-cups and small clean bags to hold bread, which once was kept under the pillow or in the nearest dusty window place, all these are daily added, and the difficulty or supplying these things, small as they appear, for 6,000 or 7,000 men is very great. Captain Gordon, R.E., speaks of the English carpenters lately arrived as affording valtiable aid, and says that one of these men will do more its one day than an Armenian or Turk in three days. The supply of books is now abundant, and Lord William Paulet has allowed two orderlies to take charge of them. Many of the books are quite unfit for the use of soldiers, and these have been put aside, while a selection has been made of instructive and entertaining works, which the men prize greatly and change incessantly. The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge have sent a large supply, some for themselves and some for friends, and these are mo-t valuable. The men, I fear, destroy the tracts, and we are compelled to limit our supply in some measure, but i am glad to say that no case of a Bible or Prayer-book having been injured is known. All contributions sent out now have a fair chance of THE PRESS. coming into our possession, since an agent is ap pointed at Pera to look after our boxes, and a store is also opened here ou the shore to receive every thing for the hospitals. At Kulleli great advances have been made, and though so lately opened it is not now behind the older hospitals. Nearly all the beds there are after the French model, and furnished in the same way, and this gives a great air of comfort to the wards as well as affording real relief. The riding•school is now completed, and quite ready to receive men, even to clean shirts and warm clothing placed on every pillow. Workmen are very busy here in every direc tion, and the cavalry stables are now being floored and made fit for the men. Every effort is still needed, since we learn with sorrow that 1,200 sick men are daily expected. Major Campbell, our most energetic Deputy-Assistant-Quartermaster General, told me with pleasure that 850 beds were now ready for the new lot, and that by removals of convalescents to Smyrna and England room would be made for all. The two hospital ships are found to be very gloomy and unfit for soldiers, and efforts are being made to get the men removed. Miss Nightingale hopes to get some place for them in Seraglio Point. Lady Stratford is greatly interested about all these changes, and gives up some three or four days every week to Kulleli, Scutari, or the Kiosk. At this latter build ing she has been providing for the comforts of the officers who are ill by sending a steward, and making other arrangements. The officers if left to them selves and their own servants are not to be envied when ill. An officer who has been down to Smyrna with sick Speaks of the hospital there as being very good and well provided for, and there are the same accounts of its state from the chaplain there. Lady Alicia Blackwood has most courageously undertaken to help and comfort the soldiers' wives who are here. They are in a most wretched condi tion, and need some one to help them, as far as they will allow it to be done. Mr. Btacebridge and Lady Alicia have at last got a house for a hospital for the sick women; and thus I hope more good will be really dono them than could be by merely giving money and clothes. Here, again, all the difficulties to be surmounted are incredible to any one unac quainted with the country; but Lady Alicia will not easily be daut,ted in her good work. I fear you will think that my accounts of the hos pitals are not confirmed by others which appear from time to time. I write you only what I believe to be true, and also what I see daily and almost hourly. It may be that the cheering aspect is in my own mind only ; but no imaginat►on can stand the test of daily experience, and we all feel and express our gladness at the daily change for the better. We feel also that these men are much more cheerful than they once were, and ask for news from home on the war with eagerness. The repulse of Liprandi and the Russian army has cheered them much, and they seem glad that the Turks have so well done their part. This tone of cheerfulness is valuable in the chaplains' work, since the men are better able to profit by our books and instructions; and we, too, do not find it nearly so depressing to minister among the men. The deaths during the last ten days have de creased by one-half. During the previous ten days the numbers had been seventy and eighty; now for the last ten days they have never exceeded forty per day, and the art-rags thirty-four. The sudden change of temperature on Monday night last made the surgeons apprehensive of a serious increase in deaths. During the day of Monday it was warm as our warmest days in May at home, and at sunset we were 'Angering on the hill and enjoying the warmth ; before twelve o'clock that night the snow fell heavily, and next day a severe frost set in. A thaw com menced the day after, and it is now line warm May weather. The number of deaths did not increase in consequence of the change, and the men generally seem as usual. You will wonder. I fear, at my writing so calmly about matters which are stirring deeply every heart at home; but I have been so long here, and here also when matters were so sadly different, that I may, perhaps, take too favorable a view of them, or, it may be, have become hardened to the sufferings of others. But, at the same time, being thoroughly accustomed to the work and state of affairs, enables me to judge correctly ; and familiarity with the most painful scenes, while it enables me to endure them, enables tne also not to overstate them. I can not be too thankful to the Almighty Father that he does not permit me to feel too acutely every scene of suffering and &oath, otherwise my ministrations annst be less useful, and probably health would have given way. Many of my brother chaplains are and have been failing, and some will, I fear, never again return to the work to which they so nobly de voted themselves. The day of prayer appointed by your bishops for those at home will not be unmarked by u. here. We shall feel cheered and strengthened by knowing ~e~ta~, your work for na; and f dare hope, also, be fully strengthened by Hun on whom you call for us and our people. Obituart LIEUTENANT-GENERAL JOHN DUTY; C. 8., colonel of the Bth (King's) Regiment, died on Saturday last, at his residence in Jermyn-street. He entered the army in 1795, from which time to 1813 he was ac tively employed with but slight intermission. Among his earliest services were the campaign in the West Indies in 1796, under Sir Ralph Abercromby ; expe dition to Holland, in 1796 ; in the East Indies, in 1799. He thence proceeded to Egypt, and was in the campaign of 1801. He also served at the siege of Copenhagen in 1807. In the Peninsula he was with the 43rd Light Infantry in most of the remark able events of the war, having received the gold medal for Badajoz, and the silver medal and six clasps for Fuentes d'Onor, Ciudad Rodrigo, Vittoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, and Nive, besides several minor actions. General Duffy watt wounded in the head at Vittoria, and commanded the storming party at the capture of Fort Reynard, an outwork of Ciudad Rodrigo. LORD ERSKINE died on Monday last, at his house in Sussex. His lordship was son of the great Lord Erskine, and married, first, in 1800, Miss Cadwallader, of Philadelphia, who died in 1843; secondly, in the same year, Miss Travis, cousin of his first wife. The deceased peer was a very old public servant, having begun his diplomatic career as Minister to the United States at the beginning of the present century, and lie only retired from the same post, at Munich, in 1843. His lordship is succeeded by his eldest son, the Hon. Thomas Americus, now third Baron Erskine. SEEMS PACHA, the commander of the Egyptians at the com Lat of Eupatoria, on which occasion be was killed, was the Mameluke who escaped from the massacre at Cairo, by jumping his horse over the parapet, when Mehemet Ali, in 1811, ordered the indiscriminate destruction of all the members of that celebrated body then assembled in the town. Selim, who was an exceedingly young man at the time, seeing no other chance of escape, mounted his horse, and forced him to spring from the lofty wall of that town into the empty space. The animal was killed by the fall, but the rider escaped, though not without very grave contusions. Mehemet Ali, astonished alike at the young man's resolution and good fortune, ordered him to be spared, and in a short time he perfectly recovered. He owed his subsequent mili tary career to the kindness of Colonel Selves, at pre sent generalissimo of the Egyptian forces, and well known by the name of Soliman Pacha. Selim Pacha was an excellent commander, and enjoyed the confi dence of his men to an extraordinary degree. In the attack at Eupatoria he was hit in the head by a Rus sian bullet, and died instantaneously. INUNDATIONS IN HOLLAND. ADvICES from Holland state that the inundations in the provinces of Gelderland and Overyssel, since the commencement of the thaw, have been to a most calamitous extent. The whole of the country be. tween Deventer (Zulpten and Arnheim included), as far as Gorcum Heusden, has been deluged— several districts being entirely destroyed. About 2,000 houses or farm-builaings have been levelled to the ground and carried away by the immense masses of floating ice. The country lying between Wageningen and Amersforst has also suffered much, and many parts of the railway (Dutch Rhenish) have been annihilated. The sacrifice of life, in human beings and cattle, has proved extremely large. The King of Holland has been indefatigable in rendering his personal assistance in the several districts upon which this visitation has fallen. Such a scene of wholesale devastation has not been wit nessed in Holland for the last hundred years. The destitution of those persons who have lost all but life itself is in the last degree distressing, and com mittees had consequently be set on foot in the principal places, the object of which is to raise sub scriptions for their temporary relief. Shortly after the intelligence was first received of these devasta tions Jenny Lind arrived at Amsterdam. On hearing the sad particulars, she immediately offered to give a series of concerts, the profits of which should be devoted to the Patriotic Fund now being formed for the relief of the sufferers, The first has already taken place at Amsterdam. The profits amounted to about 4001. CONSERVATIVE LAND SOCIETY.—IR the account of the tenth quarterly meeting of this society in last week's PRESS, the figures stated left an impression that the amount of withdrawals had been 152,730? This sum is, in truth, the net residue remaining after the deduction of the payments withdrawn, which cumprised only an amount of 10,7991. A LOCAL paper says that the Conservatives of Bath have determined to bring forward two candidates at the next election.