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

THE PRESS.

Mr. LAYARD, in his evidence, recapitulated a mul-
titude of the statements which he has already made
from his place in Parliament., adding some new and
more forcible details. Among these he said, con-
cerning the neglect and filth which disgraced the
Scutari hospital at the time of his visit
Who constituted the superior departmect he could not
say. Thought the want of a governor at Scutari was the
source of all the evil. Had never seen any distinct Go-
vernment authority, and that was his difficulty ; in plain
words it was nothing but confusion. He never was able
to distinguish where responsibility began, or where it ter-
minated. He knew it was within the department of Dr.
M`Gregor to get twenty men to do what was required; but
he had no hesitation in saying that if he had done so he
would have immediately been pounced upon by another
department, so that such attempts were stopped by routine.
One gentlemen told him it was not his department, and
another it was not his departmeut. But be went to another
officer—here there were two or three departments inter-
vened—the gentleman to whom he had been recommended
had done his duty, and he was referred to two or three de.
partments. He asked if he might use his name to this
person, and represent the case. He said, " Not only may
you use my name, but take this letter. and press the ne-
cessity of doing sotuething." He went to this person and
told him the state of the case, and he replied that he knew
it well. Witness asked hint what ought to be done, when
he said that the only plan was to employ eight men, with
a strong wire or bamboo canes, to clean out the soil-pipes,
&c., and let the tape be repaired. He thought that this
work should not be given to our own soldiers, but that the
Turks should le employed in it. He suggested that six•
teen men should be set to work, in order that they might
have more frequent change of ler, which was so frightfully
impure. To this the party with whom he was speaking
said he had no money. • • • • •
The commandant was the senior military officer, and had
the command of the barrack hospital; but in all the de-
partments there always appeared to be a kind of fear of
responsibility, or going beyond their instructions. At the
same time there was a very severe system of routine kept
up; and, therefore, he thought that it would be most de-
sirable to know what instructions were sent out from home
to those individuals. As to the treatment of the sick on
the field of battle and afterwards, there was age net's' state-
ment that they were treated kindly by their (officers ; but
as to those ou boarl the transports, there were opinions
sianimously strong that they were treated b dly. At the
hospital at Scutari the men felt I a wish to bury every
former neglect in oblivion, and only to express their gmti-
tads to Miss Nightingale and the other ladies who had
come out there. As to the appearance of the men who
arrived there sick, be had never read a description
at all adequate to their ghastly appearance ou amving
at the hospital ; and although some of them were not
ended until four o'clock in the afternoon they had received
no nourishment since the previous evening. They were
under the charge of Admiral Boxer, and could not be
landed until arrangements were made for doing so.
Perhaps the landing would be arranged to take place on
the following morning, and consequently no preparations
were made for giving the sick their breakfast on board ;
but a breeze might set in, and the Bosphorus would
become rough, and as there were not sufficient boats they
could not be landed. They were not fed on board, because
they were expected to be landed, and could not be taken to
the hospital; so that between the two they got nothing at
all. He had ordered some of them arrowroot until they
could get the forms filled up, sad in some cases the nurses
told him that those persons had not hat. anything for matey
hours before. He had never before seen au equal amount
of famine as that under which those sick men were suffer-
ing in their beds. The ships were at the farthest three-
quarters of a mile from the hospital, and sometimes not
more than a quarter of a mile from it. The landing-place
was about one hundred yards from the hospital ; but as it
was a very steep place, and there was a very great diffi-
culty in carrying the sick up to it, they were carried by the
Turks upon stretchers, upon an incline as steep as a rail-
way embankment. The clothes of the men were swarm-
ing alive with vermin, as thick as the letters in a small
page of print. When he had been about to assist to get
some poor man into bed, the men themselves had en-
treated him not to go near them from the state their
clothes were in. Indeed, while there, his own clothes
were never free from vermin.

AMONG recent improvements in screw steam
machinery a simple but effectual plan has been in-
troduced by Mr. Penn for preventing that constant
and excessive wear and tear of the bearings on the
shafts of screw steamers which has hitherto been
found so great a practical difficulty and so con-
tinually recurring a source of expense. He intro-
duces between the bearing and the shaft thin slips of
wood, which have the remarkable property of en-
tirely suspending that incessant waste of material
which, after a certain pressure on the square inch
has been attained, is constantly in progress. This
simple expedient has been adopted in the recent
repairs of the Himalaya, and will probably be ap-
plied, if found successful in her case, to all screw
steamers. While the surface of the bearing is pre-
served from waste, singularly enough the slips of
wood show no indication of being rubbed away or
heated.

A NEW GENERAL MILITARY HOSPITAL is ordered to
be built at Chatham on the vacant piece of ground at
the rear of Fort Pitt, and the erection is to be corn•
menced immediately; five hundred of the sick and
wounded in the Cas'mate Barracks have been re-
moved to Brompton Barracks.