The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-22 00:00:00

284

varying brutality towards us all during the plat ruinous
season.
When you turn teetotaller (which we all feel must be
very shortly), you will perceive that the vase can be con-
verted, at the shortest notice, into a tea-urn. Should you
fall into difficulties, it would be superfluous to point out to
you the advantages of the spout. You are thus made aware
of our mutual hostility.
For myself, I have only to assure you that I am you
constant and bitter enemy.
C. J. MATHEWS.

MME. GOLDSCRMIDT contributed 1,8721. to the
Nightingale Fund as the proceeds of her concert on
Tuesday week.
CREMORNE GARDENS open on Easter Monday.

MR. STAFFORD, M.P., ON THE CRIMEAN
CAMPAIGN.

MR. AUGUETUS STAFFORD, M.P., on Tuesday evening
last, delivered at. Stamford a narrative of his two
expeditions to the Crimea in 1854 and 1855. The
general character of Mr. Stafford's experiences at
Scutari and in the Crimea is well known, but never-
theless in a narrative of this sort some new facts
were looked for, and given. As a proof of bow little
is known of what occurs in the French army, it will be
remembered that after Mr. Stafford left Marseilles
last. year, in a French transport with 760 men on
board, cholera broke out within a few hours of sailing,
and the most frightful scenes occurred. The men
had been embarked without any medicines whatever
on board. Again, he told his audience on Tuesday
that, conversing with a French officer, be (Mr.
Stafford) had been told by him that the French had
lost between July, 1854, and July, 1855—slain in
battle, left dead on the field, 12,000; died afterwards
of wounds received in battle, 7,000; sent home with
less of limb or broken in constitution, 25,000 ; died
of disease, chiefly diarrhma, cholera, and dysentery,
60,000 ;—thus making the total loss about 105,000,
exclusive of all who had been killed or died (luting
the last seven months. " But," added his informant,
"we do not put this in the newspapers ; we only re-
port a loss of 20,000. You English know too much
about your army; we know too little." When Mr.
Stafford went through Sebastopol after the town was
taken, the civilised look of the place astonished him ;
and he thought, considering the honourable defence
made by the Russians, that history would hereafter
award the glory to the defenders, rather than to the
besiegers of Sebastopol.

Of-the frightful su- &rings of the sick, his sketch
of Balaklava, "that most miserable village," where
the infamous extortions practised by Maltese, lonia'',
and Italian stallkeepers in its streets, and the horrors
of its hospital, where he found surgeons quarrelling
with orderlies, and orderlies with surgeons, while
their wretched patients died, brought all the past
horrors of the winter of 1b54 vividly before the
mind:—

No arrangements were made for the embarkation of the
sick at Bal ikluva. Sumttimes the French were obliged
to carry down our sick to the shore; there were not suffi-
cient boats to embark them when they got to the shore.
and when the transports came the unfortunate creatures
bad to lie on the hard boards until the skin was worn off
their joints by the friction occasioned by the motion of the
vessel. You might trace the course of these transports
from Balaklava to the entrance of the Bosphorus by the
skeletons of the miserable sick thrown overboard on the
way. On arriving in the Bosphorus, owing to the insuffi-
ciency of accommodation, three or four days sometimes
elapsed before the sufferers could be landed ; when they
did land there were no arrangements fur supplying them
with foot', or for their reception in the hospitals: and, be•
tween one thing and another, he had known them to be
from four o'clock in the afternoon until twelve the next
day without anything to eat. Altogether, so dire was the
aspect of affairs at Scutari that it seemed as if heaven had
f asaken us, and as if our sins had given us over to de
stroction.

But in 1855 Florence Nightingale had been at work,
and all was altered. Confusion had given place to
order, and filth to cleanliness .
But there was onething not changed. He found among
our soldiers the same good feeling, the same noble de
m •anour, the same heroic spirit that he had witnessed the
y •ar before. And there was another thing not changed ;
f)r in the same little room, with no luxuries and vet-) few
c.,mvorts, engaged in her ceaseless work, there he found
Florence Nightingale. He asked her, " What do you
think of the soldiers now ?" She said, " They have their
faults, and those who in their several positions in life may
feel that they have a little neglected the education of the
lower orders will be the last to blame those brave men for
the faults they do possess ; but they respond to kindness
and they recognise discipline, and, for ourselves, we have
never heard from them one word or seen one gesture that
might not have been Sued for the drawing•room. They
have been to us, and to all the ladies, gentlemen and
Christians." He asked one poor fellow what he thought
of Mis, Nightingale, and the reply was, " Well, I hope she
will go up to heaven before she dies."
The lecture was listened to with marked attention
throughout, and frequently elicited hearty applause.

Ihi,