The Express.
London, England, 1855-03-28 00:00:00

YAfriIbNIESM

the truth about what WS taking plum at Scutari.
The Government persisted that the statements loads
in the public prate, and by persons who had
Iretarned from the seat of war, were partly fain and
partly exaggerated. Even now we do know the
troth, and we shall proceed to prove, for the
satisfaction of our readers, that throughout the whole,
of this unhappy war the Government of this country
has been either shamefully imposed upon, or wilfully
and wet culpably blind.
_ _

We shall now give a bare narrative of facts as
they wen stated the other day by Mr. Sionar GO-
DOLPHIN OSBORNE. This gentleman arrived at
Scutari on the Bth of last November, and immedi-
ately undertook the duties of Chaplain at the Hos-
pital Nothing, be tells us, could be worse. The
Barrack Hospital was in a disgraceful condi-
tion. The stench, the filth. the utter want of
order, defy description. The commonest medicines
could not be found—in one case, the surgeon
could not get a splint of a kind " that every
union surgeon in this country would possess.'
There was no operating table, and every operation
was performed in sight of the other patients. Try
for one moment to realise that fact. Imagine that
crowded hospital—sommon up that horrible picture.
It is torture enough to undergo the most ordinary
operation, at the hands of the beet skilled pried-
, tiocer, with every appliance that modern art has
brought to light. No language can pourtray the suf-
ferings endured by the wretched victims of *Mei&
neglect in the hospital at Scutari.
Turn which way we will, the picture is the same.
There were no stretchers on which to convey the
sick fruat the transports to the hospital ; poor fel-
lows were obliged to walk several hundreds of yards
who could scarcely move a single step without pain.
Meat was served out, if not absolutely raw, only
soornsed through. Mr. Gasping records his "so-
lemn conviction that a great proportion of the deaths
which occurred in the wards he chiefly visited arose
from the irregularity with which the poor
creatures were fed." And all this happened—
where? Not in the midst of a boundless desert,
not on the wide ocean among a shipwrecked crew,
but at Constantinople. Every day we were sending
ships from England. Every morning there was
published, in these columns and elsewhere, an im-
posing list of vessels, bought up, it was said, by a
vigilant and energetic Government for the transport
service. Every night some Minister told the public 11
that the statements made by the press were un-
true. We were like men in the agonies of deli-
rium. We saw perplexing and horrible visions;
and an attempt was made to persuade us that they
were the creations of a disordered fancy, the results
of a morbid sympathy, the inventions of ilkondi-
tient d journalists.

The feats are now acknowledged. No man will
venture to deny them. What we want now to know
is this—Who are to blame P Certainly not the
people of this country, for they were kept io
ignorance of the troth ; certainly not the poor
surgeons who were worked to death in the hospitals.
' And we are unwilling to impute too much blame to
Lord STRATFORD, whose duties as Ambassador most
have been too onerous to allow of his attending
properly to anything else. No. It is the system,
and, to a very serious extent, the men who admi-
nistered it, that most be regarded as the real causes
of disasters which have shed such foul dis-
honour on the character of Englishmen. A
few instances will suffice. Some one—we are ,
not told who—sent in • report to the Duke of
NEWCASTLE relative to a transport vowel, " which
wee as u•trns as any official document could be."
So much for the credit to be placed in official reports.
Then, again, Mr. Caimans made frequent repre-
sentations to authorities, high and low, but no atten-
tion was paid to them. As for Dr. Mean's, he
teems to have been so much engaged with other
duties, that he could give no "attention to minor
matters which pertained to another department." ♦nd
yet Dr. MENZIES was the Deputy Inspector-General
of Hospitals, and the minor matters were the
condition of those hospitals, and the sufferings of the
poor creatures who were dying by wholesale, almost
in the sight of food. Bat what can we think of an
Inspector who depended solely and with implicit
faith on the reports of his subordinates, in contra-
diction to the evidence of his own senses P He knew
that Lord STRATFORD had an unlimited command of
Money ; he knew that if a tithe of the suffering he
saw were made known to the English people, there
would be an outburst of public indignation ; and yet,
when asked by the Committee as to the condition
of the hospitals ha was supposed to inspect, his
only answer is— m I was given to understand"
that such cad snob things were so. He imagism
that stretchers could have been made ; he imagines
that a thing composed of two poles, with canvas be.
twsn them, might have been constructed. He did
not care—Dot he—that no officer was ever sent to
superintend the landing of the sick—that the sick,
when landed, were often laid on the damp pier, be-

cause there were none of them simple coetrisaaoss of
which a more might hare been made in a single
hour. Them an a few instances extracted
from as overwhelming maw. So far se we can judge,

we are driven to the °occlusion that the e;perior
officers of the Medical staff not only failed to do
their duty, but sent in reports which produced a
false impression of what woe really taking place.
They must have known what has now been made
public by Mr. Osmium and Mr. STAFFORD, as well
as by all that sea be gathered from the unwilling
testimony of Dr. &wain BMrrn and Dr. Manatees.
We do not hesitate to charge the officers of the medi-
cal staff at Scutari with incapacity and neglect.
This is no time for false delicacy. Thousands of
our fellow-countrymen, some of England'. bravest
sons, have died by a miserable death, have *aired
sufferings which it makes the blood run cold to Wok
of, and the Ratios is resolved to know on whose beads
the blame is to be laid. Swift and sanitary jinn*
must be dealt out to the offenders. We do not yet
know the whole truth ; bat the public mind is
already made up as to some of the persons to whom
so many British subjects owe an untimely death.—
Daily Nom

MDLLR. RACHEL.

THE WAR.

The @hullos of the allies in the Crimei is repre-
sented in the racial Journal de Se. Pefera&arry,, to
hand Petards), in on knowing terms:
"The position of the allies is now oompletcdy shat
in by an enclosure of formidable entresobswahe, ex-
tending from the great infantry camp near the citadel
by the heights of Inkennani, along the Tobersaya,
as far as to the approaches of Balaklave. New dim
sinus have joined the army. Grave events are
expected."

A letter from Varna, in the Oct DMICII4I Post,
says The news from the Crimea come down to
the 12th. The allies wen then observing with great
attention the proceedings of the Bowden' in the
valley of Baidar, and were expecting an attack on
Beak's. particularly as they bad learned that
General Wagner had received reinforcements from
the corps of General Liprandi. The Russian forces
are said to be distributed as follows :—At Perekop
is encamped the corp. of dragoons, a division of
light cavalry, and various other detachments,
amounting in all to 20,000 men, under the
command of General Pawloff I. At Simpheropol
there are about 46,000 men, commanded by
General Read. Near the Baba*, General Oaten-
Sacken's headquarters have been placed with 60,000
men, including the garrison of Sebastopol. On the
Tchernaya is encamped General Liprandi, with
, 18,000 men ; and in the valley of Bader is General
Wagner, with 9,000 men. It appears that the first
operation which General Osten-Sacken had executed,
on his appointment to the chief command, was to
I have all the heights along the coast occupied and
fortified from Rarabelnaya to the mouth of the
Tchernava. The heights on the left bunk of the
Alma hive also been fortified, and this defensive sys-
tem seems to show that not only is Baktchi-Serai the
centre elthe general's operations, but that a greater
importance is attached to the communications of
Baktola-Semi with Sebastopol and with Arabat,
than to these of that town with Perekop. The Rus-
sians, in fact, seem determined to defend to the last
extremity the basin of the Salzir, as well es the
ground extending from SimpheroPol to Rath, their
intention being, to all appearance, to procure their
provisions and stores from the side of Anapa, and their
reinheuments from Perekop. Should the allies
think it to enter into operations not immediately in
the neighbourhood of Sebastopol, it is not improbable
that they will act against Rakich-Sera, the centre of
the Remiss positions. Omer Pacha has just arrived
is Kaias& Bay, to be present at a council of war."

GENOA, Mica 20.

A sisal Sardinian squadron is to sail for the
Black Sea, wider Commodore Dinegro. The Eng-
lish steamers to convey the troops are expected. In
order to be able to leave a margin for non-effeotives,
the King will send 17,000 instead of 15,000 men to
the Crimes.

FRANCE AND RUSSIA.

The Monitor of yesterday concludes en article on
the death of the Csar, Nicholas 1., in the following
words :

" A great nation like ours does not rejoice when
Death strikes down an adversary, however powerful
he may be ; but all the world acknowledges that,
the band of God, in removing from the war
the sovereign by whom it was commenced,
has caused the principal obstacle to the peace of the
world to disappear. France, impartial and calm, de-1
rives her confidence not from the disappearance of an
enemy, but from the loyal concurrence of her allies,
the heroism and snows of her arms, and the justice
of her cause. Francs has made war with so much
energy, and pursued it with so much constancy, in
order to confirm the equilibrium of Europe, menaced
by an ambition which the universal eminence had
condemned."