The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-24 00:00:00

THE BLACK SEA FLEET.

.Fitor.r. THE l'imtirr; Hee. •31.--.:The'blealciiideke
tinues, uninterrupted by any incidents, for a Qom_
shots fired by the steamers cruising at the entrance
of the harbour against the newly-erected earth-
works of the Russians scarcely merit the name of
au incident.

The fleet gets more and more transformed into a
steam fleet. With the exception of the Vengeance
and Rodney, there is no sailing vessel remaining,
and these two will likewise take their departure
`Phis is a very judicious
out from England
a shallsoon a
have
es
replaced la e steamers nt rerisn coming.
measure, for in winter sailing vessels are on this
coast nearly useless.
The south and south-west winds are still predo-
minant on the coast. A few days ago, it is true,
the wind shifted to the east and north-east, and
brought frost and snow in its wake, but to-day it
hass
quarters, threatening
u
aisleet.
its old
The
vessels have therefore
still much to suffer, their cables being exposed to a
continual strain. At the slightest sign of squally
weather they get up their steam, in order to ease
their cables by steaming against the force of the
with rain ba pack
anadg
waves. I
spoke in my former letters about the want of
assistant-surgeons i▪ n the navy, which makes itself
every day felt, but which in any y extraordinary
emergency, such as an action or an epidemic, is ten
times more felt. A comparison between the number
of vessels commissioned since the prospect of war
and the number of assistant-surgeons who have en-
tered the service si▪
nce that is sufficient to prove the
impossibility that they should properly attend to
their duty. In 1854 20 first and second-class vessels
have been commissioned, their crews amounting toat
least 17,000 men ; besides these, about 5,000 men
have been added to those already into commission,
in consequence of an order to fill up complements.
For all these 22,000, besides numbers of small
steamers and gunboats_
? only 54 new assistant-sur-
geons have been appointed in 1854, giving from
400 to 500 to the charge of each assistant-surgeon,
not counting the smaller vessels.
How can one expect that they should attend to
their charge after an action ? Moreover, there are
nearly 2JO transports which have, with very few
exceptions, no medical officer on board, and expect
—I will not decide whether rightly or wrongly—
to get assistance from the men_of-war.
It is impossible for any
.man to do all that is re-
quired of him under such circumstances ; so there
are no personi to. blame on the contrary, the way
in which the meoical officers of the fleet perform
their hard duties deserves the highest praise ; but
the thing will not be altered so long as the position
of assistant-surgeons remains as it is, and so long as
theirposition is not made such as to induce students
of some capacity to enter the service, which they
will not do if they have to pass through the ordeal
of the gunroom before they are thought fit mem-
bers of a wardroom mess.
During the last few years
.before the war the
number of new entries of
offsasistant_surgeons had
been continually dropping
, and, had it not been
for the patriotic feelings stimulated by the present
war, there can be no doubt that the Admiralty
would have had considerable difficulty in enlisting
even the services of the 54 assistant-surgeons who
were commissioned in 1804.