The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-04 00:00:00

'AYS.

A VISIT TO AN AMERICAN HOSPITAL.

WASHINGTON, U.S., SEPT. 19.
People nay have read full accounts of this war, from the
firing on Fort Sumter to the invasion of Maryland ; accounts
of death on the long march, en the fetid morass, in the
sickly camp, and on the red field of battle ; but it is neither
the inspired pen nor the eloquent voice that can make them
realize in full the horrors of this bloody struggle. It is to
the hospitals teeming and choking with their many occu-
pants, that they must go, before they can say " War is
hellish ; war is diabolical."
There is a shed, dignified with the name of hospital, in
Georgetown, the interior of which reminds you more of
cattle pens in Copenhagen-fields than a sanitary building in
a civilised country. Here, in one room, are upwards of 60
beds, so close to one another that the nurses can scarce
move about without striking the couch of some poor sufferer
to whom the slightest touch is agony, and even the vibra-
tion of the floor is pain, Badly lit, badly ventilated, the
atmosphere humid, stagnant, and reeking with disease. Is
this a place in which a man with only a slight wound can
speedily recover, or in which one badly hurt though not
fatally, will not die ? The doctors do their best ; the insuf-
ficient staff of nurses do their best ; but it is next to im-
possible to battle successfully against sickness in such an,
overcrowded dismal den.
This place is, I am bound to say, not a type of the hos-
pitals in Washington and Georgetown. The Douglas, the
Judiciary, the Seminary, and several others I could name,
are well conducted. The one I allude to is only lately
opened, and perhaps the local authorities intend, in the
course of their serene leisure, to improve upon its present
arrangements. I visited it last Saturday evening, and they
in whose minds the horrors of Scutari are still vivid can
follow me with sympathetic interest as I pass along the
double file of white faces and helpless forms.
Here, on the first bed, with a coverlet over him which
might have been clean 14 days ago, is a young man despe-
rately wounded. A piece of his skull the size of half-a-
crown lies on the battlefield of Manassas. There is a ball
in his right thigh, and his left leg was amputated in the
morning. Does he groan ? No ; the bravo heart saps the
pain, and the utterance knows it not. " Have we whipped
them out of Maryland yet ?" he asks with a feeble smile.
Opposite to me I see a brokenhearted m3ther weeping
silently over the yet warm corpse of her son. For days
past he had been yearning to sea her, momentarily expected
her, and she has but just arrived, and he died 10 minutes
since. There, under the influence of an opiate, sleeps a
youth on whose pallid countenance lurks no suspicion of a
beard. On the next bed a boy, still in his teens, moves in
an uneasy sleep. " The prairie I the wide prairie I" he
utters. Poor fellow. Doubtless he dreams of his far
Western home, his youthful sports, his parents, and the
pleasant days of the long ago. I pass on. Groaning
piteously, a short distance up, lies the skeleton of a once
robust frame. He is dying by inches. Ten days, he tells
me, he lay on the field, almost glued to the earth by his
own blood. Ho got grains of food and daughts of fluid,
but what they were and who gave them to him he does not
know. Sight left him on the sixth day. " Take off my
boot," he moans, "it burns me so." Delusion. There is
no covering on his foot. But it is fiery red, and on the heel
there is a round black spot, Half an hour later, when I
passed his bed, the toil-worn body lay stiff and stark, and.
the immortal soul, released, had fled to futurity:
In the midst of so much misery, happy are they whose
mercurial temperament enables them to make light of their
present troubles and salute you with a joke instead of a
groan. I stand at the foot of a bed in which reclines a
Maine man, My coat almost touches the ropes that suspend
the splinters in which rests his shattered leg. " Get away,
or I'll kick you," he laughs. The invalid next him has a
pot of honey brought him by scree visitor to which he is
paying his respects. "I'd advise you to hide that bees'-
juice, or I'm bound to get up in the night and steal it.'
" What's out at Grover's' to-night; I want to gq." This
from a man with a ball through his right lung, another in
his hip, and in hourly expectation of having his leg ampu-
tated
Here is a poor fellow who had a hemorrhage this morning,
lying weak and exhausted. " Give him some strong beef
tea at once" orders the doctor. But the cook has nq beef,
and refers the nurse to the steward. The steward has none
either, and it is two hours before the patient obtains the
nutriment, which, if administered sooner, might have saved.
his life.
At the further end of the dimly lighted room a hero from
Sumner's division lies a dying. Lower and lower ebbs the
vital spark. Fainter and fainter comes the fast departing
breath. Mutely, with fixed and earnest eyes, he appeals to
Heaven, strives with painful effort to catch a stronger
breath, with which he may articulate some word yearning
to be borne, fails in the endeavour, and expires.
And as I pass out into the cool refreshing air of a
September night, and look down at the dead-house by the
waterside, the moon, penetrating into obscui e corners, shows
again his ghastly face. Oh, pomp and eircumstv:nce :of
glorious war I This poor man had been sighing after glory.
To earn it he left his home, his wife, his child, to battle
against insidious disease and an implacable -Zoe ; and after
18 months of hard service in Virginian swamps a leaden
bullet sends him to a reeking pest-house, and there he dies,
unknown to his friends, his name, scarce noted in the
physician's book, and, enclosed in four deal boards, he
occupies a piece of freehold six feet by two. And this is
war's reward I This is glory I

---
THE SHERIFFS' DINNER.—Last evening the new
Sheriffs for London and Middlesex, Mr. Alderman James
Clarke Lawrence and Mr. Hugh Jones, gave their inaugu-
ration dinner at the Albion, Aldersgate-street. The com-
pany, amounting to about 150 gentlemen, sat down at the
appointed hour to a sumptuous and elegant banquet, which
was served up in capital style a /a Busse. Among those
present, in addition to the hospitable hosts, were the Lord
Mayor elect, Sir G. Pollock, Sir W. Dilke, Mr. Butler,
M.P. ; Mr. Locke, M.P. ; Mr. F. W. Russell, M.P. ; Mr.
Norris, M.P. ; Mr. Doulton, M.P. ; Mr. Cox, M.P. ;
several members of the Courts of Aldermen and Common
Council, and other gentlemen. At the conclusion of the
dinner the capacious " loving cup," brimful with some
precious fluid unknown to mortals beyond the favoured
region of the city, was circulated along the tables ; and
the usual loyal and patriotic toasts were given by the
Sheriffs, with an appropriate allusion to the contemplated
marriage of the Prince of Wales, and were enthusiastically
responded to by the company. The Lord Mayor elect pro-
posed the healths of the new Sheriffs, who inacknowledging
the cordial way in which the toast was received assured the
company that on entering upon their year of duty it was
their earnest desire thoroughly and efficiently to discharge
the functions of the important office to which they had been
elected by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens. Other
toasts, most of which were of a civic character, followed,
and the festivity of the evening, enmhiasnseeEdybieys,soamned good
sgiLinewinsgThfroomm Madame
pt L.
Vining,
iwniltnhtut flagging until a pro-
tracted hour, when the company at last separated, after
enjoying together an extremely agreeable soiree. Mr.
Harker was tho toastmaster, and efficiently discharged the
duties of that office.

THE LIBERAL PARTY IN WALES.—At the con-
ference of the Liberation Society held last week at Swan-
sea, a paper was read by Mr. Carvell Williams, containing
some curious and startling facts with respect to the small
support which the Liberal party and Liberal measures in
the House of Commons receive from Wales. Thus, Mr.
Miall's motion for the disendowment of the Established
Church was supported by but two Welsh votes out of
thirty-two, while ten Welsh M.P.'s voted against it. In the
three leading divisions on the Oxford University Reform
Bill, Mr. Heywood was supported by only eight, six, and
seven Welsh votes ; ten Welsh M.P.'s voting in favour of
the Church's monopoly. So also in the divisions on the
Cambridge University Bill, three members, and in one
division, only ono M.P. voted in support of dissenting
rights. A more recent measure, the Qualification for Offices
Bill of Mr. Hadfield, received the support of only three
Welsh members; and but eight voted for Sir Morton
Peto's Nonconformists' Burials Bill, which would have
enabled Dissenting ministers to speak by the side of the
open grave words of consolation to the bereaved members
of their flocks : while twelve Welsh votes were recorded
against it. In fact, out of seven questions occurring
during the last few years, there were only two in re-
spect to which the Welsh vote, as a whole, was not
thrown into the scale of ecclesiastical exclusiveness.
Mr. Dillwyn, whose courageous and intelligent advocacy
of the rights of Dissenters had made the whole Noneonfor-
mist body his debtors—had been more fortunate with his
Endowed Schools and Charitable Trusts Bills, for he had
backed by 12 votes against 10. Much of the laxity of the
Welsh Liberal M.P.'s was attributed to the abstinence front
out door agitation. Where external pressure had been ap-
plied the result was different. Thus the votes in favour of the
Church-rate Bill had risen from lOto 17,because it was known.
the Dissenters were determined in the matter. Still compa-
ring the Welsh Dissenting population with that of England
and of Scotland, there ought to be 25 instcad of 17 Welsh
votes for abolition, In every case but two, those who
opposed the bill represented constituencies in which dis-
senters largely preponderated. The conference, which com-
prised nearly two hundred of the leading ministers and
layman of Scuth Wales, and whose proceedings, extending
over two days, appears to have been of the most earnest
character, debated this and other matters, and measures
were adopted to secure a complete organisation of Welsh
Nonconformists for political and ecclesiastical purposes.
STEAM VESSELS FOR PERU.—In addition to the
Morena and Pastaza, paddle steam vessels, of 500 tons, and
150 horse power, recently built at the premises of Messrs.
Samuda, Millwall, and forwarded to Peru, for the naviga-
tion of the river Amazon, two model iron steamers have
just been completed by the firm named for the Peruvian
republic; and as they are intended for the interior of the
country, and will be required to steer in shallow creeks, each
vessel is constructed to draw but 16 inches of water, being
nearly similar to the steamer built for and now in the ser-
vice of Dr. Livingstone. The iron plates of which these
vessels are constructed have been merely bolted together for
the convenience of transit, and they will be rivetted on
arriving at their destination.
Importing Tea without colour on the leaf Pre'
vents the Chinese passing off inferior leaves as in the
usual kinds. Horniman's Tea is uncoloured, therefore,
always good alike, Sold in packets by 2,280 Agents.