The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-03 00:00:00

WIDOWS AND ORPHANS OF THE WAR.

Now that the effort to procure funds for the bene-
fit of the sick and wounded in the war has been. fairly
successful in England, and that the courses of
supply have been freely opened, s€:veral charitably
minded people have begun to think of two other
classes of our fellow creatures, who will be placed
a . state of sore trial and need by the
We refer to the widows and orphans
of soldiers killed on the field. A first list has
been issued, with the name of the Marchioness of
Ailesbury at its head, of ladies who have already
responded to an appeal for .the purpose of relieving
those 1-ft without husbands or fathers. The new
British Institution of Artists, moreover, alive to the
urgency of the case, has philanthropically an-
nounced its intention of holding an exhibition of
pictures with a view of rendering assistance in the
same direction. Funds recaived through this
channel, however, are only to be applied to
alleviating German families, and it is there-
fore to be hoped that some other Society of
artists will not be behindhand in allowing their pic-
tures to be shewn publicly for the help of the pea-
santry of France. No doubt all appeals will be
answered in England in a way which will prove to
both nations that we are, in the true sense of the
word, a religious people.

war

INSTEAD of an Alpentock, a white arm-bandage
with a red cross upon it—that is the sign of your
tourist on the Continent for September 1870. A
noble device and an enviable ! Instead of running
the risk of breaking your own neck in the endeavour
to get to the top of something worthy of being
called an Alpine height, doing your very uttermost
to soothe the anguish of your fellow creatures.
Members of the House of Commons are
at this work on their (nominal) holidays
Disdaining the delights of grouse shooting, of
pheasant shooting, of partridge shooting, of deer
stalking, and of salmon fishing, they are off to the
seat of war, they are there walking the hospitals
after a new fashion, after the manner of amateurs,
and yet in the strictest sense professionally. Alto-
gether, as wise and generous and elevating an
application of their energies during a long
vacation as well could be. It is another
instance of good coming out of evil. If
modern warfare is more frightfully destructive
than warfare as it was of old, the care taken of the
wounded in battle. is proportionately increasel
The mitrailleuse has superseded the catapult, the
ChasspOt has eclipsed Brown Bess ; in place of the
vew-bows the foot soldiers have their arms of pre-
cision. But, while this is so, there is for the poor
knight in hospital about to lose a limb in
the hope of saving his life thiough some torment-
ing amputation—the beneficent agency of the
handkerchief saturated with chloroform. Added to
all which sanitary precautions are now the rule, in
every camp, as well as in connection with every in-
dividual ambulance, that our forefathers never dreamt
of as at all worth caring for. Lives are destroyed, no
doubt, now-a-days, more fearfully, and more by whole-
sale. The carnage upon a foughten field is more appal-
ling in its magnitude and in its devastating character.
One reads of whole regiments being stretched dead
upon the field, the men lying side by side in straight
lines like dominoes tumbled clown—the soldiers
having been swept down as they stood there. But
while this is so, unhappily—running parallel with
the horrible destructiveness of modern warfare, there
•is the benign agency of which the principal
ambulance of each army may be regarded as the
headquarters. From participation in this important
branch of service in the campaign even neutrals are,
happily, in no way debarred. England and Belgium
may provide lint and bedding, drugs and ointment,
linen and nourishment, anodynes .and anmsthe-
tics ad libitum in this way to either of
the belligerents. To those who are able to go out to WINTER, RESIDENCES FOR DELICATE PEOPLE.
the actual seat of war, and there oiler anything of all The uncertain and variable climate of the English
this to actual sufferers, be they Germans or be they winter will soon be upon us. Taos() people whose
Frenchmen, we would almost enviously offer our delicate state of health will not allow them to
very heartfelt congratulations. The responsibilities remain in this country have no doubt already begun
they are voluntarily assuming aro privileges to consider where they will travel. In the present
that airy one might be pardoned for covet-
aspect of affitirs it is doubtful how far the journey,
people, to the south of France
especiall3 by weak ing. Those who are denied by circumstances
and many favourite spots on the shores of
the painful gratification of endeavouring thus to the Mediterranean would be attended with comforts
mitigate anguish that too often, alas !—in spite of and facilities necessary for their transit. In
their' ndeavours—will be found, after all, to be vi •
ew of difficulty on the subject, two new places,
immedicable, may at least, if they so please, add, suitable in every respect, have been mentioned as
however slightly still appreciably, even though it be likely to be largely patronised in the cold months of
but by a mite, to the funds now collecting for the the coining winter. Madeira is one and Egypt is the
relief of the already scarcely calculable number or other. It is said that an invalid coining from a Lon-
the war sufferers. don to a Madeira winter would enjoy a