The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-21 00:00:00

I MILITARY HOSPITAL.

The correspondent of the Standard, writing from Arras,
December 17, thus describes his visit to a military hospi-
tal :—My first visit was to the Hospital de Jean. I am
told that it is the largestand most important in the Pas-
de-Calais, and, like the Hotel Dieu at Amiens, it is both
civil and military. In this hospital alone there were about
400 beds. Most of them are occupied by the wounded
from Sedan. The moment I entered the principal corridor
I perceived an odour that I had never before en-
countered—a warm, sickly, heavy breath, that strongly
reminded me—l cannot say why—of dying exotics in a
stifled conservatory, and as yet I could see nothing. The
first man I summoned up courage to speak to had the
whole of his jaw literally smashed by a shell. Only the
upper part of his face was visible, and he was unable to
speak. But he was recovering surely, and beyond a sad
disfigurement, would soon be able to move. The linen
on his bed was deliciously clean, and a little table was
by his bedside covered with presents of delicacies
from his friends. Next to him was a boy, only 17,
one of the marines who made such a gallant stand at
Amiens, and who actually fired upon their own men for
trying to escape across the river. He had a ball in his
side, and the doctors had not yet been'able to extract it.
Beyond was a Turco, with an expression on his face of
undisguised barbaric contempt of pain. Both his legs
were cut clean off by a cannon balL He was smok-
ing a huge cigar, and took not the slightest
notice of us whatever. I offered him a good
Havannah. He took it without saying a word,
lighted it, puffed at it once or twice, and
the faintest attempt at a smile dawned on his face, as ho
muttered " bono." When I was leaving the room, he
beckoned me over to him, nodded to me with a strange,
kindly smile, and shook my hand to thank me, but
never said a word. A few beds beyond a very old soldier
was dangerously ill. He was seriously wounded in the
ankle joint, and inflammation had set in. A young boy,
who had been wounded at Villers-Bretonneux, was
reading to him. I looked at the book. It
was the Russian Campaign of the Great Napo-
leon. In one corner of the room was a young
artilleryman, with a face of the strangest beauty I
could have conceived it possible for a man to possess. His
attitude was so motionless that it might have been taken
for death, but that his eyes were open, and looking with
a long, wearying look through a window that was open
.oppesite. A crucifix that was suspended by a gold chain
hung round his neck, and lay on his breast, and some
beer violets were near his right hand. He was a
Breton, and had had two brothers. They fought
side 'by side in the same regiment at Sedan, and
where he lay after the battle grievously wounded
his two brothers lay dead beside him. The mother
of the three young soldiers was a widow : and when a
month afterwards she heard the news she set out from
Dinan, in Brittany, to go to her last son, but died of
grief before she was able to see him. The violets that
lay upon his bed were sent to him every morning by a
young girl who lived in the town, who had never seen
him, but had heard, in common with all, his sad
story. There were three men beyond him who suffered
from the most extraordinary wounds, all received at
Sedan, and, curiously enough, by three comrades.
A shell had fallen upon one, and exploded in such
a manner that it literally tore off both his hands from the
wrists without touching him in any other way. The
second received a ball on the side of his nose ; it penetrated
his palate, went down his throat, and simply puzzled all
j the medical faculty to discover where it had gone to.
The third was struck near the left temple. The bullet
made its way instantaneously to the shoulder, lodged
in the man's arm for a time, and finally came out
at the elbow. They were all three rapidly recovering

and the man with the undiscovered ball wag,
curiously enough, not a little proud of his eccentric con-
stitution. The deaths had been and were of constant
occurrence, The men have lain so long on the 6eld of
battle and during the cold nights that gangrene had fatally
set in. Many even had died in the act of being tranaP°r'
ted. Of 25 cases in one hospital (the Grand Sdminaire at
the Bishop's Palace) where amputation had been neces-
sary, only three survived. One of them was a rung
fellow of 19, which was the brightest and gayest of them
all. His right arm was severed close to the shoulder' and
a sleeveless arm was looped up with a certain wild do
that made one think it was rather a good joke thanll
otherwise.