The Liverpool Standard, and General Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1854-10-31 00:00:00

countrymen. Decisive victories are rarely, if ever, the
result of sudden movements or fortuitous circumstances ;
on the contrary, they are almost invariably brought about
by profound thought and skilful adaptation of means to
ends. That celerity of judgment which is unable to see
anything but incompetency in delay is not much to be
relied on. While making these remarks, however, lam
painfully reminded of the grave charges laid to the door
of our home authorities as to the inadequate provision
made for relief of the wounded and the sick. From these
charges they have in a great degree been able to vindicate
themselves, and their assertions as to the entire adequacy
of the arrangements are fortunately borne out as respects
the hospitals at Constantinople, five hundred wounded
English and French soldiers having been declared re-
covered from their wounds received at the battle of Alma,
and taken their departure for the Crimea. While this
practical refutation of the serious charges made against

the home arrangements, in this department, is so far
satisfactory, it is doubly painful to learn that provision
for the sick and wounded, in the more immediate vicinity
of Sebastopol, has been very imperfectly made; not by
the home authorities, but by some of those on the spot.
Some of the medical officers of the British division have
so negligently performed their duty, or rather abstained
from any performance of it, as to call for severe condem-
nation from the commander-in-chief. " The sick were
sent down from the camp to Balaklava," says Lord
RAGLAN, in a general order issued on the 11th instant,

" under charge of a medical officer of the division to which
they respectively belonged; but on their arrival there it
was found that no preparation had been made for their

reception

** * The consequence was, that the sick,
many of them in a very suffering state, remained in the
streets for several hours, exposed to very inclement wea-
ther. The
.name of the officer who was guilty of this
gross neglect is known to the Commander of the Forces.
He will not now publish it, but he warns him to be care-
ful in future, and to be cautious how he again exposes
himself to censure." Whoever the caitiff may be whose neg-
ligence is thus sharply rebuked, he had indeed needs " be
cautious how he again exposes himself" to a censure so

ignominious.
In the meantime, philanthrophy and public spirit con-
tinue actively on the alert at home, and great exertions
have been and still continue to be made for securing the
means of assuaging the sufferings of those who have been
wounded in the deadly conflicts which have occurred, or
may yet occur, and to afford such consolation and com-
fort to the widows and orphans of those who perish, as
may be commanded by public generosity and national
gratitude. Subscriptions continue to pour in to the Royal
Patriotic Fund, from all corners of the island ; and from
every town, city, and hamlet, the voice of approbation is
raised in its favour. On Tuesday, a staff of forty trained
nurses, headed by Miss NIGHTINGALE, left London for
Constantinople, to tend the sick and wounded. As to the
character and status of this young lady, much anxiety and
no small amount of misapprehension are abroad. She is a
lady by birth, being the daughter and presumptive
heiress of Mr. NIGHTINGALE, of Lea Hurst, in Derbyshire,
and, as I think, of Flemblen-hall, in Herefordshire. Reared
in the cradle of luxury, Miss NIGHTINGALE, who is
nearly oecval in years with our beloved QUEEN, has, from
her earliest youth, been devoted to acts of benevolence
and kindness. She has been an extensive traveller, having
traversed the most of Europe, and ascended the Nile to
its highest known cataracts. By home training and tra-
velling experience, she is accomplished in nearly all the
tongues of Europe, and is learned in the classic languages
of antiquity ; and she is also represented as being skilled
in the arts and sciences ; but above all, she has always
been distinguished for the heroism of her humanity in
ministering to those in distress. In this respect, not con-
tent with tending those alone who might be said to have
peculiar claims upon her benevolence as the sons and
daughters of the soil of her own nativity,—many of whom
bear witness to her acts of kindness and charity,—she
travelled through Germany and other quarters of Europe
in 1850-51, visiting the hospitals and attending to the
sick and afflicted. Those who know her well represent
her as being gentle though firm, and as sagacious, though
simple in demeanor. Of her, Mr. SYDNEY HERBERT is
safe in saying, "Miss NIGHTINGALE, who has, I believe,
greater practical experience of hospital administration and
treatment than any other lady in this country, has, with a
self-devotion, for which I have no words to express my
gratitude, undertaken this noble but arduous work." Re-
markable as the high-born daughters of England are for
the exercise of intelligent benevolence, it is but rare that
so devoted and self-sacrificing an instance of it is to be
found as in the case of Miss NIGHTINGALE, to whom be
all honour and praise.
In my last I alluded to the sublime although passive
heroism of Dr. Trrolusosr, of the 44th Regiment, who
remained in charge of 750 wounded Russians who had
been left helpless on the heights of Alma. Of this gallant
man it is more than ordinarily painful to learn that he
has fallen a victim to cholera, too probably induced by
over-exertion in the cause of humanity. Concerning him
the correspondent of the Times makes the following
mention :—" Dr. JAMES THOMSON, Assistant-Surgeon of
the 44th Regiment, and his soldier-servant, deserve to be
held up as heroes. For four or five days they, and they
alone, had to wait upon and support this enormous mass
of severely wounded men. The task was in many respects
a most dangerous one. As we have seen, the patients
themselves were not to be trusted. The Cossacks might
also at any time make prisoners of them on the retreat of
the allied armies. The dead were festering in heaFs
around the sick and dying. These two men had fre-
quently to bury a horrible mass of carcases and fragments
before they could get at some poor wounded wretches.
In this way they must with their own hands have dragged
out and buried some two hundred. There was no food of
any kind for the sick, so the soldier managed to drive a
stray bullock, and with the aid of some Russian con-
valescents (their misfortunes seemed to have humanized
them), he killed it and made some soup for them. At
length, HER MAJESTY'S ships Albion, Vesuvius, and the
screw transport Avon, arrived. The whole crew of the
first landed and removed the wounded on board the Avc n.
while the Vesuvius guarded the shore. In the midst of
this humane occupation, a Russian force of some 4,000 or
5,000 men approached the village, and the sailors were
obliged to hasten on board, as it was beyond the range of
the ships' guns. However, 340 wounded were put on
board the Avon, under charge of their heroic preservers,
Dr. THoMsoN and his servant." Such disinterested he-
roism and humane bravery has few parallels in the annals
of ancient or modern warfare, and the death of such a
man cannot be looked on as other than a loss to the human

The gloomy curtain which for so many years has hung
over and separated Sir JOHN FaANKLEv and his brave
confederates from the living world has been at last with-
drawn, and the fatal tragedy which sealed their doom has
been in part revealed. On the roll of perished heroes,
which is every day being swelled by the addition of noble
martyrs, we have now to place the Arctic voyagers. Al-
though, in a few instances, that hope which

springs eternal in the human breast
continued to struggle on in some fondly devoted hearts ,
the general belief had long been fixed that FnewKLIN and
his co-mates had reached
The undis.cover,sl country, from whose boar ne

No traveller returns,
and the early part of last week brought the British pub-
lic conclusive evidence that such was the melancholy
fact. Dr. RAE, whose recorded exploits as an Arctic
discoverer place him high in the rank of authorities on
such subjects, arrived in this country on Sunday se'nnight ,
bringing with him evidences which leave no room for doubt
that Sir JOHN FRINNKLIN and most, if not every one, of
his brave associates have miserably perished. What adds
much to the poignancy of this dreadful discovery, is th e
fact that the authoritative attempts to render succour to
the gallant adventurers were by far the least successful,
and that every attempt to induce the authorities at the
Admiralty to adopt a course of search, in the only line
which Dr. RAE's discovery has proved to be the one
affording a chance of success, was perseveringly resisted .
In 1847; Dr. KING addressed a letter to Lord GREY, en-
treating to be conjoined, as an independent explorer, with
Sir JAMES Ross and Sir Joni RICHARDSON, he being
desirous to take the Great Fish River as his field of in-
vestigation. Again, in 1849, he renewed this application,
but also with a similar want of success. Yet on this very
track it is now ascertained that the last remnants of the
expedition perished. What may have been the exact cir-
cumstances in which the gallant leader yielded to his in-
exorable fate it is impossible to determine. To the perils
and sufferings, and probable termination of the dreadful
journey he had undertaken, after forsaking his ship, Sir
Joint FRANKLIN was no stranger. He had encountered
the horrors of even his final journey nearly to their termi-
nation in a previous instance, and thus describes them :
" At this period we avoided as much as possible convers-
ing upon the hopelessness of our situation, and generally
endeavoured to lead the conversation towards our future
prospects in life. With the decay of our strength, in fact,
our minds decayed, and we were no longer able to bear
the contemplation of the horrors that surrounded us.
Each of us excused himself for so doing by a desire of not
shocking the feelings of the others. We were sensible of
one another's weakness of intellect, though blind to our
own, Yet we were calm and resigned to our fate; not a