New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-25
INTEMpERANCE IN THE CRIMEA.

The report from Scutari that Florence Night
ipgae was i'll, worn out by her heroic devotion
TO the duties she had undertak on fell sadly on
multitude Of hearts on this side the ocean that
now rejoice to know she is recovering her
strength. Bat as we learn from a letter of hers
lust published in England, the cause of this i'll
ness has not been correctly understood. 1t Is
not the poison breath of infection or the ex-
haustion of untiring toll or the glaring summer
sun which already stares with fierce glow on the
shores of the Bosphorus that weighed down
her slender form. "All this could have borne
with deep joy" she writes, "but to see the
"stretcher brought to the gates every hour
"laeen with men foaming in the mouth and
"back in the face, not with the gore of battle
"but with the horrible DETACHMENT of foe
"more dreadful or deadly than the Russian or
"the plague, Oh it is terrible ~
This foe, of which she speaks in such touch
ing language, is intemperance. The hawkers OF
poison that has worked more ruin and wretch
edness ON earth than all other wars and wicked
ness have followed like pest in the wake of
the camp and stolen on their prey. They have
worked, Miss Nightingale says, more havoc than
the ball of the Russian or the stroke Of disease.
Nor is this foul curse of drunkenness cOniinsd
in the Crimea to men alone. Before Florence
Nightingale sank and abandoned her post OF
duty, she had night after night to sit up, unable
to trust the women appointed as nurses aud paid
to watch over the couch of sickness.
Until the grog-shops were started in the
Crimea her work was toilsome indeed, but still
a labor Of love and of hope. Her nurses were
vigilant and took pride in sharing the honors of
their task. They are now profIgate and aban-
doDed druDkards. 81 this noble girl, not until
after repeated efforts at reclamation, has been
forced to admit. Before drink came, her pa
tients were beroes they are now sots. Veins
swollen with liquor are, under the Crimean sun
glare, like powder in the focus of a burning
lens. She has had to move with disgust through
lines of beastly victims Of intemperance. Hith-
erto she had overcome the incapacity of rulers,
the ObstIuctiyeRess of subOrdinates, dirt,
dearib, disease and death, but before these last
horrors, in which under tie raging physical dis
temper a still fOuler moral disease destroys, no
wonder that, disheartened and distressed, the
brave heart which had so long supported her
fail strength gave way.
From her sick and almost dying couch she has
sent an imploring voice, as many noble children
of humanity have done before, calling upon that
country whose incapacity her heroism has re-
deemed, 10 sweep away those wretches who
fatten and feed upon the misery and ruin of their
fellow-men, who, as she says, "know not what
.they do" Banrsh she cries, Danish this dead
lest of enemies from your own ranks Ii can
hardly be that such an appeal coming from such
a source and at such an hour, can pass UNDECIDED.
II will touch not alone the heart of England,
but will rouse and animate to new exertion the
brave and the good of every land.
The picture of the work of this demon Of
drink in the Climea is but faithful type Of It's
doings in every spo! in which it obtains domn-
ion. If those only who often knowing not
what they DO" engage in and sustain this fatal
traffic, could.follow its victims and have passed
before them the brute degradation to which it
has brought once honest men, and the misery it
has planted on many happy hearth, We cannot
! believe but tina. they would shrink with horror
| from this wriDging of wealth out of the blood of
their f How beings. IL is not in the reve round
the camp FIRE of thu Crimea that the effects of in
temperance are found. 1t is in those scenes which
have struck down the gentle spirit of Florence
nightingale, it is in the hospital and death-he sp
at ScutaIi. 1t is not in the glee OF the gilded