The true Democrat., 1855-05-01
From the N. o. Delta. A Tale of Horror.

The investigations of the committee dem and ed by Mir. Roebuck, and appointed by the house of commons, for the purpose of arriving at the true condition of the British soldiers in the Crimea, have already educed record of hor- TOTS which has no precedent in the martial hs- tory of the most barbarous times. The witnes- ses examined have been men of unquestioned reputation, and the proceedings have been con- ducted up to this, with strict and praiseworthy impartiality. No attempt has been made to screen the aristecratic incapables on whom the responsibility of the terrible facts must rest, the English people resolved to know the worst at once, and though the progress of the investiga- ton unfolds the history of their shame they do not shrink from its publication. The details already published are too revolting to lay before American readers, who are not immediately in- terested in the war. We confess that a sicken- ing feeling crept over us as we read them, for never had the dark imagination of Dante in his vision of tortured souls conjured up such an array of horrors as have actually been wtnes- sed in our own days in the Crimea
 The two witnesses who had the best oppor- tunity to judge of the condition of the sick and wounded soldiers before Sebastopo of the manner in which the hospitals were conducted, of the state of the transports and the facilities non-facilities of relieving the sufferers, were MT. Stafford and the Rev. Sidney Godolphin Orsborne, the celebrated S. G. O. of the Lon- don Times. Their evidence was clear, circum- stantial and accurate. Their description of the state of the hospitals, the filthy appearance of everything, the bodies of the unfortunate SOL diers "covered with lice as thick as letters on printed page," bears all the appearance of unex- aggerated, but frighful truth. In the first place .l 4, tb ooi1,
 the sick and wounded to the hospitals were were without the simplest drugs or any of the most important appliances of their profession; then that there was neither food nor clorhing for the sufferers at all resembling what they needed; and finally, that the wards were crowd ed to suffocation, there being no ventilation save through the broken windows. One startling sentence of Mr. Staford's brings the scene vivid- ly before us: "if," he says, "the Black sea was clear, you could steer your way from Balakalva to the Bosphorus by the skeletons lying on the bottom, which had been thrown over from the transports!" A bold sentence, and one which England will long remember with shudderlng and sorrow. On the same authority we find that Miss Nightingale applied for sponges for the operations, and that only two could be had h the chief hospital; that the necessary ampu- tatlons were performed on the officers tables which were anything but steady; that there were no facilities for cleanliness and in the signi tcant words of MT. Osborne, that washing was entirely unknown" Such was the barba- rous treatment of the British braves" It is not difficult, therefore, to imagine the position Of the wretched Russian prisoners who were thrown amongst them!
 At the entrance of the chief hospital, accord ing to MT. Stafford, the feces of the men were two feet deep, and the smell, mingling with the scent of blood and ulcerating wounds, bafaed all description. Filth and misery everywhere; amputated limbs lying round; blankets "heavy with ordure and nastiness;" orderlies swearing at the complaints of the maimed wretches; fiji. teen men at time heaped into one room-such was the scene which met the eyes of the dis gusted visitor. Worse than the miserable &C., commentators, however, was the miserable die- 'afy' The meat for the sick, says MT. Osborne,