New-York daily tribune., 1856-02-29
THE ORDER OF THE NIGHTINGALE.

Tie world grows wiser very slowly, but it does
improve trife from generation TO generation. AT
any rate, it grows little more humane from age
to age-and humanity is wisdom. A century ago
the Slave Trade was respectable traffic, and only
here AMI there mystic or fanatic, like Benjamin
Lay or J,ln Wesley, could see any particular harm
in Slavery itself Lunatcs were regarded with
superstitious terror kept chained in darkness and
OH straw, and tormented with hunger and stripes.
So of all the unfortunate classes of society. Lon
don was as full of the caverns
Where horeless Anguish poured his grOsD,
And lonely Want retired to die"
then rs now, but no Dickens had poured the light
of his genius into their recesses and compelled at
tenioR and an impulse, atleast, toward relief puri
fcation and elevation. The horrible prisons
swarmed with squalid criminals who were led out
by dozens TO bc hanged like dogs-if they were not
swept off by the merciful interpOsitOn of the Jail
fever, which, spreading sometimes from the dock
to the bench ard the jury-box, vindicated the
equality of mankind before the pestience. No
Earl of Shaftesbury Of that day thought of extend
ing hand to help raise these Ishmaels of the brick
wilderness to self.respect, industry and happiness.
The world has not yet advanced to the percep-
ton that cannon balls rife bullets, bsyonets and
sabres are not the best arbers OF national disputes.
We see England clasping the bloOdstained hand
that struck the coup Gttat OF the ID OF December,
in defense of Civilization against Barbarism, BY
the butchery, mutilation and death by disease OF
some half million Of human beings The arts OF
destruction have advanced since the wars of Marl-
borough, and even of Napoleon, in nearly the same
ratio as those of peace. and the number Of men
tiat cen be- knocked on the head in given time
is as much greater now than then as the number Of
yards of calico that can be turned of. But the
difference between those wars and this is II be dis
covered in the thought and consideration now
given TO the common soldier-a thing quite new in
hist,ry. The horrors of the commits ssariat are fresh
in sll minds and the tens of thousands OF brave
men who were done TO death by red tape. But
Roderck Random viii tell us that corruptious
were as shameful and abuses as great a century
ago, and Colonel Napier bears witness that they
were no lees at the beginning Of the Peninsulsr
war; only in those times, they excited no partic-
ulsr attention. The common soldier WAS made to
be 70, for powder and to be the natural prey of
the contractors. Even the names Of those tha, fell
in battle or died of disease were not published in
the Gazette, so that it might be months or years
before their wives and children could learn what
had become Of them, unless by accident. All this,
at least, has been changed. The cOmmissarist has
been reformed. The hospitals have been put on
new footing. And the humane public sentiment
which has extorted these conces ssions for the hum
bic private is the one golden thread which runs
through and relieves the black tissue of bad pas
sions which the war has woven
The type and embodiment Of this change in pub