The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1864-08-23
A NUISANCE NEEDING CORRECTION

n NUISANCE NEEDING CORRECTION.
Is It necessary to keep four or five hundred
Rble-bodied soldiers at a single military hos
pitalS What service can require so many
men at such a post? Guard duty merely
can be performed by company of one hun
,>dred, and that is about all the occasion there
Us Cor an active force at any military in
hrmary. AT one hospital in the suburbs
there are several hundred soldiers At for
active, service and who ought to be in the
aeld, where they are needed. They are of no
use where they are. They are allowed, too, the
largest liberty to go and come. The most OF
their time is spent in the city in dissipa-
uon that rapidly dlsquali6es them for
the business for which they enlisted. They go
to tsyerns, get drunk, become boisterous and
profane, engage in quarrels aud fights, and
seriously disturb the public peace. In this
kind Of ffolic they not only injure themselves
physically and morally, but they waste their
money. A months pay is squandered in a
nights carousal This is all wrong, not only
in view of the interest of the soldier, who
Is demorallzed by such life, but also as
regards the Government, which pays for
the support Of man who is able to perform
military service but who, as soon as he is re
covered from the wounds or sickness incurred
in the line of his duty, is allowed freedom
of action in the indulgence of his passions
and appetites, which not only destroys his
health, but debauches him to an extent that
entirely units him for the duty of the camp.
Soldiers, we presume, are sent to hospitals
TO be restored if possible, to a condition that
VIII enable them to return to active service in
the field. But five judge from what we see,
we should infer that the act Of putting an in
Valided private into a hospital is equivalent to
keeping him out Of the army altogether, and
placing him permanently on the pension list.
This should not be the effect of that
generous and humane provision which
che Government makes for its disabled
soldiers. The nation needs every man
Tho Is able to do battle for its life in
hoat Of the enemy. But unless our Observa-
tien is very much at fault, it would seem that
che military hospitals are so managed as to
prevent majority of the soldiers who once
enter them from ever being restored TO their
regiments In the field. We know, of course,
that numbers are returned to duty from time TO
time but it is in spite ofthe loose habits theyare
allowed TO contracts and the eXcesses into which
they are allowed TO run during their cOnnec-
ton with the hospitals. Crowds Of them are
daily permitted to go to the city on passes, at
az hours, and many of them return In baastly
state Of intOxication. On certain street in
the Tweuty-fcurth Ward. along which the
ioea pass from and 20 thc hospital. they
Ne continuously moving ut all ho1rs
OF the day aud night; aud Il Is
notorious in that neighborhood t'at
tire language they use is so lewd mId bias
plsmous as to shock the ears Of ali decent
residents upon the line oi thc doroughtar2.
ia short, the conduct Of many Of the con'a-
iescen;s who are suffered 3" lesNr the h",-
pi' ais ana go at large is -eriols mt~'nt', "t
winch the,c i, vcry general go upIa.rt; aud
.css those having. charge of the hospitals
ard their inmates institute aud enforce
better system OF discipline, the whole mattel
win probably be reported to the War Depart
ment by those citizens who are now sc
grievously annoyed.