The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-12-15
WOES OF THE HOSPITAL
RED CROSS WOMAN TRIES TO PIC
TURE PITIFUL SCENES.
Mrs. Schaefer Says scores of Soldiers
Are Dying at Manila for Want
of Proper NOurishment.

HONOLULU, Dec. Z. via San Francisco,
Dec. 1.-THE United States transport Scan
Ola has arrived here from Manila, which
place she left Nov. Is She brings a
number of officers ninety-one discharged
and furloughed men and two Red Cross
nurses. She brings the largest mail that
ever left Manila. 21S sacks for San Fran
cisco and one for Honolulu. The vessel will
resume her voyage about the 10Th inst
Mrs. Schaefer, of the Red Cross. who went
from Honolulu to Manila arriving there OH
Sept. rs, has returned here and makes start
ling charges as to the way United States
soldiers are taken care of in Manila. Miss
Sehaefer says: Scores of TIE soldier boys
are dying in the hospitals at Manila just
for want of proper nOurishment. They say
the government allows 90 cents a day for
each patient. You can save dozens of lives
on D cents a day. Oh. the utter woe OF the
hospitals, the helpIessness of them! Men as
bright, as noble as Good ever made given
up TO death, hoping for 1t, seeking it, taking
poison, doing anything that will end the
despair that comes upon them. Seeing
nothing before them but days of pain and
nights of wretchedness without proper food ;
alone, with no one to give them sympathy
or cheer. to write to friends, to soothe the
aching brOws or mosten parched lips if
by sheer endurance of nature or ohstinacy
of vitality they do get better there is before
them nothing but the still more cherries
period of convalescence, with the probability
of a relapse and the old WEAKNESS of
despair to be suffered again. No wonder
there are six or seven funerals day No
wonder the dead house is never empty.
And outside the hospitals and even in
them such Indifference! Petty consideration
of rank and position squabbles about prece-
dence. lack of consideration in preparing
food while men are dying not merely of
heart hunger. but for want of nourishment
I have gone through the wards day after
day and as I spoke to this one and that
and they poured out their woes mon who
do not wear their hearts on their sleeves
cried for the pure agony of their loneliness
anu despair. made poignant and vivid by
their own telling of 1t.
Il got so l just could not go through the
wards. What could | do? ] saw the need
of care, of proper nourishfent. of the most
ordinary hospital treatment and was utterly
helpless to do anything; just one cog In the
one remorseless grinding machine. whose
material was noble men and whose grist
was death. do not mean that attendants
OF the hospitals are careless or Indifferent
Many are trying to do their best There are
z lot OF worthiness and unselhshness among
the attendants at the hospitals. But there is
SO much ineNperience, so MANY clogs to
those who would do much. To think of an
attendant going through ward with a nail
of beef broth ladling it out TO the fifty or
sixty patients Unfortunately by the cup
ful! In the whole pail there was not enough
nourishmeDt for one. even If ii was made
of the best ma erial But what it really was
made of | merely shut my eyes and refuse
TO imagine. In a whole ward there is not
more than one nurse with experience. and
for helpers only one or two awkward bows
who perhaps never saw sick room be-
FORE
Colonel George W. McFarlane returned to
Honolulu by the Coptic and brings word
that the controller of the currency has guar
anteed TO Perry s. Heath first assistant
postmaster general. and his associates that
he will issue the charter for the new bank
IN which James Campbell and himself are
interested soon as Congress extends the
territorial laws to Hawaii