The age-herald., 1900-07-05
HORRIBLE TALE
 OF SOUTH AFRICA England Has. Not Cared for Sick
 Soldiers. THE SUFFERING TERRIBLE Member of Parliament Writes Scath- ing Denunciation of the Methods Used in the English Army
 During War
 
THE SUFFERING TERRIBLE

London, July 4.-Nany complaints and criticisms have been showered upon the war office, but no more scathing and prac- tical denunciation of it's methods has been written than the letter of Times corre- spondent recently in South Africa, pub lished today. The writer, William L. Ash- mead Bartlett Burdett-Coutts, member of Parliament for Westminster, the American husband of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, exposes in detail the inadequacy of the British Hospital Service and relates the in- tense suffering which has been caused thereby. In part, his letter is as follows
 ITO a mind shocked with scenes which sicken the hardest heart, it comes like blow between the eyes, leaving one bewil- dered, to learn that at the very moment these horrors are at the worst, and when men are dying like flies for want of atten- tion, large company of intelligent and well-meaning gentlemen at home, both lay and professional were feasting on (among other things which the war-worn soldiers out here would have been equally glad to have) the perfecting of medical and hos pital arrangements in this campaign. On that night Saturday. hundreds of men who were lying in the worst stages of typhoid fever, with only a blanket and thin water proof sheet (not even the latter for many of them) between their aching bodies and the hard ground, with no milk and hardly any medicine; without beds stretchers or mattresses; without linen of any kind; without a single nurse among them: with only a few ordinary private soldiers to make 'orderlies,' rough and utterly un- trained to nursing, and with only three doctors to attend thtm.
 There were none of the conditions of a forced march. It was mile from Bloem- fontein, large town which we had occu- pied for more than six weeks, with a line of railway to seaports, along which thous- andS of troops and countless. trainloadS of stores and equipment of all kinds, and for every one but the sick, had been moving up during the whole of that leisurely halt ing day. About the same day a. convoy of wounded men were being subjected to nameless torture for want of ambulance, transport or the simplest comforts, hud- ded together in rough, springless OK wagons, jolted over spruit and drift for forty miles, the road being strategically safe, and their destination, this same Bloemfontein, provided with most things except humane supplies for the wounded These are two typical instances of the state of things here on April 2S
 Gloomy Proeessions
 From morning to night the gloomy pro- cession followed each other across the mar ket: square at slow march with arms reversed, bearing shapeless figures sowD up in blankets to unknown crowded graves in the country of Southern Hill, day after day and week after week, in eyer-growing numbers. How many of these might have been strong men, full of life, rejoicing at their near return to home and friends, is a tarrihIa proh1ero 1Uhi ha loft to those who considered themselves at tending to the sick.
 With incredible ignorance by what bankruptcy of instance against patent dangers were such funeral-baked meats permitted to furnish forth that ill-timed feast at the reform club, where the spirit of econgratuation filled the atmosphere, and nothing was heard but the eloquent and highly authoritative statements that it would not be possible to have anything more complete or better arranged than the medical service in this war.
 Next morning very nearly all the press took up the chorus, and comforting sense of satisfaction settled down in the pub lie mind. Amid all the checkered course of this war, here at last was white illufnined square, one just and righteous cause of national congratu1ation. The repu- tatfon of England for humanity had been vindicated, for all was well with the sick and wounded.
  lures suffered by our wounded there, ow- ing entirely to short coming of medical equipment staff and transports. were a by-Word in every mouth before the first chapter closed
 Have Been Two Plagues
 "So far as the sick are concerned there have been two plaques In South Africa the plague of blindness and the plague Of whitewash. Whitewash can easily be got rid of, but if allowed to remain it doubles the dangers of blindness when that super venes Just as there was no quayer in the notea of absolute perfectibility about the past so there was no warning as to the future. Read the two speeches through from end to end and no whisper of it is to be heard. The past accounted for the eX- treme limit of patience which the army medical department could deal with eff ciently-say five thousand-there would have been no sickness to speak of, yet the lesson of every war that ever occurred in writ in large history and carved on a mil lion tombstones-three sick at least to one wounded. Was there no place for reserva- tion as to the fifteen thousand and more to come and how they were to be dealt with by an organization suitable to five thousand and already full? Was it fair to the British army? Was it just to the British public to go humping the tub of perfection and to pronounce the verdict before the real trial began? Would it not have been common prudence to wait and see what would happen? It was no longer even a matter of speculation. Already they opened their deadly wings and spread like Some mighty vulture over march and camp and field and town. from front to of South Africa
 a lyva ,ati UYac