peration, and
injustice," and for bearing his invariable and eloquent testimony to the
bravery, endurance, and patience of the British private soldier.

In this brief recital of English blunders during the Crimean War, we
have made no mention of the desperate and disastrous "charge of the
Light Brigade," the gross and culpable inefficiency of the Baltic fleet
under Admiral Sir Charles Napier, and other instances of military
incapacity no less monstrous. Enough, however, has been told to more
than justify the very mild summing-up of Mr. Russell, that the "war
had exposed the weakness of our military organization in the grave
emergencies of a winter campaign, and the canker of a long peace
was unmistakably manifested in our desolated camps and decimated
battalions."

Why should we add to this dismal recital the appalling sufferings of
the soldiers,--helpless victims to bad management at home and shameful
neglect in the field,--the long, freezing nights of trench-work under a
driving rain, "without warm or water-proof clothing,--the trenches two
and three feet deep with mud, snow, and half-frozen slush, so that many,
when they took off their shoes, were unable to get their swollen feet
into them again, and might be seen barefooted about the camp, the snow
half a foot deep on the ground,"--creeping for shelter into "miserable
tents pitched as it were at the bottom of a marsh, where twelve or
fourteen unhappy creatures lay soaking without change of clothing" until
they were called out again to their worse than slave-labor,--disease,
brought on by exhaustion, exposure, overwork, and deficient food,
sweeping the men off by thousands, and yet no sufficient supply of
medical stores and no adequate number of medical attendants, not a soul
seeming to care for their comfort or even for their lives,--so neglected
and ill-treated that "the wretched beggar who wandered about the streets
of London led the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers
who were fighting for their country, and who were complacently assured
by the home authorities that they were the best-appointed army in
Europe." The world knows the whole sad story by heart. And is it not
written in the volumes of evidence sworn to before the Commission
appointed by Parliament to inquire into the condition of the army?

Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the extent to which the home
administration was responsible for the general mismanagement of the war,
in its ma