the
care of its members require as much talent, intelligence, and discipline
as any of the ordinary occupations of men. Throughout the civilized
world, this responsibility and the labor necessary for its fulfilment
absorb a large portion of the mental and physical power of women.

When the new recruit enters the army, he leaves all this care and
protection behind, but finds no substitute, no compensation for his loss
in his new position. The Government supposes either that this is all
unnecessary, or that the man in arms has an inspired capacity or an
instinctive aptitude for self-care as well as for labor, and that he can
generate and sustain physical force as well as expend it. But he is no
more fitted for this, by his previous training and habits, than his
mother and wife are for making shoes or building houses by theirs.
Nevertheless he is thrown upon his own resources to do what he may for
himself. The army-regulations of the United States say, "Soldiers are
expected to preserve, distribute, and cook their own subsistence"; and
most other Governments require the same of their men. Washing, mending,
sweeping, all manner of cleansing, arrangement and care of whatever
pertains to clothing and housekeeping, come under the same law of
prescription or necessity. The soldier must do these things, or they
will be left undone. He who has never arranged, cared for, or cooked his
own or any other food, who has never washed, mended, or swept, is
expected to understand and required to do these for himself, or suffer
the consequences of neglect.

The want of knowledge and training for these purposes makes the soldier
a bad cook, as well as an indiscreet, negligent, and often a slovenly
self-manager, and consequently his nutrition and his personal and
domestic habits are neither so healthy nor so invigorating as those of
men in civil life; and the Government neither thinks of this deficiency
nor provides for it by furnishing instruction in regard to this new
responsibility and these new duties, nor does it exercise a rigid
watchfulness over his habits to compel them to be as good and as healthy
as they may be.

MUCH SICKNESS DUE TO ERRORS OF GOVERNMENT.

Whatever may be the excess of sickness and mortality among soldiers over
those among civilians, it is manifest that a great portion is due to
preventable causes; and it is equally manifest that a large part of
these are owing to the negligence of the Government or its agents