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CAEE OF THE SICK AND WOUNDED. 389 missioners to make suggestions to Lord William chap. Paiilet. Eeceiving that warrant on either the 2 2d or 23d of January, they so far obeyed it as to make some recommendations to Lord William Paulet on the 2Gth, and some more on a later day ; but these pointed to what may be called the com- mand and disposition of troops in connection with our Scutari liospitals, and did not embrace the main subject.('^^) The Commissioners (as expressly directed) addressed their Eeport — not to any authority on the spot, but — to our War Department in London. It was at Scutari on the 23d of February,(^^) that they made their Eeport, and it probably reached Whitehall about the 9th of the following month, so that Minis- ters in the second week of March might at last undertake to found beliefs or opinions upon the knowledge obtained, might frame their meas- ures accordingly, might send out their decrees to the East, and perhaps hope to see them be- ginning to take some effect in the middle or latter part of the spring — a time later by three or four months than that at which Sir George Brown saw perfection in our hospital wards, and ascribed it to womanly energies. Thus sorrily lagged the males in their unde- signed trial of speed and power with what proved not only the swifter, not only the more agile mind, but also the higher capacity for executive business, and even the more intent will. If, regarded as only concerning the internal administration of the Scutari hospitals, this ap- XL