Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/484

440 APPENDIX. failed not to bcneiit from the experience of their war-inurcJ comrades. Note 20. — Not, however, it is true, without putting soinctiiues what was thought a great strain on their powers. Vlien they were constructing their stone-laid road from Kamiesh up to camp, the pressure caused by that and other duties was deemed to be a very serious matter in reference to its bearing on the health of the soldier, and the authorities marked with anxiety that his nights for rest were only one in two. — ' Rapport,' p. 56. Compare this French thoughtfulness with the wild guidance offered by London advisers who, when our poor soldiers were having but one night of rest out of five, would have had them work so much more, and rest so much less, as to be able to construct all at once a stone-laid road some eight or nine miles in length ! The strain afterwards became yet greater. ' Our men are on duty five nights ' out of six. ' — Lord Raglan to Duke of Newcastle, December 26, 1854. Note 21. — A large quarto volume, already more than once (]uoted, called ' Rapport au Conseil de Sant6 des Armies,' par J, G. Chenu. Note 22. — They fail, for instance, to show how many men died in the hosjvtals from frost-bite, or scurvy, or, in fact, from any other malady. There are two tables (pp. 564, 565), which, giving returns 'par maladies,' seem at first to offer the informa- tion required ; but upon closer examination, they are found to contain nothing more than a recapitulation of the Ambulance Returns fused with those of four small hospitals which did not, I believe, receive any patients from the Crimea. Note 23. — The 'Rapport' (p. 579) states that the admissions into hospital or ambulance, in the course of the war, were 436,144, but the compiler adds an assurance that the real number of wounded and" sick did not exceed 225,000 (ibid.), thus ()uietly ascribing to the Report an error of 211,144 ! The hospital re- turns purport to distinguish wnth care between what our statists have called ' primary admissions, ' and those of patients trans- ferred from other establishments, by separating the ' entr6s par ' billet ' from the ' entr6s par Evacuation ; ' and whilst putting those last at 119,900, they enumerate the 'primary admissions' in figures which amount to no less than 452,223 ; but the cora piler — perhaps rightly — warns us that if we were to accept the official account of ' primary admissions ' (even putting it, as in the summary, at only 430,144) we should be counting tens o^ thousands of patients twice over. — Ibid. The error (if error there