rtion to the distance of the hospital
from the great Government centres of supply. This is a noiseless and
unostentatious charity,--sometimes, I am tempted to think, too
noiseless and unostentatious. A few weeks ago, a lady friend visited one
of the hospitals near Washington, carrying with her for distribution
some Sanitary goods. She gave a handkerchief to one of the sick men. He
took it, looked at it, read the mark in the corner, paused as if he had
received a new idea, and then spoke out his mind thus:--"I have been in
this hospital six months, and this is the first thing I ever received
from the Sanitary Commission."--"But," she replied, "have you not had
this and that?" mentioning several luxuries supplied to this very
hospital for extra diet.--"Oh, yes, often!"--"Well, every one of these
articles came from the Sanitary Commission."

Just now the Sanitary is seeking to enter into closer relations with the
hospitals through the agency of regular visitors. The advantages of such
a policy are manifest. The reports of the visitors will enable the
directors to see more clearly the real wants of the sick; and the
frequent presence and inquiries of such visitors will tend to repress
the undue appropriation of hospital stores by attendants. But the
highest benefit will be the change and cheer it will introduce into the
monotony of hospital life. If you are sick at home, you are glad to have
your neighbor step in and bring the healthy bracing air of out-door life
into the dimness and languor of your invalid existence. Much more does
the sick soldier like it,--for ennui, far more than pain, is his great
burden. When I was at Washington, I accepted with great satisfaction an
invitation to go with a Sanitary visitor on her round of duty. When we
came to the hospital, I asked the ward-master if he would like to have
me distribute among his patients the articles I had brought. He said
that he should, for he thought it would do the poor fellows good to see
me and receive the gifts from my own hands. The moment I entered there
was a stir. Those who could hobble about stumped up to me to see what
was going on; some others sat up in bed, full of alertness; while the
sickest greeted me with a languid smile. As I went from cot to cot, the
politeness of _la belle France_, with which a little Frenchman in the
corner touched the tassel of his variegated nightcap at me, and the
untranslatable gutturals, full of honest satisfaction, with wh