England; they would probably have been less complacent
could they have foreseen the day when this hard-won treaty would be
torn up by the Power they seemed to be binding hand and foot with
sworn obligations of perdurable toughness; least of all would that
foresight have been agreeable to Lord Palmerston, Premier of England
when the peace was signed, and quite at one with the mass of the
people of England in their deep dislike and distrust of Russia and
its rulers.

The political advantages which can be clearly traced to this war are
not many. Privateers are no longer allowed to prey on the commerce of
belligerent nations, and neutral commerce in all articles not
contraband of war must be respected, while no blockade must be
regarded unless efficiently and thoroughly maintained. Such were the
principles with which the plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty of
Paris in 1856 enriched the code of international law; and these
principles, which are in force still, alone remain of the advantages
supposed to have been secured by all the misery and all the
expenditure of the Crimean enterprise.

[Illustration: Florence Nightingale.]

But other benefits, not of a political nature, arose out of the
hideous mismanagement which had disgraced the earlier stages of the
war. It is a very lamentable fact that of the 24,000 good Englishmen
who left their bones in the Crimea, scarce 5,000 had fallen in fair
fight or died of wounds received therein. Bad and deficient food,
insufficient shelter and clothing, utter disorganisation and
confusion in the hospital department, accounted for the rest. These
evils, when exposed in the English newspapers, called forth a cry of
shame and wrath from all the nation, and stirred noble men and women
into the endeavour to mitigate at least the sufferings of the unhappy
wounded. Miss Florence Nightingale, the daughter of a wealthy English
gentleman, was known to take a deep and well-informed interest in
hospital management; and this lady was induced to superintend
personally the nursing of the wounded in our military hospitals in
the East. Entrusted with plenary powers over the nurses, and
accompanied by a trained staff of lady assistants, she went out to
wrestle with and overcome the crying evils which too truly existed,
and which were the despair of the army doctors. Her success in this
noble work, magnificently complete as it was, did indeed "multiply
the good," as Sidney Herbert had foretold: we m