ed with any difficulty. But Americans have never
known what it is to have a standing army as a long-established and
prominent national institution; and they can therefore hardly conceive
of the strength of the class-spirit which grows up in the various
departments of the military organization. This jealousy, egotism, and
stiffness of prejudice were much aggravated by the long peace, in which
a great rusting of the apparatus of the system took place, without at
all impairing the complacency of those who formed a part of it. The old
medical officers were incapable, pedantic, and jealous; and no proper
relation had ever been established between them and the military
authorities. The imbecility of the system cost the lives of others than
the soldiers who died in hospital. Brave men arose, as in all such
crises, to bear the consequences of other men's mistakes, and the burden
of exposing them; and several physicians and surgeons died, far from
home, in the effort to ameliorate a system which they found unworkable.
The greatest benefactor in exhibiting evils and suggesting remedies, Dr.
Alexander, lived to return home, and instigate reforms, and receive the
honors which were his due; but he soon sank under the consequences of
his labors. So did Lord Herbert, the Secretary of War, to whom, in
conjunction with Miss Nightingale, the British army, at home, in India,
and everywhere, owes its redemption from special sickness and undue
mortality. In America the advantages may be enjoyed without tax or
drawback. The citizens are accustomed to organize themselves for action
of all sorts; and no stiff-necked classes stand in the way of good
management. The difficulty in America must rather be to understand how
anything so perverse as the management of British military hospitals ten
years ago can have existed to so late a date.

It was supposed, ten years since, that there must be nine separate
departments in every Military General Hospital, and the officials
bore titles accordingly; but there was such an odd confusion in their
functions that every one of the nine was often seen doing the business
of some other. The medical officers were drawing corks and tasting wines
and inspecting provisions, when they should have been by the bedside.
The purveyor was counting the soldiers' money, and noting its amount,
when he should have been marketing, or ordering the giving out of the
provisions for the day. The paymaster could scarcely find time