est compensation. If we reckon, for six
months, 10,000 sick upon an average, and for each of them 12 groschen
per day (and, including all necessaries, they could scarcely be kept at
that rate), the amount for each day is 5000, and, for the six months,
the enormous sum of 900,000 dollars, which the exhausted coffers were
obliged to pay in specie. This calculation, however, is so far below the
truth, that it ought rather to be greatly augmented. A tolerable
aggregate must have been formed by proportionable contributions from all
our country towns, and this was for the service of the hospitals alone:
judge then of the rest.

Previously to the battle of Leipzig the state of the inmates of these
pestilential dens, these abodes of misery, was deplorable enough, as
they were continually becoming more crowded and enlarged. Many of the
persons attached to them, and in particular many a valuable and
experienced medical man, carried from them the seeds of death into the
bosom of his family. With their want of accommodations, cleanliness was
a point which could not be attained, and it was impossible to pass them
without extreme disgust. As Leipzig was for a considerable time cut off
from the rest of the world by the vast circle of armies, like the
mariner cast upon a desert island, the wants of these hospitals became
from day to day more urgent. Provisions also at length began to fail.
The distress had arrived at its highest pitch, when the thousands from
the field of battle applied there for relief. Not even bread could any
longer be dispensed to these unfortunates. Many wandered about without
any kind of shelter. Then did we witness scenes which would have
thrilled the most obdurate cannibals with horror. No eye could have
beheld a sight more hideous at Smolensk, on the Berezyna, or on the road
to Wilna--there at least Death more speedily dispatched his victims.
Thousands of ghastly figures staggered along the streets, begging at
every window and at every door; and seldom indeed had Compassion the
power to give. These, however, were ordinary, familiar spectacles.
Neither was it rare to see one of these emaciated wretches picking up
the dirtiest bones, and eagerly gnawing them; nay, even the smallest
crumb of bread which had chanced to be thrown into the street, as well
as apple-parings and cabbage-stalks, were voraciously devoured. But
hunger did not confine itself within these disgusting limits. More than
twenty eye-witnesses ca