22 and ill-treated that 11 the wretched beggar who wandered about the streets of London led the life of a prince compared with the British soldiers who were fighting for their country, and who were complacently assured by the home authorities that they were the best-appointed army in Europe.” - The world knows the whole sad story by heart. And is it not written in the volumes of evidence sworn to before the Commission appointed by Parliament to inquire into the condition of the army? Nor is it necessary to dwell upon the extent to which the home administration was responsible for the general mismanagement of the war, in its main features, and its minute details, nor the thoroughly English stolidity with which all cera- plaints were received by every member of the Government, from the cabinet minister who dictated pompous and unmeaning despatches, down to the meanest official who measured red tape, nor the intense and universal popular indignation which, after a year “ full of horrors,” compelled the resignation of the Aberdeen Ministry. Lord Derby did not, perhaps, overstate the verdict of the nation, when he said in the House of Lords : “ From the very first to the very last, there has been apparent in the course pursued by Her Majesty’s Government a want of previous preparation, a total want of prescience; and they have appeared to live from day to day providing for each successive exigency after it arose, and not before it arose. Too late have been the fatal words applicable to the whole conduct of Her Majesty’s Government in the course of the war.” The change in the ministry, however, by no means cured all the evils which had existed ; for, although the sufferings of the soldiers—thanks in large part to the providential appearance and heroic conduct of Florence Nightingale—were greatly diminished, still, as we have seen, the military blunders continued to the close of the war. Now, if we do not greatly mistake, the les?on which this ebuntry should learn from the mortifying experience of the English army in the Crimea is not one of exultation over its lamentable and unnecessary errors, but rather of indifference to the insulting criticism of a nation which can so ill afford to be critical, and of determination to profit in every possible way by those blunders which might have been avoided. The his
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