during the course of its struggles to achieve the end which it has proposed to itself, they never can anticipate the calm retrospect of the future over those struggles themselves.

flect that such creatures are the result of our modern social system, but every artificial system, and, indeed, every system must have them. Mr. Lewes, in a clever criticism on the Duke of Argyle's "Reign of law," in the Let any one be tempted by such refleccurrent Fortnightly, tells us that there are tions to open Mr. Stille's volume, and he beings apparently born only to exhibit and will be surprised at the amount of novel demonstrate the growth of cancer-cells. An- matter which, mixed up, indeed, perhaps alogically, we may consider the dangler as with much that he knew before, he will born to demonstrate and exhibit the growth find in it. The chapter on "Contributions of moral cancers upon the social body. He from California and the Pacific Coast," for is nearly as bad as the street evil, despite instance, which seems to promise only a his neatness and secrecy. It is possible that treasurer's £ s. d. account, is full of varied the new era will kill him. If, as we suspect, and often grotesque interest. As far as the a current of free thought and healthy im- human eye can see, the whole success of pulses passes into our veins by the calm rev- the Commission turned upon the famous olution of the Reform Bill, we shall proba- Californian gift, in the autumn of 1862, of bly find that the danglers have disappeared 100,000 dollars, soon followed by another of before it as midges would before an east the same amount. Three months more, we wind. They are partly of foreign extrac- are told, would, but for this, have probably tion, and France has ever been renowned brought the Commission to a premature for her danglers; but in England their death. It was then receiving at the rate of doom is certain. Already there is an incli- 20,000 dollars a month, and spending at nation to detect these impostors and to pro- the rate of 26,000 dollars, with appalling claim them. It is better even that women should sell themselves for money than marry fellows of this constitution, who, ricketty, mean, and affected, are unable to love or to hate, to act or to think.

From the Spectator.

STILLES HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES
SANITARY COMMISSION.*

pro

AMONG the various organizations which the late American War brought forth, none is better known in Europe than the United States Sanitary Commission; and those who followed with some attention its ceedings during the conflict may be apt to think, at first sight, that Mr. Stille's goodly octavo of over 550 pages was superfluous. A little reflection, however, will show that nothing is more useful than a complete record of any great and successful work; and the failure to bequeath such a record of its labours to posterity was a serious error of our own Anti-Corn Law League. For there is always much that cannot be told whilst the work of any such body is going on, which is, nevertheless, very useful to be known afterwards; and whatever may be the value of the publications issued by it

* History of the United States' Sanitary Com mission being the General Report of its Work during the War of the Rebellion. By Charles J. Stille. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 1866.

calls upon its resources. But California and the Pacific States from this time took upon themselves the main burthen of its finance. The former was in October, 1863, directly called upon to contribute 25,000 dollars a month, and the appendix of " Contributions received from California shows that, exclusively of the 200,000 dollars and other early contributions up to November, 1862, the average receipts from the State, for forty-one months, up to the close of February, 1866, actually exceeded that monthly History probably shows no instance of such sustained generosity on the part of so small a community.

amount.

But the mode of raising these contributions was no less remarkable than their amount. The "favourite method" of Californian charity, it seems, is that of selling an article by auction to the highest bidder, with the implied understanding that "after paying for it," he is "to give it back again to the auctioneer, to be resold to the same company." And now listen, O ye nymphs of tender or mature age, who smile across fancy-fair counters, and preside over luckybags, to that which shall surpass your most audacious devices, your wildest dreams of mercantile success in favour of your pet

charities:-
:-

the Commission at the Sacramento picnic, was sold for a gold dollar for each strawberry (each the size of a pullet's egg), while the biggest was sold for 123 dollars! On the same occasion, the train of the Pacific railroad (where some twenty cars were linked together), which carried the company to the grounds, being delayed for an hour by an unexpected obstruction, some enterprising passenger, who had brought his fowling-piece, stepped out into the chapparal and shot a hare, and then entering at the rear car, passed through the whole train, selling it to one after another, until he came out at the front with 157 dollars for the fund."

sack.

The sack did not fare as well here as before. A good woman, finding a small island of a few rods square in the swamp, had erected a bridge of one plank, and established such a rate of toll, that to see nothing there cost the curiosity of some hundreds a half dollar each. Then the President of the Commission was invited to shake hands with some hundreds of the company, who bought the privilege at from fifty cents to a double eagle apiece, making his hat their till, until it was literally half full of silver and gold. Under these rival excitements the sack was not favoured with its wonted success. Carried thence to Sacramento, it was sold again, at a public lecture, by Dr. Bellows for several hundred dollars, and finally, transported to San Francisco, it added moderate gains to its enormous harvest, even in that comparatively staid community. Six months afterwards, what was the surprise of the recorder of this strange history, to find the sack with its irrepressible owner at New York, and on its way to the great fair in St. Louis. The sum realized by it on

the Sanitary Fund cannot have been less that 40,000 dollars."

people in the cause; since none will deliberately and gratuitously make fools of themselves for that which they do not care for. Suffice it to say, before dismissing the financial side of the Commission's history, that its total reeeipts appear to have been, in round numbers, nearly 5,000,000 dollars in cash, from June 27, 1861, to January 1, 1866, and 15,000,000 dollars' worth of supplies, besides " 2,000,000 dollars more at the very least" received and expended by the branch treasuries, making in all about 4,500,000. expended in four years and a half by the American people in connection with a single voluntary institution for the relief and benefit of its soldiers.

"At Austin, Nevada, in the wildest part of the desert, half-way between Virginia City and Utah, the two candidates for the mayoralty of a city not two years old, but with 5,000 inhab- But enough of this charitable buffoonery, itants, each had agreed if defeated to carry a sack although its broad humour serves thoroughof flour on his back from Austin to a neigh-ly to show the earnestness of the American bouring village, in broad day. Accordingly, when Mr. R. C. Gridley lost his election, he prepared to fulfil the engagement. Headed by a band of music in a wagon, leading his little boy clad in the national uniform by the hand, and with the sack of flour on his back, followed by a mongrel procession of miners and citizens, Mr. Gridley took up his foot-journey to the appointed place. Arrived there, the thought struck him that the gay spirits and the patriotic feelings of the crowd, that grew as he travelled, He inmight be turned to humane account. stantly proposed to sell the now famous sack of flour to the highest bidder. The humor took. The sack was sold again and again, netting 5,000 dollars. The amount realized fired Mr. Gridley's enthusiasm. He started for a journey of 300 miles to Virginia City. Arriving on a Sunday, and finding a sanitary meeting This is, however, the mere gilded outside going in the Opera House in the afternoon, he of the work. What lies beneath is of very proceeded to the place, got admitted to the different texture. We have here, for the stage, and there telling the story, sold the sack first time, the full history, though much of morning, having procured a band of music, he it was known before, of the difficulties proceeded to make the tour of the neighbouring which the Commission had to encounter, At Gold Hill, the sack sold for some considerable period after its first for 5.822 dollars and 50 cents; at Silver City, organization, from official ill-will and redfor 830 dollars; at Dayton, for 873 dollars. Fi- tapeism. It may, indeed, somewhat comnally, returning to Virginia City again, the sack, fort impatient philanthropists of the Old putting forth all its attractions, won a pro- World to find that the great goddess Roudigious subscription of 12,025 dollars. tine has shown herself quite as mighty in Gridley the New to thwart new-fangled schemes of benevolence, and the impertinent curiosity of ignoramuses who want to know, as in the most venerable of European or Asiatic Circumlocution offices. Nay, Mr. Stillé

to the audience for 580 dollars. The next

towns. .

Mr.

arrived at Sacramento, 150 miles further west, just as the sanitary pic nic at Bellows' Grove was in progress. In the midst of the festivities he marched into the crowd, a band of music leading the way, a stalwart negro walking by his side carrying the

field.

511

the

among pointedly contrasts the position of the garrison) was under 2 per cent. "this favourable state of health members of the United States Sanitary Commission with that of the British Sani- troops in the Department of the Gulf was tary Commission, and of Miss Nightingale maintained throughout the whole war." during the Crimean War, declaring that In November, 1863, the Commission's Inwere spector, Dr. Crane, wrote, "I have never no such extraordinary powers as conferred upon these " (the British) "Com- seen so little disease among troops in the missioners, and fully exercised by them when it was necessary, to accomplish their object, were ever granted by the Government of the United States to any body of men outside of the regular military organization." Yet, although it may be tre that the want of such powers as those wielded by the British Commissioners may have cost thousands of lives" and "millions of dollars" to the country, it is, perhaps, doubtful whether the American Commission did not, on the whole, do its work all the better through being thus compelled the sympato cast itself resolutely upon thies of the nation, to rest whol', upon the public confidence which its services should

earn for it.

But little over 4 per cent. of the present force is on the sick-list." So, again, on the malarious coast of South Carolina, among those marshy inlets in the midst of which it had been held that "no unacelimated white person could pass even a single night during the autumnal months, without imminent risk to his health and life," the Northern troops" remained for years, not only without showing any marked ill effect from the climate, but actually exhibiting a sickness-rate less elevated than that of any division of the army."

One of the most curious chapters in Mr. Stille's volume is that on "The Commission's Bureau of Vital Statistics." The inquiries undertaken by this department The great fact which stands out from its extended not only to hygienic data properhistory indeed is, that on however large a ly so called, but to many others, such as "One inspector was scale relief may be distributed to the sufferers the ages and physical characteristics of by the casualties of warfare, yet prevention, soldiers enlisting. not relief, should be the main object of all employed upon the examination and measanitary science, in war as well as in peace. surement of Union soldiers, whilst another This the Commissioners steadily kept in was similarly engaged with rebel prisoners." view from the first; and though it may The materials collected have not yet rehave best endeared itself to the individual ceived full investigation; but we are told soldier by its care of him when wounded that the results of such investigation will or struck down by sickness, its most effi- not only serve to determine "the relative cient services were really those of organiz-efficiency for military service of men at ing the inspection of camps and hospitals, different ages, and of different physical reforming these latter, re-organizing the peculiarities," but "the laws of human Of the reality of growth while approaching the maximum Medical Bureau, &c. preventive sanitary science no more con- stature; of pulmonary capacity as dependvincing proof can be given than that afford- ent upon physical proportions and upon ed by the Military Department of the age; of strength as related to age and "Gulf," including that notoriously un- rate; of complexion, stature, and previous healthy Delta of the Mississippi, the almost occupation as affecting strength and endurperennial habitat of yellow fever. New ance," &c. Amongst other things, "the Orleans "was cleansed under General number of men enlisted at different ages Butler's order as it had never been cleansed was found to follow a definite mathematical before, a rigid quarantine was enforced, law with marvellous precision," whilst "the the quarters of the troops in the forts and ages of the officers were found to follow an in the various camps were thoroughly po- entirely diverse law, bearing no liced, needless exposure to the fierce rays blance whatever to that regulating the of the tropical sun, or to the deadly poison ages of the enlisted men; and on comparof the night atmosphere in the neighbour- ing these two laws with that of the popuhood of the swamps, was avoided, a minute lation, this latter was found to be utterly care was exercised with regard to the cloth- dissimilar to that of either of the others." ing and food of the troops which was en- A singular proof of the homogeneousness tirely unknown in other portions of the which the American people is already acArmy." Not only did no yellow fever ap- quiring is afforded by the fact, that the propear in the summer of 1862, but early in portion of enlistments according to age July of that year the whole number of sick "scarcely shows any token of variation, out of about 20,000 men (then indeed in whether the enlistments were made in

resem

POETRY: Harvests on Historic fields, 514. The Land of the Snob, 514. The Chiffonier,

514. Song of a Tailor-not on Strike, 575. A Leap in the Dark, 576

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