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_ I travel constantly, up and down a certain line of railway that has
a terminus in London. It is the railway for a large military
depot, and for other large barracks. To the best of my serious
belief, I have never been on that railway by daylight, without
seeing some handcuffed deserters in the train.
It is in the nature of things that such an institution as our
English army should have many bad and troublesome characters in it.
But, this is a reason for, and not against, its being made as
acceptable as possible to well-disposed men of decent behaviour.
Such men are assuredly not tempted into the ranks, by the beastly
inversion of natural laws, and the compulsion to live in worse than
swinish foulness. Accordingly, when any such Circumlocutional
embellishments of the soldier's condition have of late been brought
to notice, we civilians, seated in outer darkness cheerfully
meditating on an Income Tax, have considered the matter as being
our business, and have shown a tendency to declare that we would
rather not have it misregulated, if such declaration may, without
violence to the Church Catechism, be hinted to those who are put in
authority over us.
Any animated description of a modern battle, any private soldier's
letter published in the newspapers, any page of the records of the
Victoria Cross, will show that in the ranks of the army, there
exists under all disadvantages as fine a sense of duty as is to be
found in any station on earth. Who doubts that if we all did our
duty as faithfully as the soldier does his, this world would be a
better place? There may be greater difficulties in our way than in
the soldier's. Not disputed. But, let us at least do our duty
towards HIM.
I had got back again to that rich and beautiful port where I had
looked after Mercantile Jack, and I was walking up a hill there, on
a wild March morning. My conversation with my official friend
Pangloss, by whom I was accidentally accompanied, took this
direction as we took the up-hill direction, because the object of
my uncommercial journey was to see some discharged soldiers who had
recently come home from India. There were men of HAVELOCK's among
them; there were men who had been in many of the great battles of
the great Indian campaign, among them; and I was curious to note
what our discharged soldiers looked like, when they were done with.
I was not the less interested (as I mentioned to my official friend
Pangloss) because these men had claimed to be discharged, when
their right to be discharged was not admitted. They had behaved
with unblemished fidelity and bravery; but, a change of
circumstances had arisen, which, as they considered, put an end to
their compact and entitled them to enter on a new one. Their
demand had been blunderingly resisted by the authorities in India:
but, it is to be presumed that the men were not far wrong, inasmuch
as the bungle had ended in their being sent home discharged, in
pursuance of orders from home. (There was an immense waste of
money, of course.)
Under these circumstances--thought I, as I walked up the hill, on
which I accidentally encountered my official friend--under these
circumstances of the men having successfully opposed themselves to
the Pagoda Department of that great Circumlocution Office on which
the sun never sets and the light of reason never rises, the Pagoda
Department will have been particularly careful of the national
honour. It will have shown these men, in the scrupulous good
faith, not to say the generosity, of its dealing with them, that
great national authorities can have no small retaliations and
revenges. It will have made every provision for their health on
the passage home, and will have landed them, restored from their
campaigning fatigues by a sea-voyage, pure air, sound food, and
good medicines. And I pleased myself with dwelling beforehand, on
the great accounts of their personal treatment which these men
would carry into their various towns and villages, and on the
increasing popularity of the service that would insensibly follow.
I almost began to hope that the hitherto-never-failing deserters on
my railroad would by-and-by become a phenomenon.
In this agreeable frame of mind I entered the workhouse of
Liverpool.--For, the cultivation of laurels in a sandy soil, had
brought the soldiers in question to THAT abode of Glory.
Before going into their wards to visit them, I inquired how they
had made their triumphant entry there? They had been brought
through the rain in carts it seemed, from the landing-place to the
gate, and had then been carried up-stairs on the backs of paupers.
Their groans and pains during the performance of this glorious
pageant, had been so distressing, as to bring tears into the eyes
of spectators but too well accustomed to scenes of suffering. The
men were so dreadfully cold, that those who could get near the
fires were hard to be restrained from thrusting their feet in among
the blazing coals. They were so horribly reduced, that they were
awful to look upon. Racked with dysentery and blackened with
scurvy, one hundred and forty wretched soldiers had been revived
with brandy and laid in bed.
My official friend Pangloss is lineally descended from a learned
doctor of that name, who was once tutor to Candide, an ingenious
young gentleman of some celebrity. In his personal character, he
is as humane and worthy a gentleman as any I know; in his official
capacity, he unfortunately preaches the doctrines of his renowned
ancestor, by demonstrating on all occasions that we live in the
best of all possible official worlds.
'In the name of Humanity,' said I, 'how did the men fall into this
deplorable state? Was the ship well found in stores?'
'I am not here to asseverate that I know the fact, of my own
knowledge,' answered Pangloss, 'but I have grounds for asserting
that the stores were the best of all possible stores.'
A medical officer laid before us, a handful of rotten biscuit, and
a handful of split peas. The biscuit was a honeycombed heap of
maggots, and the excrement of maggots. The peas were even harder
than this filth. A similar handful had been experimentally boiled
six hours, and had shown no signs of softening. These were the
stores on which the soldiers had been fed.
'The beef--' I began, when Pangloss cut me short.
'Was the best of all possible beef,' said he.
But, behold, there was laid before us certain evidence given at the
Coroner's Inquest, holden on some of the men (who had obstinately
died of their treatment), and from that evidence it appeared that
the beef was the worst of possible beef!
'Then I lay my hand upon my heart, and take my stand,' said
Pangloss, 'by the pork, which was the best of all possible pork.'
'But look at this food before our eyes, if one may so misuse the
word,' said I. 'Would any Inspector who did his duty, pass such
abomination?'
'It ought not to have been passed,' Pangloss admitted.
'Then the authorities out there--' I began, when Pangloss cut me
short again.
'There would certainly seem to have been something wrong
somewhere,' said he; 'but I am prepared to prove that the
authorities out there, are the best of all possible authorities.'
I never heard of any impeached public authority in my life, who was
not the best public authority in existence.
'We are told of these unfortunate men being laid low by scurvy,'
said I. 'Since lime-juice has been regularly stored and served out
in our navy, surely that disease, which used to devastate it, has
almost disappeared? Was there lime-juice aboard this transport?'
My official friend was beginning 'the best of all possible--' when
an inconvenient medical forefinger pointed out another passage in
the evidence, from which it appeared that the lime-juice had been
bad too. Not to mention that the vinegar had been bad too, the
vegetables bad too, the cooking accommodation insufficient (if
there had been anything worth mentioning to cook), the water supply
exceedingly inadequate, and the beer sour.
'Then the men,' said Pangloss, a little irritated, 'Were the worst
of all possible men.'
'In what respect?' I asked.
'Oh! Habitual drunkards,' said Pangloss.
But, again the same incorrigible medical forefinger pointed out
another passage in the evidence, showing that the dead men had been
examined after death, and that they, at least, could not possibly
have been habitual drunkards, because the organs within them which
must have shown traces of that habit, were perfectly sound.
'And besides,' said the three doctors present, 'one and all,
habitual drunkards brought as low as these men have been, could not
recover under care and food, as the great majority of these men are
recovering. They would not have strength of constitution to do
it.'
'Reckless and improvident dogs, then,' said Pangloss. 'Always are-
-nine times out of ten.'
I turned to the master of the workhouse, and asked him whether the
men had any money?
'Money?' said he. 'I have in my iron safe, nearly four hundred
pounds of theirs; the agents have nearly a hundred pounds more and
many of them have left money in Indian banks besides.'
'Hah!' said I to myself, as we went up-stairs, 'this is not the
best of all possible stories, I doubt!'
We went into a large ward, containing some twenty or five-and-
twenty beds. We went into several such wards, one after another.
I find it very difficult to indicate what a shocking sight I saw in
them, without frightening the reader from the perusal of these
lines, and defeating my object of making it known.
O the sunken eyes that turned to me as I walked between the rows of
beds, or--worse still--that glazedly looked at the white ceiling,
and saw nothing and cared for nothing! Here, lay the skeleton of a
man, so lightly covered with a thin unwholesome skin, that not a
bone in the anatomy was clothed, and I could clasp the arm above
the elbow, in my finger and thumb. Here, lay a man with the black
scurvy eating his legs away, his gums gone, and his teeth all gaunt
and bare. This bed was empty, because gangrene had set in, and the
patient had died but yesterday. That bed was a hopeless one,
because its occupant was sinking fast, and could only be roused to
turn the poor pinched mask of face upon the pillow, with a feeble
moan. The awful thinness of the fallen cheeks, the awful
brightness of the deep set eyes, the lips of lead, the hands of
ivory, the recumbent human images lying in the shadow of death with
a kind of solemn twilight on them, like the sixty who had died
aboard the ship and were lying at the bottom of the sea, O
Pangloss, GOD forgive you!
In one bed, lay a man whose life had been saved (as it was hoped)
by deep incisions in the feet and legs. While I was speaking to
him, a nurse came up to change the poultices which this operation
had rendered necessary, and I had an instinctive feeling that it
was not well to turn away, merely to spare myself. He was sorely
wasted and keenly susceptible, but the efforts he made to subdue
any expression of impatience or suffering, were quite heroic. It
was easy to see, in the shrinking of the figure, and the drawing of
the bed-clothes over the head, how acute the endurance was, and it
made me shrink too, as if I were in pain; but, when the new
bandages were on, and the poor feet were composed again, he made an
apology for himself (though he had not uttered a word), and said
plaintively, 'I am so tender and weak, you see, sir!' Neither from
him nor from any one sufferer of the whole ghastly number, did I
hear a complaint. Of thankfulness for present solicitude and care,
I heard much; of complaint, not a word.
I think I could have recognised in the dismalest skeleton there,
the ghost of a soldier. Something of the old air was still latent
in the palest shadow of life I talked to. One emaciated creature,
in the strictest literality worn to the bone, lay stretched on his
back, looking so like death that I asked one of the doctors if he
were not dying, or dead? A few kind words from the doctor, in his
ear, and he opened his eyes, and smiled--looked, in a moment, as if
he would have made a salute, if he could. 'We shall pull him
through, please God,' said the Doctor. 'Plase God, surr, and
thankye,' said the patient. 'You are much better to-day; are you
not?' said the Doctor. 'Plase God, surr; 'tis the slape I want,
surr; 'tis my breathin' makes the nights so long.' 'He is a
careful fellow this, you must know,' said the Doctor, cheerfully;
'it was raining hard when they put him in the open cart to bring
him here, and he had the presence of mind to ask to have a
sovereign taken out of his pocket that he had there, and a cab
engaged. Probably it saved his life.' The patient rattled out the
skeleton of a laugh, and said, proud of the story, ''Deed, surr, an
open cairt was a comical means o' bringin' a dyin' man here, and a
clever way to kill him.' You might have sworn to him for a soldier
when he said it.
One thing had perplexed me very much in going from bed to bed. A
very significant and cruel thing. I could find no young man but
one. He had attracted my notice, by having got up and dressed
himself in his soldier's jacket and trousers, with the intention of
sitting by the fire; but he had found himself too weak, and had
crept back to his bed and laid himself down on the outside of it.
I could have pronounced him, alone, to be a young man aged by
famine and sickness. As we were standing by the Irish soldier's
bed, I mentioned my perplexity to the Doctor. He took a board with
an inscription on it from the head of the Irishman's bed, and asked
me what age I supposed that man to be? I had observed him with
attention while talking to him, and answered, confidently, 'Fifty.'
The Doctor, with a pitying glance at the patient, who had dropped
into a stupor again, put the board back, and said, 'Twenty-four.'
All the arrangements of the wards were excellent. They could not
have been more humane, sympathising, gentle, attentive, or
wholesome. The owners of the ship, too, had done all they could,
liberally. There were bright fires in every room, and the
convalescent men were sitting round them, reading various papers
and periodicals. I took the liberty of inviting my official friend
Pangloss to look at those convalescent men, and to tell me whether
their faces and bearing were or were not, generally, the faces and
bearing of steady respectable soldiers? The master of the
workhouse, overhearing me, said he had had a pretty large
experience of troops, and that better conducted men than these, he
had never had to do with. They were always (he added) as we saw
them. And of us visitors (I add) they knew nothing whatever,
except that we were there.
It was audacious in me, but I took another liberty with Pangloss.
Prefacing it with the observation that, of course, I knew
beforehand that there was not the faintest desire, anywhere, to
hush up any part of this dreadful business, and that the Inquest
was the fairest of all possible Inquests, I besought four things of
Pangloss. Firstly, to observe that the Inquest WAS NOT HELD IN
THAT PLACE, but at some distance off. Secondly, to look round upon
those helpless spectres in their beds. Thirdly, to remember that
the witnesses produced from among them before that Inquest, could
not have been selected because they were the men who had the most
to tell it, but because they happened to be in a state admitting of
their safe removal. Fourthly, to say whether the coroner and jury
could have come there, to those pillows, and taken a little
evidence? My official friend declined to commit himself to a
reply.
There was a sergeant, reading, in one of the fireside groups. As
he was a man of very intelligent countenance, and as I have a great
respect for non-commissioned officers as a class, I sat down on the
nearest bed, to have some talk with him. (It was the bed of one of
the grisliest of the poor skeletons, and he died soon afterwards.)
'I was glad to see, in the evidence of an officer at the Inquest,
sergeant, that he never saw men behave better on board ship than
these men.'
'They did behave very well, sir.'
'I was glad to see, too, that every man had a hammock.' The
sergeant gravely shook his head. 'There must be some mistake, sir.
The men of my own mess had no hammocks. There were not hammocks
enough on board, and the men of the two next messes laid hold of
hammocks for themselves as soon as they got on board, and squeezed
my men out, as I may say.'
'Had the squeezed-out men none then?'
'None, sir. As men died, their hammocks were used by other men,
who wanted hammocks; but many men had none at all.'
'Then you don't agree with the evidence on that point?'
'Certainly not, sir. A man can't, when he knows to the contrary.'
'Did any of the men sell their bedding for drink?'
'There is some mistake on that point too, sir. Men were under the
impression--I knew it for a fact at the time--that it was not
allowed to take blankets or bedding on board, and so men who had
things of that sort came to sell them purposely.'
'Did any of the men sell their clothes for drink?'
'They did, sir.' (I believe there never was a more truthful
witness than the sergeant. He had no inclination to make out a
case.)
'Many?'
'Some, sir' (considering the question). 'Soldier-like. They had
been long marching in the rainy season, by bad roads--no roads at
all, in short--and when they got to Calcutta, men turned to and
drank, before taking a last look at it. Soldier-like.'
'Do you see any men in this ward, for example, who sold clothes for
drink at that time?'
The sergeant's wan eye, happily just beginning to rekindle with
health, travelled round the place and came back to me. 'Certainly,
sir.'
'The marching to Calcutta in the rainy season must have been
severe?'
'It was very severe, sir.'
'Yet what with the rest and the sea air, I should have thought that
the men (even the men who got drunk) would have soon begun to
recover on board ship?'
'So they might; but the bad food told upon them, and when we got
into a cold latitude, it began to tell more, and the men dropped.'
'The sick had a general disinclination for food, I am told,
sergeant?'
'Have you seen the food, sir?'
'Some of it.'
'Have you seen the state of their mouths, sir?'
If the sergeant, who was a man of a few orderly words, had spoken
the amount of this volume, he could not have settled that question
better. I believe the sick could as soon have eaten the ship, as
the ship's provisions.
I took the additional liberty with my friend Pangloss, when I had
left the sergeant with good wishes, of asking Pangloss whether he
had ever heard of biscuit getting drunk and bartering its
nutritious qualities for putrefaction and vermin; of peas becoming
hardened in liquor; of hammocks drinking themselves off the face of
the earth; of lime-juice, vegetables, vinegar, cooking
accommodation, water supply, and beer, all taking to drinking
together and going to ruin? 'If not (I asked him), what did he say
in defence of the officers condemned by the Coroner's jury, who, by
signing the General Inspection report relative to the ship Great
Tasmania, chartered for these troops, had deliberately asserted all
that bad and poisonous dunghill refuse, to be good and wholesome
food?' My official friend replied that it was a remarkable fact,
that whereas some officers were only positively good, and other
officers only comparatively better, those particular officers were
superlatively the very best of all possible officers.
My hand and my heart fail me, in writing my record of this journey.
The spectacle of the soldiers in the hospital-beds of that
Liverpool workhouse (a very good workhouse, indeed, be it
understood), was so shocking and so shameful, that as an Englishman
I blush to remember it. It would have been simply unbearable at
the time, but for the consideration and pity with which they were
soothed in their sufferings.
No punishment that our inefficient laws provide, is worthy of the
name when set against the guilt of this transaction. But, if the
memory of it die out unavenged, and if it do not result in the
inexorable dismissal and disgrace of those who are responsible for
it, their escape will be infamous to the Government (no matter of
what party) that so neglects its duty, and infamous to the nation
that tamely suffers such intolerable wrong to be done in its name. _
Read next: CHAPTER IX - CITY OF LONDON CHURCHES
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