immediate want is the insufficient number of bedsteads.
This deficiency has been remedied by wooden trucks.
Numbers of the men, however, are wholly without, but
have comfortable mattresses, and are for the present by
no means badly off in this respect. The shirts of the
men arriving from the Crimea are shockingly dirty,
tattered, and torn, as indeed is all their apparel. Two
British officers who have reached home, having been
wounded at the Alma, speak in the highest terms of
Miss Nightingale and the nurses who have so nobly
devoted themselves to the cause of humanity. The day
before they left Constantinople about 600 of the British
troops, who had been wounded at Inkermann, arrived at
the hospital. Their wounds and bodies were washed by
these ladies, clean linen supplied to them, and everything
which the most tender care could suggest was at
hand in abundance. One stalwart guardsman, who had
received two severe wounds, appeared deeply affected
when he found himself the object of so much solicitude.
'Ah!' said he, 'now I see there are people in England
who care for us poor soldiers.'"

To all this care and humanity the shocking neglect
by the Russians of their own wounded forms a striking
contrast. A private letter says:—"With the object of
preventing any fresh surprise on the part of the enemy,
the shrubs and brushwood of the sides of the valley
have been cut away. Some French soldiers charged
with that duty descended recently to the bottom of the
precipice, and heard groaning in the fields inundated by
the Tchernya. They informed the officer that wounded
men demanded succour. The captain immediately sent
out a section of his company on the search, in order to
avoid any surprise on the part of the enemy, whose
videttes were guarding the banks of the river. Shocking
to relate, they found hid among the grass, and half
submerged, three wounded Russians still living, and who
had been abandoned by their officers thirteen days
previously;—they were bleeding, maimed, and without
any resource. One of them, who was separated from
the others, had eaten the grass within his reach, after
having consumed all the black bread he had in his
haversack. The two others, more fortunate, had
succeeded in dragging themselves near five or six of their
dead comrades, whose provisions they made use of.
But, that supply exhausted, they also had begun to eat
the grass. With the most brutal obstinacy the Cossacks,
who were stationed on guard for a week before near
them, within reach of their voices, had refused to
succour them. The French soldiers took up these poor
creatures and carried them off. They gave them a little
soup with a small quantity of eau-de-vie. They then
covered them up in warm blankets and placed them
near the fire, when they recovered the use of their
limbs. In the course of an hour these half corpses,
whose wounds had already begun to putrefy, recovered
their colour and a little of their strength. Completely
re-assured on the point of the pagan barbarity which
they were told was the characteristic of the French,
they kissed the hands of their preservers. A Pole,
belonging to the foreign legion, who happened to be
present, asked some questions of the poor men. They
informed him that their popes and officers had assured
them that the pagan enemies of the Holy Church of the
Autocrat caused the Russian prisoners to be put to the
most frightful torture, and that such of the children of
the Czar as died in the sacred war would mount straight
to Paradise, unless they were in a state of sin, and in
which case they would be again born in their own
country."

A letter of the 27th of November states that General
Canrobert sent to Prince Menschikoff the minutes of the
inquiry held on the Russian Major whom an English
court-martial sentenced to be hung for having assassinated,
and caused others to assassinate the wounded on
the field of battle. The Prince was asked to sign the
sentence, but he declined, alleging that he had strictly
prohibited such acts of cruelty, but that it appertained
to his own military tribunals only to establish the culpability.
It is now positively stated that this ruffian
has been executed.

A dreadful storm in the Black Sea, which raged from
the morning of the 13th to the afternoon of the 16th of
December, has been attended with lamentable loss of
shipping on the coast of the Crimea. An officer on
board one of her Majesty's ships at the mouth of the
Katcha gives the following afflicting details. "On
Monday, the 13th, it blew fresh from the S.W., but, as
the barometer was rising, and nothing indicated bad
weather, we took no notice of it, especially as we all
had imbibed an idea, now utterly eradicated, that it was
never known to 'blow home' in the Black Ssa. The
flagship, fortunately, shifted her anchorage and got a
good offing, but no other ship followed her example.
On Tuesday morning there was still a stiff breeze, with
occasional squalls; still no alarm, until one of the
squalls lengthened itself out into a regular gale, and
then we began to feel the unpleasantness of our
situation. Immediately a second anchor was let go, and
this was soon followed by our sheet-anchor; still, with
an enemy's shore scarcely a mile distant, and breakers
much nearer, it was, of course, a most anxious time.
About 10, A.M., the transport No.20, the Ganges,
began to drive—she having, I fancy, parted her cable.
Right astern of her was No.1, the Pyrenees, which she
soon fouled; and a most fearful sight it was. Spars
snapped like rotten sticks; jib-booms, bowsprits, yards,
masts, all shared the same crash, the two ships grinding
together in a most awful manner. Of course No.1 soon
began to drive, as well as No.20, and both, locked
together, bore down upon the poor Sampson. Soon they
were foul of her, and the same work of destruction
began, and in ten minutes they cleared from her, and
there lay the bold, defiant little Sampson, shorn of all
her beauty, with not an inch of anything except her
funnels standing, her masts having all gone with one
awful crash and fallen inboard, so that we are most
anxious, though most fearful, to hear of the damages
they must have done in their fall. Her bowsprit is
also gone short off,—in fact, she is a complete wreck.
Parting from her, No.20 brought up, and we hoped
was safe, while No.1 still drove on towards the shore,
and, much as we pitied her, help was, of course, utterly
impossible. While this was going on inside us, just
outside us two French liners (the Jupiter and Bayard)
fouled, but, fortunately, or by good management,
got clear, with only a slight smashing of boats and
their quarters, and brought up with four anchors
each. About noon the gale was at its highest,
and there was then a cry that the Terrible had
parted a cable, and was among the breakers. Every
moment we expected she would go on shore, but
soon the paddles revolved, the remaining cable was
slipped, and, right in the teeth of the gale, steamed out
the splendid Terrible. Our situation all the time was
most critical. Right ahead of us were four French
liners, one or two of which had already driven, and if
any of them parted their cables our destruction was
inevitable; and, to make it, if possible, worse, there was
the knowledge that we could do nothing, but must
patiently abide our lot, whatever Providence thought
fit for that lot to be. We had done our all—the result
was in God's hands. About two o'clock the view all
around was most distressing: about a dozen transports
were driving, four or five had cut away their masts,
while only five or six were riding at all hopefully.
Near us was a little brig, which we remarked as doing
capitally, when, all of a sudden, her masts went over
the side; still she rode on, but now, alas! the little ship
lies on shore with scarcely two timbers holding together,
so utterly has the sea broken her up. Near us also
was the Lord Raglan, a splendid ship, just new, of about
700 tons; she, too, rode on most capitally. Close astern
was the little Beagle; how she escaped being swamped
is to me a marvel, as, although we were not above
100 yards from her, continually from the height of the
sea we could see nothing but the tops of her masts; still
she rode on, and, although she rolled enough to roll
everything out of her, yet she seemed to keep herself
pretty dry. Astern of her was the Algiers; she rolled,
if anything, worse than the Beagle, and carried away
one cable, still she held on, and this morning steamed
out into safe anchorage. All the steamers had their
wheels and screws going, which of course made them
much safer, by taking a good deal of the strain from the
cables. At nightfall there were five transports on shore,