Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/201

 SUFFKHINGS OF THE ARMIES. 1^7 to force its way up towards the light ; and the ^^ '^ ^'• ruler then not seldom finds that, if only to cor- _ — ;_ rect misbeliefs more pernicious than the plain, naked facts, it is better to aid disclosure than vainly try to repress it. In the year 1865, about nine years after the war, a great mass of statistics illustrating the medical history of the French army in the Crimea was suffered at last to appear in an official and published Eeport.(^^) For the purpose of any enquiry concerning the Thtir defect effect of the winter on General Canrobert's troops, these statistics have been grievously maimed by either the loss or abstraction of almost all the monthly returns from the hospitals for the year 1854, whilst, moreover, they have other defects of so grave a kind that, for even that later period to which their tables apply, they fail to afford the light needed for anything like a fair scrutiny of the sufferings and the deaths that resulted from the winter campaign ; i^'^) and besides, the distracted compiler has ascribed to the very materials which he himself gives as official an error on so huge a scale as to make them — even where unimpeached — seem almost too fragile for use.(^^) Still the very shortcomings and errors of this Theinfor- nn • 1 T ^ 1 1 inatiun, great official report tend to show, perhaps, that however in- . T 1 1 ■ 1 complete, its statements were made, at the least, m good which thos6 faith ; and if, therefore, we venture to accept convey. the guidance thus offered, we learn that the admissions of patients received into the am- bulances of General Canrobert's army were as follows: In October 1854, 4747; in Nov-