Hospitals.
--Whilst it gives us pleasure to learn that some of our hospitals exhibit thorough system and efficiency, and that kind and gentle attention to the sick which is as necessary as medicine to their restoration to health, we are sorry to hear that there are others in which the private soldiers are not treated by the attendants with much tenderness and consideration. This is a subject which demands immediate and thorough investigation. Such investigation no well conducted hospital has reason to fear. It is due to the cause and it is due to the gallant men who support it. The army of the South is not made up of mercenaries, and, if it were, the mercenary, from policy, if not from humanity, deserves to be nursed when sick in such a manner as will most speedily place him again in a condition to bear arms. But there is not a man in our Southern army who came there for pay; not one who was compelled to come; not one who has any other motive but a love of country as pure and disinterested as ever animated the soul of George Washington. The rank and file of our army embrace the noblest spirits in this or any other land. They are gentlemen, many of them men of delicate rearing, wealth and social position. They had none of them even the incentive of office and fame to inspire them to their duty.--They have given up home, loved ones, and are willing to give up life itself, for their country. For their own sake, for the sake of the aged parents who have laid them upon the altar of patriotism, for the sake of the country and of humanity, an investigation should be made, which shall probe this whole subject to the bottom, and insure the sick of the rank and file against the possibility of neglect and harsh treatment.
