Events of the war.
An every-day scene from the conscription Farce in the United States.
The Philadelphia Ledger gives one day's scene at the Surgeon's office in that city, where the drafted men and substitutes are examined before being "passed." We make an extract:‘ Many attempts at fraud are made. Men unfit for service sell themselves as substitutes, foolishly supposing themselves able to conceal their infirmities. They little know the ordeal through which they must pass. They entirely overlook the fact that a surgeon in five minutes can overhaul them as a watchmaker overhauls a watch. There is abundant attempt at fraud all around.--Drafted men claim disqualification on the ground of disability, and men who want substitute money endeavor to conceal their ailments. Both call into practice the utmost skill of the surgeon making the examination.
’ The substitute, upon presenting himself for acceptance, is taken into a room, where he disrobes himself. The surgeon begins with his teeth, and examines his whole body down to his toes. The examination is even more searching than the examination of an applicant for a policy of insurance upon his life by a life insurance company's surgeon. If the front teeth are gone, so that a man cannot bite off a cartridge paper, he cannot be accepted for infantry service. He may do for a trooper. Every limb is examined. If the lungs are unsound, the temperament apoplectic, or the system wasting, the Government does not want the man either as a volunteer, a conscript, or a substitute.
The applicant is made to throw himself into various attitudes. His toes and fingers must be practically perfect. He is made to pick up a grain of corn from the ground without bending his knees; to stand upon the points of his toes, and to show that he is perfect in his anatomy. If he stands this test he is accepted, and a release is given to the man who brings him. The substitute then receives his money, and is taken into the custody of a guard. He is then a United States soldier for three years.
At Capt. Lehman's office yesterday we saw some humorous incidents. A man about 40 years of age came limping into the office. He wanted exemption.
"What ails your leg?" was the first question.
"Why, it's stiff, that air leg is. "It's been stiff nigh on two year."
"What makes it stiff?"
"Why, I reckon it's the rheumatis, Doctor. That leg ain't got no more joint in it than a crowbar."
"Well, we'll see. Step outside there and we'll look at you."
"Oh, you needn't give yourselves no trouble. I kin jest roll up my trousers leg right here."
"We don't do matters that way. Walk into that room. We want to see that leg; perhaps we can cure it. We've performed some remarkable cures lately."
The man didn't want to go into the room, but saw there a guard at hand likely to enforce the order. So he went in. He stripped, exposing a very dirty hide to the sunlight. The doctor looked at the leg and formed his own conclusions. He asked the man more questions, and received positive answer that the limb was immovably stiffened, the result of rheumatism.
"You must take other, my man. I can cure you of this stiffness," said the doctor.
"I reckon you hadn't got no right to do nothing of that kind," said the man. "I come here with a stiff leg. You can see I haint fit for sojerin, nohow, and you haint got no right to pizen me neither."
"We have the right to prevent sneaks and liars from evading the duty of every citizen, and we are going to test the truth of what you have been saying."
The man grew very ugly. The sponge of ether was brought and applied, but he pushed it away. Five men were required at last to hold him down, but the ether was applied, and the man at last rendered insensible. To accomplish this required a full bottle of ether. The surgeon was satisfied the man was shamming. About his leg there was not the least rigidity. It was in all respects perfect.--When he came to consciousness the man was told that until his substitute was procured he was considered a conscript. He was exceedingly surprised that his deception was unmasked.
Another man followed him, who wished to be a substitute, upon whose limbs were big nodules, like spavins upon a horse. He was an Irishman. The doctor saw at a glance that he was unsound, and dismissed him with a sharp reproof for his stupidity in presenting himself.
The next was a little man, who claimed to be ruptured. The removal of his clothing disclosed a truss with pads about as big as tea saucers, large enough to cover a first-class rupture upon the Belgian giant. The doctor could find no sign of any rupture, but as a rupture sometimes descends or recedes, the man was told to sit down for a while. In half an hour, if it existed, it would be perceptible. The man sat down, in puris naturatibus, upon a chair, trembling like a leaf. But the rupture didn't show itself. The surgeon said that if he could bring a respectable medical certificate of rupture existing, it should have due weight. The man left, saying he would get it. He appeared honest.
Out of about thirty whom we thus saw examined yesterday morning, more than a dozen were badly ruptured, a fact which shows that dealers in trusses do a lively business. One fellow had voluntarily relinquished his front teeth to escape conscription. To his unutterable dismay he was accepted for cavalry service. He was evidently a coward. When he found himself caught his knees smote together, and his face paled to the whiteness of the paper on which the surgeon wrote his name and condition. He was in splendid health. The gums from which the sound teeth had been violently drawn had not yet receded into position. Very few colored men apply for release. When drawn they go or else bring substitutes, and few of them do this.
