The Administration of the French Army is incurably perverse on
the question of disease. It has a theory that if the truth about the amount of sickness were known, the conscripts would not come forward, and the troops themselves would lose heart, and treats any revelation on the subject as an inexcusable offence. The Tunis correspondent of the Times recently for- warded a letter received from Carthage, describing the infamous condition of the hospitals there. The Adminis- tration inquired the name of the writer, and Surgeon-Major Bailli, obviously a man of humanity and intelligence, admitted the authorship. The Administration thereupon removed the troops and broke up the hospitals, thus confessing the truth of Dr. Bailli's narrative ; but he is to be dismissed the service. No wonder, when the mouths even of responsible surgeons are thus closed, that of 800 men in garrison at Fernana ten per cent. died, and not one escaped a fever, usually typhoid. The men were posted on the edge of a marsh, with only one doctor- -there being 600 minutes in a working day—and kept there for six months. The French Staff would not expend horses at the rate they expend men.
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