The Paris papers of Tuesday publish letters received from their
correspondents with the Madagascar Expedition, which seem to show that the troops are suffering greatly from disease and depression. The correspondent of the Autaritg calculates that there are from three thousand to four thousand men down with fever. Out of five hundred or six hundred men under treatment at Suberbieville, about sixty have died within a month, two-thirds of whom were Europeans. The 200th Regiment of the line, solely composed of young soldiers who were drawn by ballot for active service, suffers most. The correspondent of the Temps, writing on July 22nd, after stating that malarial fever and other diseases are raging at Saberbieville, goes on to frame a serious indictment against those responsible for the expedition. The plan of campaign down to the smallest details was, he asserts, elaborated in the War Ministry in Paris by officers who had no knowledge of the country. The Generals who had studied the question for three years, and the officers who took part in the 1885 expedition, were not consulted. This is, of course, serious news ; but it must not be supposed that it pertends the failure of the expedition. Fever and the collapse of the transport service are constant features of all military opera- tions in the tropics. The use of young conscripts was, however, a clear mistake.
