NOTES AND QUERIES.
IT is quite impossible to maintain an army without .proper food to maintain the men that compose that army. This is such a clear axiom in military physics that it cannot be denied. Our army in the Crimea has*been far more than decimated by disease—decimated many times over. The climate is severe, but it is not the winterly character of the climate that is the cause of disease ; for the dis- eases that have taken off the men are principally diarrhoea and scorbutic dysentery. These are not winter maladies ; and, on the i contrary, it is quite possible, as our Arctic expeditions have shown, to maintain men in a remarkably healthy condition in the most rigid of climates. By the method of differences we may approach the master-cause of the Crimea diseases; and a medical corre- spondent of high standing aids us in the query- " Does not all experience prove, first, that the colder the climate, the greater the exposure to the weather, the lighter the clothing, the larger should be the allowance of food ; secondly, that a mixed diet—that is, a diet com- posed of animal and vegetable substances in certain proportions—is essential to health, and weight for weight is more nutritious and sustaining than the strongest article of food alone, such as muscular fibre ; thirdly, that as drink, tea and coffee, are far more wholesome, relieving thirst better, and easing the sense of fatigue more, than ardent spirits, and have invariably been preferred when there has been a choice ?"
Attention to these principles has produced immensely improved health in countries where the diseases endured by our troops in the Crimea are chronically prevalent—in the West Indies. The Commissariat, it is said, has made no allowance for tare and tret in the way of peculation and waste : but besides quantity, it is evident from the facts, that the character of the dietary demands reconstruction.
Sir John Pakington wanted to know of Lord Palmerston, the other night, whether Lord John would soon return to England and the Colonial Offioe, to prevent that extreme public inconvenience -which must result to departmental affairs from his protracted ab- sence. The constitutions of Victoria and New South Wales hang upon consultations with Lord John ; and a delegate from Newfound- land has already waited upon three successive Colonial Ministers. Lord Palmerston answered, "There is, as the right honourable baronet well knows, a permanent Under-Secretary and a permanent Assistant-Under-Secretery : the political Under-Secretary is not yet named, but he will be appointed in a very short time." " Sir George Grey Will continue to perform the duties of the office, and no public inconvenience can arise from the temporary absence of my noble friend." So the chief duties can be patched up for a lime. For is there not " a permanent Under-Secretary and a per- manent Assistant-Under-Secretary " ? These are the men whose existence we have pointed out before, and to whose covert po- sition, without Parliamentary responsibility, we alluded last week. They do the business—political Secretary and Under-Se- cretary act as fenders or pads to soften the responsibility. Would it not be a better arrangement to do without these supernumerary, useless, and responsibility-fending politicals—literally those old " buffers "—and deal direct with the permanent ? It is the least advantage to say that it would save expense.
New Russian Five per Cents have been sold at Hamburg at 82, 81, or lower—even as low as 801. A commercial writer in the _Daily News calls in question the good faith of Hamburg in its professed neutrality ; for neutral countries ought not to facilitate this dealing in the stook of a belligerent. Another question forces itself upon our notice in this same Daily News. One day we see Russian Five per Cents in London quoted at 98 to 100. Is it not enough to make any Bull purchase in Hamburg to sell in London ? But 'ware hawk ! there are distinctions between Five per Cents; and certainly the Five per Cent that is worth only 801 is not the Five per Cent which is sold at 90 to 100. The open stock at Hamburg measures the real credit of Russia; the scanty supply of stock in London measures something else. They do say that the stock is bought up ; and that, strangely enough, the great Bear of the North is the only member of the Bull party for his own stook in London.
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