mers, made to carry stone or other ponderous articles over the fields. Each of them had a flat platform six or eight feet wide,and twelve or fifteen long. Some hay was spread upon this, and upon that the wounded soldiers were placed as thickly as they could be laid, without shelter of any kind, or pillows for their heads, or blankets for their limbs, except such as they might happen to have upon them. The weather has been excessively warm, the storm on the day of the battle being the last rain that has fallen, and yesterday and to-day the sky has been perfectly clear, and the air heated with the warmest rays of an Italian sun. The roads are perfectly hard and very dusty, and it was utterly impossible for well persons to travel along them with any comfort without protection of some kind from the heat. You can judge, then, of the intense suffering which these thousands of maimed and mutilated creatures must have endured during that fearful journey of ten or fifteen miles, performed at the slowest pace of heaven oxen, and compelled constantly to stop by some interruption of the procession.

It was enough to melt the most obdurate heart to see the state in which they arrived. The peasants who drove them seemed not to have the slightest sense of their condition, or to take the least pains to alleviate their agony. Some of the soldiers themselves, whose wounds were less serious and permitted them to move about, had cut branches from the willows and other trees that border the road, and made of them a slight shade for some of those who could only lie upon their backs; their faces turned to the brazen and burning sky. As far as the eye could see, a dense cloud of white dust marked the approach of the advancing train. As the carts came into the town, many of the poor wretches stretched out their hands, piteously crying for water, or for wine, as they were perishing of thirst. The people of the village had prepared, so far as possible, for their reception. Committees had been appointed, a quantity of soup had been prepared, and the young women and men of the place went to work to supply the most pressing necessities of the poor creatures who were suffering on their behalf. They went about from cart to cart, asking what each needed, and provided for them to the best of their ability. Austrians and French were mingled indiscrimately, and were treated with precisely the same kindness and attention.

As a general thing, the Austrians were very badly wounded, and seemed to suffer terribly. They were, so far as had been convenient, placed upon the same carts, and frequently six or eight carts would arrive with none but Austrians upon them; but still more frequently there would be three or four Austrians upon a cart with twice as many French. In many cases I have seen a French soldier assisting the Austrian, who lay by his side, into some easier position, or endeavaring to procure for him water or something else of which he seemed to be in need. All differences of nationality were submerged in the intense and overmastering agonies of their common fate. Upon one cart which came up, lay an Austrain who had died on the road; and close by his side was a French soldier just able to raise himself from his place and beg for water. As he raised his head, he looked over at his companion, and said, as if envying his lot, 'Poor fellow ! he needs nothing now.' The Austrian lay at full length upon the cart, his hands crossed upon his breast, and his face, which was turned directly upward to the sun, wearing an expression of intense suffering. Five or six others, less severely wounded, were sitting in front.

Upon another cart lay a poor fellow entirely naked above his waist, except a broad bandage which had been passed around his body to protect a frightful wound received from a musket ball in his side-the ball seemed to have passed entirely through his body-his face was pale and inexpressibly sad; and he had just strength enough left to lift himself up and beg for water. It was immediately brought; and as soon as his condition was perceived, he was lifted off the cart in the blanket on which he was lying, and

placed in the hall of the hospital; but he lived only a few minutes longer. As they were lifting him out, the blanket was drawn from under the feet of another poor fellow lying in the same cart, and the motion extorted from him a cry of anguish more intense than I ever heard before.

But it is utterly useless to multiply notices of individual cases of suffering. Indeed, it would be impossible to mention a hundredth part of the instances of dreadful agony which attracted my special attention at the time; and if each one of them could be described in writing, not even a faint impression would be given of the fearful horrors of the scene as it met the eyes of a spectator.

BATTLE OE MAGENTA-THE WOUNDED AMONG THE VICTORS. - The Milanese, immediately after the Austrian evacuation, sent up a train to fetch the wounded. As they were found, they were brought in succession to the station by the soldiers, a detachment of two companies of the first Fusileers of the Guard. At the station, the surgeons were in attendance to apply the first dressing, and the trains from Milan went to and fro to carry them off. The trains consisted of nothing but third-class carriages and good wagons, partly covered, partly open. Those who were only slightly wounded, and could walk, were put into the carriages, while the others were laid in the good wagons, which were made as soft as the circumstances admitted by putting straw and hay at the bottom. To these the unfortunate wretches were carried in agonies of pain caused by the movement. A large barrel of cooling drink, made of water and syrup, was near, as well as another filled with wine, with which to assuage the fiery thirst caused by their wounds. Boughs were cut to make an awaning, so as to protect the miserable inmates from the rays of a real Italian sun. This station, and the railway train itself, were certainly the most shocking scenes of misery which one can possibly conceive. It was the darkest side of a brilliant victory, looking behind the scenes by daylight; the wounded in all stages of agony and pain, only half-clad, torn dusty, and muddy, in their own blood. The priests walking about with the viaticum to administer the last sacrament to the dying; the glazed eye of death in some showing that they had ceased to suffer; the working eyes of others and the kneeling priest before them, showing that they were on the point of sighing their last. Near them were others whom you would have thought dead, had it not been for the imperceptible movement of the eye, or a convulsive twist of the limb. You became involuntarily silent when you entered and took off your cap at the sight of so much misery. Even the lively French soldiers who ministered to the wants of these defaced specimens of humanity, became grave; and this dead silence was only broken from time to time by the words of the priest, a faint sob, a frantic shriek, or a weak sigh. You forgot almost that here was a victory to redeem the dark scene, and these men who would otherwise have peacefully followed their domestic occupations, were summoned to expose themselves to all this for a cause which is not their own, which they know nothing about, nor care for. It was indeed a hard lot.

But it was, above all, when the wounded had to be moved to the carriages that the neighborhood became almost intolerable. Such shrieks, such pale faces contracted by pain, such torn limbs! The soldiers ordered to transport them seemed to forget everything in their anxiety to alleviate the pain of the sufferers, Philanthropists would have been touched by so much care, and the cynic might have sneered at the idea that the very men who had made the wounds, should now try to cure the mischief, ready to begin again.

SUFFERINGS OF THE WOUNDED.

-As a general thing the wounded made but little noise. Many of them were too much exhausted, none of

them cried aloud, and comparatively few could be heard to groan. But there was no mistaking the expression of their faces, which spoke of intense agony in spite of all their efforts to suppress and conquer it. As I was riding through the principal street in Castiglione this afternoon, passing the largest hospital, I saw lying in the street, close to the wall fifty or sixty Austrian wounded who had just been brought in from the field, and for whom no place within the building could yet be found. One of them, a large, powerful man, with an intelligent face, was sitting upright, with his back against the wall, uttering with a chattering sound the most intense and heart-rending yells of pain. He looked eagerly into the face of every one who passed, as if he must have help; but he could only await his turn. In another part of the town, on a cross-road leading from the hill in front of Solferino, I met twenty-one ox-carts laden with Austrians in every stage of suffering. One of the carts contained but two, and in the extremity of their agony they had half risen to their knees, grappled one another by the shoulder, and were gazing into one another's faces with a fixed and stony look of frienzied horror which I shall never forget.

A CHURCH TURNED INTO A HOSPITAL. -Just before dark on Sunday evening, I looked into the large church in this place, to which the greatest number of the wounded were taken. It was a Catholic Church, of course, as there are no others here. All the furniture of every kind had been taken out, from the altar and side chapels, as well as from the nave of the building; and upon rows of mattrasses extended lengthwise upon the stone floor, as closely as they could lie, the wounded were placed All whose injuries would permit their removal, had been taken away, and sent on to Montechiaro, Brescia and other towns, and only those were left who seemed very near their end. In one side chapel lay eight Austrians, two or three gasping for breath, and in the very act of dying, and not one of the whole eight could possibly, it seemed to me, live an hour. The entire floor was covered with the poor victims of war, nearly all rapidly approaching the same extremity. Men and women charged with the care of them, were passing to and fro, not to soothe or comfort the dying, for there was no time for that, but looking for those who might still be saved. Over the altar, looking down upon this horrid scene, was an immense, well-painted, life-like picture illustrating the Sermon on the Mount, and representing the Redeemer saying to those about him, Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the Children of God.' What an awful comment upon that sacred text!

A GLIMPSE OF A BATTLE-FIELD THREE DAYS AFTER THE BATTLE.Muskets, some broken, but most of them quite uninjured, lay all over the field. Cartridges unused, in immense quantities, were strewn about; balls of all kinds could be picked up everywhere, though many had sunk into the earth; ramrods, bayonets, priming tubes, and all the little utensils of war lay around; bits of clothing, gloves, belts, pocket combs such as soldiers carry, and great quantities of letters, were strewn about in every direction; and at least a hundred dead horses could be seen from any point where you might choose to stand, some torn almost asunder by cannon balls, some pierced in the side by grape-shot, and others with their legs completely shot away. A surface of level ground, embracing, according to the best estimate I could make, not less than six square miles, was densely covered with these ghastly relics of the fight. I could not spend much time in traversing the field; for the bodies, owing to the intense heat, were in an advanced stage of decomposition, and the stench was overpowering ! A SIGHT OF THE DEAD.— The plain of Guidizzollo, a part of the battlefield of Solferino, is really horrible to look upon. The dead were to be seen in groups of twenty and thirty, huddled together in one spot, where a shell

had exploded, or the Chasseurs d'Afrique had passed. All still maintained the attitude in which death had struck them down. Here was one with uplifted arm to ward off the blow which had split open his skull, and splashed his brains far and near. Close by was another, with his hand upon his breast shivered and rent by the grape. Another seemed to be smiling, as if in mockery of the grim warrior's approach. Some were lying npon their backs, with faces turned towards heaven, and prayers still seeming to linger upon their lips. Further on there was a Hungarian, who had thrust his clothes into a ghastly wound near the heart. At his left was a Tyrolese, with the unused cartridge between his teeth. To the right, a Croat had his head cut off by a ball, and the head was by his side, with its horrible eyes, glaring and leering, as it seemed, at the dismembered body. Two young lads, of certainly not more than sixteen, were lying in each other's arms. Death had surprised them in that attitude; or, perhaps, feeling themselves about to die, they had clung together in a last embrace, and had fallen thus never to rise again. Upon the body of a Bohemian officer we noticed a dog, waiting apparently for his master to get up! We had not the heart to call

off the faithful animal by a word or a gesture, for we felt sure that God would reward the devotion of this poor dumb creature, so touchingly shown amidst the carnage which man had waged against his fellow man. On every side it was the same. Death, in his most horrible and ghastly form, glared at us, no matter where we gazed.

HOW SOLDIERS ARE BURIED.-At one point by the side of the road, ten or fifteen peasants were burying the dead. They gathered them from the field upon hand-barrows, from which they were rolled into the hollow places on the road side, from which gravel had been taken to repair the track, and after five or six, or as many as the space would hold, had been tumbled in, a foot or two of dirt was shoveled over them. No attempt was made to remove any of their clothing, or to lay them side by side, or in any particular position. They were tumbled in just as it happened, and were covered up just as they chanced to fall. In many cases, they were lain lengthwise, in single file, and then covered over, a single row being next put in, then a third, a fourth, and so on. In this way over two hundred had been buried in a single place.

A TERRIBLE AGGREGATE.-The general opinion, says one writing from Solferino, appears to be that the total of slain and mutilated in this one engagement will not be found to fall far short of 40,000 or 50,000. At Magenta the local authorities are said to have stated that they actually buried 13,000. The wounded in the late battle, therefore, probably amounted to 25,000 or 30,000. Looking at the previous losses on both sides, at Palaestro, and in the various contests conducted by Garibaldi, to say nothing of those who have perished in crossing the Alps, and in other movements, it will be a moderate calculation to suppose, that the tale of blood and misery now numbers at least 130,000 victims! Reckoning the number of parents, brothers and sisters of all this host, 600,000 or 700,000 survivors must also be suffering the deepest anguish.

FEELINGS IN BATTLE. Our officers, says a young French officer, describing his first battle, kept us back, for we were not numerous enough to charge upon the enemy. This was, moreover, most prudent; for this murderous fire, so fatal to the white coats, did us but little harm. Our conical balls penetrated their dense masses, while those of the Austrians whistled past our ears, and respected our persons. It was the first time I had faced fire, nor was I the only one. Well, I am satisfied with myself. True, I dodged the first balls; but Henry IV., they say, did the same at the

beginning of every battle. It is, in fact, a physical effect, independent of the will.

But this tribute paid, if you could only feel how each shot electrifies you. It is like a whip on a racer's legs. The balls whistle past you, turn up the earth around you, kill one, wound another, and you hardly notice them. You grow intoxicated. The smell of gunpowder mounts to your brain. The eye becomes blood-shot, and the look is fixed upon the enemy. There is something of all the passions in that terrible passion excited in a soldier by the sight of blood, and the tumult of battle. Everybody who has tried it, testifies to the peculiar intoxication produced by being in a battle. There is an infatuatiug influence about the smell of powder, the shrill whistle of a bullet, and the sight of human blood, that instantly transforms men from cowards to heroes; from women sometimes to monsters. None can tell of the nature or mystery of that influence, but those who have been in the affray themselves.

CHRISTIAN STATESMANSHIP.

My belief is, says Lord Derby, that the policy of England, which is best calculated to maintain the peace of the world, is, in the first place, a firm but temperate maintainance of our own rights; in the next place, a studious and careful recognition of, and respect for, the rights of others, together with an anxious desire not to interfere unnecessarily with the internal affairs of other states; and also a determination not willingly to give or take offence, and a determination, if offence unhappily arise, to have reference to the principle which, to its endless honor, was embodied in the protocols of the Conferance of Paris, viz: to resort in the first instance, not to hostilities, but to the good offices and mediation of some friendly power."

It should be remembered that this new measure of peace, a resort to mediation in place of the sword, was adopted by the Paris Congress of 1856, and recommended to all nations, through the special agency of the friends of peace. It was the result of discussions and efforts, continued by them for a whole generation, and culminating in the appeals made by the London Peace Society, first, to the British government, and finally to all the members of the Paris Congress. The credit is fairly due to our cause, and shows how surely, though slowly and silently, it is gaining its great ends.

OUR PUBLICATIONS-especially the Advocate, we are, by the aid of our friends, spreading more and more widely before the public. We think we are making clear and hopeful progress in these ways; but we much need, as we earnestly bespeak, the co-operation of our friends.

LONDON PEACE SOCIETY'S FINANCES.- -Its receipts, including a balance of $1,228 from the previous account, are for the year $ 10,885, and its expenses $8,963, leaving on hand $2,722 to start the operations of another year. The League of Brotherhood and Olive Leaf Circles, merged now in this Society, we find credited with $611, and charged with $1,100 nearly twice as much. Legacies have the last year yielded $2,350; an amount, we believe, considerably larger than usual. One marked peculiarity of this Society's finances, is that they are so regular, uniform and reliable, essentially the same from year to year, in sunshine and in storm, because the outgrowth of Christian principle. How much does the cause need in our own country a similar basis for its support and prosperity.