WOUNDED.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 7, Issue 352, 16 July 1863, Page 4

WOUNDED.

“ Six hundred and forty-three wounded !”

“If that were all !” My wife spoke in a sad voice. “If that were, all!”

“ The return is given; as complete,” I said, referring again to the newspaper which I held in my hand. “ One hundred and forty-one killed, and six hundred and forty-three wounded.” ' “ A fearful list, but it is not all,” ihy wife answered. Her tones were even sadder than at first. “A great many more were wounded-—a great many more.’'’ “ But this is an official return, signed bv the commanding general” ‘ "** And so far, doubtless, correct. But from every battle-field go swift-winged messengers that kill or wound at a thousand miles instead of a thousand paces ; bullets invisible to mortal eyes that pierce loving hearts. Of the dead and wounded from these we have no report. They are casualties not spoken of by our commanding generals.” I had not thought of this .; or, at least, not with any realising sense of what it involved. My wife resumed: “ Let us take the matter home. We have a son in the army.. ; The ball that strikes him strikes us. . If in the list of killed and wounded we! had foiind his name, would there have been no bayonet point or shattering bullet in our flesh ? I shiver at the thought. Ah, these invisible messengers of pain and death wound often deeper than iron and lead.” As she thus spoke my eyes were resting on the official list, and I saw the name of a friend. An ejaculation of ■ surprise dropped from my lips. “ What ?” My startled wife grew slightly pale. “ Harley is wounded !’’ “O dear!” The pallor increased : and she laid her hand over her heart,-—a sign that she felt pain there. “ Badly ?” She tried to steady her voice. “ A ball through the chest. Not set down as dangerous, however.”

“ Poor Anna ! What sad. tidings for her?” My wife arose. “I must go to her immediately.” “ Do so,” I answered. Soon afterwards we went out together : I to my office, and she to visit the wife of our wounded friend.

It is strange how little those who are not brought into the actual presence of death and disaster ori the battle-field realise their appallingjnature. We read of the killed and wounded, and sum up the figures.as coldly, almost, as if 'he statistics were simply commercial. We talk of our losses as indifferently as if'men were mere crates and bales. Ido not except myself. Sometimes I feel as though all sensibility, all sympathy for human suffering, had died out of my heart, it is, perhaps, as well. If we perceived to the full extent the terrible reality of tilings, we would be in half paralysed states, insteiul. of continuing our useful enjoymeuts by whiclr the common good is served. We cannot help the suffering nor heal the wounded by our mental pain. But let us see to it that through lack of pain we fail not in ministration to the extent of our ability. When I met my wife at dinner-time her face was paler than when I parted with her in the morning. I saw that she lmd been suffering, while I, intent for hours upon my work, had half forgotten! my wounded friends, Harley and his wife; one pierced by a visible, and the other by an invisible bullet.

“ Hicl you see Anna ?” I asked. “ Yes.” “ How is she ?” “ Calm, but hurt very deeply. She only had the news this morning.”: “ Is she going to him ?”

“ There has not been time to decide what is best. Her husband’s brother is here, and will get as much information by telegraph to-day as it is possible to receive. To-night or to-morrow he will leave for the buttle-lield. Anna may go with him ”

‘•She .appeared hurt deeply you say.” “ Yes,” replied my wife, “ and was in most intense pain. Every line in her face exhibited suffering. One hand was pressed all the while tightly over her heart.” “ What did she sav ?” ”

“ Not much. She seemed looking into the distance and trying to make out things seen but imperfectly. If he were to die, I think it would kill her.” “ Two deaths by the same bullet,” I said, my thought recurring to our morning conversation. ‘

In the evening I called with my wife to see Mrs. Hai’ley. A telegram had been received stating that her husband’s wound, though severe, was not considered dangerous. The ball had been extracted and he was reported to be doing well. She was going to leave in the night train with her brother-in-law, and would be with her husband in the quickest time it was possible to make. How a few hours of suffering had changed her? The Wound was deep and very painful. It was nearly two months before Harley was sufficiently recovered to be removed from the hospital. His wife had been permited to see him every day, and to remain in attendance on him for the greater part of the time. • n t! , “ Did you know that Mxv Harley and his wife were at home ? ” said I, coming in one day. ' “No. When did they arrive ?” was the answer and inquiry. “ This morning. 1 heard it from Hailey’s brother.” “ How are they ! ’’ asked my wife.

“ He looks as well as ever, I am told, though still suffering from his wound; but she is miserable, Mr. Harley says.” A shadow fell over my wife’s face, and she sighed heavily. “ [ was afraid of that,” she said. “ I knew she was hurt badly. Flesh wonnds close readily* but spirit wounds are difficult to heal. Those

invisible bullets are almost sure to reach some vital part.” I nieCMr. Harley riot long afterwards in company with his wife. His eyes were bright, his lips firm, his cheeks flushed with health. You saw scarcely a sign of what he had endured. He talked in a brave, soldierly manner, and was anxious for the time to come when the surgeon would pronounce him in a condition to join his regiment. His wound, when referred to, evidently gave him more pleasure than pain., It was. a mark of distinction—a sign chat he had offered even life for his country. * How different with Mrs Harley ! It toutched you to look into her dreamy, absent eyes, on her patient .lips and exhausted countenance.;

“ She has worn herself out in nui'sing me,” said her husband, in answer to a remark on her appearance.; He looked at her tenderly, tand with just a shade of anxiety in his face. Was the truth not plain to him ? Hid he not know that she had been wounded also ? That‘two balls left the rifle when he was struck, one of them reaching to his distant home. “ In three weeks I hope to be in the field again, and face to face with the enemy.” He spoke with the ardour of a strong desire, his eyes bright and his face in a glow—wounding, and the pain of wounding, all' forgotten. Hut another’s eyes grew dim as his • brightened ; another’s cheek .paled as his grew warm. I saw the tears shine as Mrs. Harley answered, in an unsteady voice, “ I am neither brave enough nor strong enough for a soldier’s wife.” She had meant to say' more,, as was plain from her manner, but could not trust herself.

“ O yes, you ivre ; brave enough and strong enough,” replied Mr. Hai-ley with animation. “Not every one could have moved so calmly amid the dreadful scenes of a camp hospital after , a battle. I watched you often, and felt proud of you.”

“ If she had not been wounded also,” my wife began ; but Mr. Harley interrupted her with the ejaculation;— “ Wounded ! ” in a tone of surprise.

“ Yes, wounded,” resumed my wife ; “ and as now appears, nearer the seat of vitality than you were. Hid you not know this before, Mr. Harley?” My friend was perplexed for a little while. He could not get down at once to my wife’s meaning. “ When you were.sti'uck she was struck also.”

“ O yes !” Light broke in upon Mr. Harley. He turned quickly towards his wife, and saw in her face what had been unseen before, the wasting and exhaustion that come only from deep-seated pain. He had thought the paleness of her countenance, the weakness that made her step slow and-cautious, only the I’esult of over taxed muscles and nerves. But he knew better now.

“ I didn’t think of that,” he said, with visible anxiety, as he gazed into his wife’s countenance. “ Our wounds, so ghastly to the eyes, often get no deeper than the flesh and bone. The pain is short, and nature comes quickly to the work of cure with all her healing energies. We suffer for awhile, and then it is over. We are strbng and ready for the conflict, again.”

“ But,” said my wife, “ into the homes that stand far away from the battle-fields come swift-winged messengers that wound

ancl kill as surely as iron hail. They strike mothers, wives, sisters ; some with death wounds, all with the anguish of vital pain. Alas for these wounded! The healing, as it follows, is never, as the surgeons say, by the first intention, but always slow, and often through abscess and ulceration. The larger number never entirely recover. They may linger for years, but lose, not the marks of suffering, A long silence followed. There were others present who, like Mr. Harley, had never thought of this. I noticed that for the hour we remained together lie was tenderer towards his wife, and more than once I saw him looking ,at her, while she was not observing him, with a troubled countenance He did not again speak of the early period at which he expected to join his regiment.

On the day following another list of killed and wounded was given to the public. As I read over the names and counted the numbers my thought came back from the bloody field and suffering hospital. “These are hot all,” I said, Alas ! not all. The ball struck twice, thrice; sometimes oftener. There is pain, there is anguish, there is wounding even unto death in many, many homes within a thousand miles of that gory place, Some are alone and neglected, 1 (lying on their bit.!tie-field with none to put even a cup of water to their lips; some are with loving friends who yet fail to staunch the flow of blood, or bandage the shattered 1 mb; some cover their wounds, hiding them from all eyes, and hear: the pain in chosen solitude. The sum of all this agony, who shall give it ? Our wounded ! If you would find them all you must look beyond the hospitals. They are not every one bear “led and in male attire. There sat beside you, in the ear just now, a woman. You scarcely noticed her. She left at ;tbe corner below. There was not much life in her face ; her st« p 3, as she rested on the payemeht, were slow. She has been wounded, and is dying. Dili y<u notice Mrs. D, in church last Sunday ? “ Yes; and now I remember that e was pale and had an altered look,” One of our wounded ! Do you see a face at the ''inflow? “In t'ie marble-front house?” Yes. “It is sad enough ! what in-looking eyes?” Wounded ! Ah, sir, they are eveywhere about us. Already from over a 1 u idred battle-fields and skirmishing grounds have been such missives as pain.and death. They have penetrated unguarded homes in every city, town, and neighbourhood of our once happy and peaceful country, wounding the beloved ones left there in hoped for security. For such there is balm only in Gilead-—-God is their Physician.— N. Y. Christian J Ivocatr.

New Zealand v. Australia,— The following remarks, which we take from ah English paper, cannot but have frequently occurred to any one who has resided for any time in both colonies “ Amongst other advantages that New Zealand has oyer the Australian colonies, as a home for emigrants, is that its soil is not infested by insects and reptiles. In the opinion of intending emigrants, this may not be thought worthy of consideration ; but when they have lived where ants and many other things are a source of constant annoyance and irritation of mind sufficient to keep one from ever enjoying in the. summer time that calm serenity.necessary to all who would lead a happy life, they will think differently. The la*ge ants, called “ bull-dogs” which sometimes show fight to a man ay ell armed with a stick—the centipedes, scorpions, and venemaus snakes, everywhere to be found in Australia, are none of them to be found in New Zealand. These creatures in Australia are very industrious, and some of them very fond of travelling. A few years familiarity with them lessens the annoyance of their company in- the day; but in the month of Mai*ch they delight in taking exercise by walks and crawl in the shade of the night; and my aversion <to> having them around me when wishing for repose bould not be overcome, not even by th familiar aquaintanceship of frequently finding a centipede in my blankets.”

The ladies should consider that to kiss the the lips of a swearer is a kind of profanity.

An Irishman’s: Notion of . Biscount. —One day during the present month an Irishman applied to a merchant to discount a bill of exchange for him. The merchant remarked that the bill had a great many days to run. “ That’S true,” * i - eplied the Irishman, “but then, my honey,, you don’t cobsider how short the days are at this time of the year.” A poultry fancier lately procured a picture of a favourite hen, which was so natural that it laid on his table for severa 1 weeks.

ORIGINAL. POETRY. WAR SONG ' FOR THE WANGANUI VOLUNTEERS. Air —“ Arouse thee, arouse thee, my merry Svviss boy.” To arms ! to arms ! you conquering; race, Who scatter'd lie over the land; •. . Shall it ever be said that an enemy base In your presence a moment would stand ? No ; we taught them a lesson not easy forgot, ; And. are willing to teach them again jWe’ll make them be civil be they willing or not, And what we have woni.we’ll maintain. Shall the murderous Maori, with dark: vengeful ■ - .. eye. ■ •' ; - . • Deprive us of all we hold dear ? Shall the blaze of our homesteads ascend to the : sky, 1 ! ; And the savage o’er us domineer ? Forget, oh ! forget not the heartrending sight Once witness’d on New Plymouth’s plain, When houses were burning from morning till night; Let’s hope we’ll ne’er see such again! Our poor aged parents, the authors of our lives, Can we bear to see ruthlessly slain ? Our dear little children and fondly loved wives Could we witness bear one moment’s pain ?, Our sisters and sweethearts demand our aid!; Their honour and lives we shall guard ; No ruffian fiends our homes shall invade ; ; Their progress we’ll: promptly retard. Then to arms! to arms f let’s all have one mind;' No foe can our efforts withstand ; A people to everything gooj>'being no blind, No footing should have in the land.Let our soldiers, triumphant the wide world o’er, Be assisted by ns Volunteers ; Then murders inhuman we’ll hear of no more, And at last we may cease from our fears. Jupiter Ojlympius. July 13th, 1563.

Holloway's Pills. —Despondency, Low Spirits —The misery occasioned by disordered digestion is unfortunately felt by many, known to everyone. Holloway’s Pills should be taken to restore health ; they dispel headache, biliousness nausea, lowness‘of spirits, and similar symptoms whieh indicate the presence of poisonous matter or prevented action. A course of those invaluable purifying Pills never fails in removing the causes and consequences of these morbid • signs without subjecting the sufferer to any disagreeable restrictions of diet or ordinary pursuits. They strengthen the stomach and brace the nerves. Holloway’s Pills are peculiarly adapted for renovating systems enfeebled by late hours hard livsng, other anxiety, or any other excess which is known to debilitate and exhaust the human constitution.