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PHILADELPHIA, JUNK 13, 1804.
THE FAR-REACHING INFLUENCE OF THE
SANITARY COMMISSION.
TTIGIILY as we are all coming to appreciate
-*" 1 tlie work done by this noble organization,
but few of us have yet thought out to their
remote results either its present influences
upon our soldiers and our armies, or those
more enduring effects it is certain to leave upon
our national character after its active opera
tions shall have come to a close. Some of
these are so forcibly presented in the following
contribution, written for Our Daily Fair by Mr.
J. T. Deadly, from his home at Cedar Lawn,
on the Hudson, that we take the liberty of
adopting them for the editorial page. We may,
in this connection, state that Mr. Deadly has
manifested a great interestinourprescntCentral
Fair, and done much to aid it by many happy
suggestions.
The greatest blessings to (lie human race
are not always the direct result of the actions
that really, under God, produced them. While
seeking a good, seemingly to us immeasurably
great, we secure another in the future, vaster
than the imagination had conceived of. The dis
covery of a new hemisphere, important as it was
in its immediate effect on science and commerce,
revealed but a moiety of the beneficial results
that, in the lapse of time, flowed to the whole
world. So the Sanitary Commission, which
sought solely the amelioration of suffering in
the camp and hospital, already sees a wider
field opening before it, and results to be ac
complished by it, to which the immediate saving
of life and suffering is comparatively insignifi
cant. Not that the amount of pain it relieves,
and the solace it brings to the sick and woun
ded—the lives it saves to the country, and the
thousands of homes it keeps from being dar
kened, and the thousands of hearts it saves
from being broken, are not worth all the
money it spends, and all the labor it freely
gives; for it is impossible to measure the
amount of good it does in this respect. Could
each contributor follow the sum he bestows to
the hospital or battle-field, and see the de
spairing eyes it rcillumcs with the light of
hope, the tortured frames it restores to com
fort, or the life it brings back from the grave,
and trace its effect still further, to the home of
the sufferer, where blessings are rained on the
noble charity that relieved his pains, and
brought him back to rejoicing hearts, he would
bless God that lie ever put it in his heart to
give it his aid and sympathy.
Still, there are other results to be reached
by the Sanitary Commission, which, appealing
less to our sympathies, and especially to our
Otje Daily IF 1 :r, :e:
senses, have, ncvcrthless, a grander bearing
on the destiny of the race. We speak of iron
clads, and rifled cannon, and strange, destruc
tive missiles of death, as destined to produce
marvellous changes in all future wars; but
they all combined will not work such marvel
lous changes as the Sanitary Commission.
In the first place, it will annihilate forever
that wide interval that has always existed be
tween the army and the people. It prevents
the soldier from drifting away from the influ
ence of home. It binds him to its tender
charities by all that made that home dear;
and more than all, holds him with the strong
est of all earthly bonds, the sw'ect influence of
woman. The flag of the Commission, as it
floats over the field, and the initials on its
wagons as they traverse the camps, speak to
the soldier of woman, in the form of mother,
sister, wife, friend ; telling him that her tender
hands are ministering to his comfort, and
thus throwing a chain around his heart that
fastens him to all the amenities, and delights,
and pure enjoyments, of domestic and social
life; aye, binds him with a power that the rude
jest of the bivouac, or the companionship of
the camp, cannot break. In short, its tend
ency is to keep the army one with the people,
thus rendering it impossible for a tyrant to
convert it into an instrument for the accom
plishment of his own base ends. The love of
spoil, and of a life without moral restraint,
that makes a great army so dangerous to
human freedom, is thus to be overcome by
charity. In this country, where the army
springs so directly from the people, we may
not appreciate at present the magnitude of
these results. But does any one suppose that
this great charity, born not of man but of God,
is going to stop here? Doubtless the mon
arcliial and despotic governments of the old
world will be slow to adopt it. Always on the
watch, to resist the encroachments of demo
cratic institutions, they will see in it a direct
tendency to bind the army and people together,
and thus loosen their hold on the former, ex
cept as they use it for purely patriotic ends.
On this account it doubtless will work its way
slowly, yet surely. They can easier keep out
Bteam-power, than this new apostle of love and
charity.
Wide as the chasm is that one is compelled
to leap when he asserts that the Sanitary and
Christian Commissions, in their ultimate re
sults, are to make the armies of the world the
armies of the people and not of Icings, yet we
believe it is cleared by no flight of the imagi
nation, but is passed by laws as natural and
true as those which govern the engineer. We
are always in a hurry, and satisfied with
nothing but immediate results; but that
“ Eternal thought,” that moves on the universe,
has ordained that a great and noble charity
shall end its full mission on earth only with
the earth itself.
THE MODEL POST-OFFICE.
There is nothing more unjust than the favor
itism that is usually exercised at Post-offices. In
despotic countries it may do very well to make
arbitrary distinctions among individuals, but it
is certainly intolerable in a republic, that one
man should receive a letter when he asks for it,
and another should be refused. Post-offices are
supported out of the common funds, for the
common benefit, and yet it is within the expe
rience of every one, that some persons are
turned off without the scratch of a pen, while
others receive as many, if not more, letters than
they want. It seems not to arise from prejudice
against individuals, but to be the result of
mere caprice. We, ourselves, have often been
told there were no letters for us, when we
were really anxious to receive one, and at
other times, oftenest on the first days of Janu
ary and July, we have received quantities of
wretched epistles in those horrid yellow enve
lopes, which we felt not the slightest desire for.
In the Fair Post-office these evils have been
remedied. The Executive Committee, with
that wise discretion that regulates all their
proceedings, have requested that all their visi
tors should be treated alike, and that everyone
who asks for a letter at the Post-office should
receive one. This request has been strictly
complied with, and will be enforced until the
close of the Fair. To obtain a letter, therefore,
it is only necessary to pay for it. We trust
that this great reform will meet, as it deserves,
the favor of every one, and that they will show'
their appreciation of it by buying early and
often.
The Post-office Committee have also pre
pared abook, called “ The Book of Nonsense,”
which any person, without distinction of age
or sex, can buy, and which they can either
keep themselves or present to a friend. Clubs
of any number can be accommodated, and will
be supplied with them at the same rate at
which they are offered to single purchasers.
This advantage, we venture to say, has never
before been offered by any publisher, and we
hope it will be responded to in the same liberal
spirit in which it is made. Persons buying
ten copies can have the autograph of any man
of distinction, living or dead, written on the
fly-leaf, in their own presence, so that they
may be satisfied of its authenticity.
SOMETHING TO THINE OVER.
If the numerous Sanitary Fairs which have
been held in many cities had not contributed
ono dollar to the object for which they were
legitimately destined, they would still have been
of incalculable profit to the country, owing to
the degree to which they have stimulated domes
tic exchanges, or buying and selling in every
form; possibly averting a panic, and certainly
keeping our minds from much needlessly gloomy
thought.