Many persons, who would have consented to pass one or two hours a day with the sick, gave up their intention, because a special permission was necessary, which could only be obtained by petitioning the authorities. Strangers disposed to help met with all kinds of unexpected hindrances, of a nature to discourage them. But voluntary hospital workers, well chosen and capable, sent by societies with the sanction of the governments and respected because of an agreement between the belligerents, would have surmounted the difficulties and done incomparably more good. During the first eight days after the battle the wounded, of whom the physicians said, in low tones, when passing by their beds and shaking their heads: "There is nothing more to be done," received no more attention and died neglected. And is not this very natural when the scarcity of the nurses is compared with the enormous number of the wounded? An inexorable and cruel logic insists that these unfortunate men should be left to perish without further care and without having given to them the precious time that must be reserved for the soldiers who could be cured. They were numerous, however, and not deaf, those unfortunate men on whom was passed such pitiless judgment! Soon they perceive their deserted condition and with a broken and embittered heart gasp out the last breath while no one notices. The death of many a one among them is rendered more sad and bitter by the proximity, on a cot by his side, of a young soldier, slightly wounded, whose foolish jokes leave him neither peace nor tranquillity. On the other side, one of his companions in misery has just died; and, he dying, must see and hear the funeral ceremony, much too rapidly performed, which shows him in advance his own. Finally, about to die, he sees men, profiting by his weakness, search his knapsack and steal what they desire. For that dying man there have been, lying in the postoffice for eight days, letters from his family; if he could have had them, they would have been to him a great consolation; he has entreated the nurses to bring them that he may read them before his last hour, but they replied unkindly, that they had not time as there was so much else to do.