Knights of St John. S27 



There were amongst them many who earnestly wished to do 

 good service, and even some who made themselves extremely 

 useful, descending from their stilts and using their hands and 

 feet like other men ; but, alas, with most of them the will was 

 better than the capacity, and the more they did the more 

 harm and confusion resulted from it. 



Most of the stores and magazines were placed under the 

 care of some knight of these orders. An immense quantity 

 and variety of things were sent in, and it was expected that 

 they should be distributed judiciously. To arrange and keep 

 in order such stores, and receive goods and send them off, 

 required a certain business routme and exertions which were 

 utterly out of the depth of most of these noblemen, and any 

 clerk of a mercantile house would have beaten them in this. 



Many were satisfied with having their stores always well 

 filled, not daring to distribute anything b^^ore fresh supplies 

 had arrived to keep them so, not caring whether here or there 

 something was urgently required. Used to patronize, they 

 often distributed the stores more according to favour than to 

 necessity ; and complaints about partiality and injudicious 

 division were very frequent, creating great dissatisfaction 

 amongst the many associations, who at last found it more to 

 the purpose to send practical men with their convoys of goods, 

 who judged for themselves where help was required, instead 

 of delivering their things into the depots of the knights, and 

 leaving the distribution to them. 



The ladies I found employed in Cologne in the different 

 hospitals and establishments for the support of the soldiers in 

 the field, vied successiully with the male members of the 

 associa*-on. Everywhere they kept the most perfect order, 

 and, being good housekeepers, they applied their domestic 

 rules to their establishments. AM I saw busily employed there 

 wore the same simple dress, which did a great deal to remove 

 the uneasy feeling produced by mixing with persons belonging 

 to a different social sphere. 



Baron and Baroness Oppenheim and other ladies belonging 

 to the committee gave me an immense quantity of things which 

 I knew were most required in the hospitals before Metz, and I 

 left Cologne with three railroad cars, one loaded with the car- 

 riage and forage, the second with the horses, and Mr. Frank 

 and August, and the third containing Miss Runkel and mvself 



