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Now, with us, the time can not be far distant when our best efforts in this behalf will be needed, and all our energies be called upon to grapple with some such many-sided problem as this. What is to be done, not only with the disbanded, but particularly with the invalid and disabled soldiers created by the war? For if it be wise and expedient to consider, in the manner in which we have been pointing out, the effects upon the labor-market of disbanding a large army, and the material consequences resulting from the sudden influx of hosts of laborers into a field where little demand exists for their services, or where the supply, from its suddenness and magnitude, will immediately out-run the demand, and continue to do so for a long while to come; if it be a wise fore-casting on the part of political economists to consider and prepare for the advent of this large class into the social hive, how much wiser and more humane is it not, to consider the peculiar position of those among that class, who, by the accidents and vicissitudes of war, have paid the tribute of patriotism on battle-fields -- have lost limbs and health, and thus rendered it certain that they must fall behind their fellows in the competitive race for bread, self-support and honest independence. It is for these maimed and mutilated martyrs of the war that our tenderest sympathies should be kindled. It is in their behalf that public opinion, anticipating legislation, should interest itself in some plan of permanent and ennobling relief, and our best efforts be directed towards keeping them from falling by the way-side, sad -- weary -- unsuccessful -- and neglected -- or drifting into large pauper retreats, where the edge of ambition is dulled, and the heart crushed into apathy by the consciousness of dependence and helplessness. Whatever may be said of poverty as a moral discipline or a stimulus to effort, it is very certain that its effects in the aggregate, and upon masses of individuals, are pernicious and demoralizing. Adversity may soften the hearts of a few, but upon most its effects are directly opposite. Whether this arises from envy or comparison with the more fortunate around, it cannot be disputed that poverty, recognizing itself as incurable, destroys ambition, self-respect, and virtue, and sinks its victim into a condition, born partly of temperament, and partly of education and surrounding circumstances, but always degrading to his self-respect. The strong become desperate, and disturbers of social order -- the weak fall into secret vice, and low, dishonest practices, or sink at once into dull apathy and indifference to their position. Our penal and eleemosynary institutions present all those classes to view, and afford a good theatre upon which to study the various forms of moral and physical degeneration. It is, therefore, the duty of society to guard itself against all increase of pauperism, by stamping it with deformity, and stimulating men to make every possible effort and sacrifice in order to avoid falling into this dependent class.

But to a man deprived of limbs or health, and whose condition disables him from competing in the labor-market with the healthy, no reproach should be attached for being a pauper. Even if he would work, he cannot. And his very condition precludes him from offering his services, or being sought for as a laborer. He becomes, then, the worthiest object, not of charity, in its ordinary sense, but of a just reward due him for sacrificing, in behalf of his country, those advantages which he formerly possessed in common with other men. We would not call him an object of charity, so much as a creditor of society for a permanent benefit conferred upon it; and it is the duty of the community so benefitted, while recognizing the claim, to do justice as well to itself as to him. If he be a man, and can work, he will neither ask nor expect to be supported in idleness. If he be indolent and unthrifty, it is the duty of society not to encourage this disposition by entirely supporting him, but giving him only so much as will insure his daily bread, leaving his other wants to be provided for by his own efforts. In this way he is saved the danger of falling into entire apathy or indifference as to his own position, and becoming a legalized, non-producing beneficiary.

It is too much to expect, however, that all invalids will be able to work even to a limited extent. Many will be in such conditions of permanent disability as to preclude all possibility of their laboring. Those having lost an eye or limb, although most sensibly deformed or mutilated, are by no means the most disabled or least competent to work. There are gradations in physical disability, as all most be ready to admit. Of these degrees and their effects the surgeon only is the competent judge. But, as a general rule, it may be said that, except in the case of special arts requiring manual skill, constitutional or diathetic diseases are a more formidable obstacle to physical ability, and a more prolific source of invalidism than simple mutilation. For these broken down and sickly men hospitals and retreats will be needed. The victims of phthisis, chronic rheumatism, paludal intoxication in its multiple forms, paralysis, the sequences of typhoid, etc., etc., will eke out their few remaining years totally unable to perform any systematic labor. For four or five years after the war, hospitals for this class will still be necessary, and the charities of the humane and Christianly-minded will be taxed to provide additional alleviation to their declining days. It is idle to devise any form of employment for these men. They can accept none, because of their entire unfitness to labor. With them vegetative life is alone possible. The many rootlets by which, through health and activity, they have been inwoven into the fabric of society, are wilting and dying daily. Beneath the lean, cold hand of disease their physical powers are melting away. They are passing to the grave surely -- irrevocably -- and the duty we owe them is to make that passage as smooth and comfortable as possible, so that the gratitude and tenderest regard of the nation may cast a halo of sympathy about the couch of its dying heroes. But there will be a larger class than these -- whose number in fact none can yet conjecture, -- and which, though less prostrated by disease, and not quite cut off from all ability to labor, will necessarily be entitled to more or less public assistance. These men will equally deserve the designation of invalids; for, admitting even varying degrees in their infirmities, none among them will be possessed of health. Able to work only a few hours a day -- possibly only a few hours a week -- alternating between long periods of enforced inactivity and short moments of physical ability -- unable to undertake indiscriminate labors, and restricted to employments of an indoor, sedentary, and special character -- these are the men for whom we shall be compelled to provide means and methods of industrial activity suited to their individual powers. Their numbers promising to be extensive, all idea of disposing of them by any single plan, such as creating large, industrial institutions, or colonizing them in one locality, becomes preposterous and mischievous. To do this would convert them at once into an exceptional class -- an ever present cause of apprehension in any community. For, as a general rule, exceptional classes are not to be encouraged. They form an anomalous feature in society, and present dangerous examples to others. Nevertheless, it is true that, in this instance, the qualifications of public service, and the physical suffering entailed by it, would purge the class of invalids of the worst features of exceptionalism. Still, as a principle, the doctrine of large associations of this kind should not be fostered. It is bad on many accounts; bad because it segregates men from the contact, and influence, and control of public sentiment -- bad because it collects them in masses, having no diversified motives to inspire or direct their activities -- and bad because the prevailing sentiment of such a community (the sentiment of exceptionalism) becomes intensified by the numbers representing it. A man who has become one of such a community, and thoroughly imbued himself with its public feeling, can scarcely be expected ever to make a contented citizen elsewhere. On this account, therefore, the interests both of the country, as well as of the invalids themselves, and of their posterity, demand that they should be disposed of in some other and more practically beneficial way. They were component parts of our communities before they entered the public service -- they should resume those places and be redistributed throughout them on retiring from it. This is the opinion which reason, humanity and morality alike conspire to arrive at, and to prove whose soundness very little argument need be adduced. The experience of mankind in all ages has established it; and since society is ever self-renewing, that opinion must be as well suited to present as to past times.