The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-12-31 00:00:00

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 81, 1870.

THE WAR.

While we in England have been enjoying the
festive season; while the rich have been helping
the poor to enjoy it; while benevolent institu-
tions have been bringing all their machinery to
bear upon poverty and misery; while from our
pulpits have been proclaimed the old but ever
fresh message of peace and good-will which
Christmas reminds us of; while we are blessed
with peace and prosperity, what a sad contrast
has France presented ! Many of us hoped that
the war would be over before Christmas, and
whatever may have been the opinions of the
f-rench, no doubt the Germans but a few short
weeka ago fondly cherished the hope that l'aris
would capitulate and France be assuaged so that
fury could return to their compulsorily aban-
doned homes, and see their wives, children,
their sweethearts and friends by Christmas time,
and tell the tale of the war by their own fire-
sides. But Christmas has passed, and the New
Year's day joy-belle, instead of ringing out the
false and ringing in the true, will find two
mighty nations, in the forefront of civilization,
slaughtering and massacring each other, and
fair FrEILICO being devastated and pillaged.
This war has been a sad and sorrowful affair
from its commencement, well nigh six months
since, but to hear or read of its awful episodes
At the present time is especially saddening. It
is sad indeed to think that in the nineteenth
century of the Christian era, the period of the
world's history when His birth among men was
announced who came to bring peace on earth
and goodwill towards man, two professedly
Christian nations are using all the arts of civild
sation to shed each other's blood and bring
I misery and ruin upon each other. For fully live
months has the actual work of slaughter been
carried on, and daring the whole of this time
has France especially been suffering untold
miscues. Germany, has, of course, suffered
severely. Her young men, her brave young
soldiers, her husbands and fathers, the bread-
winners for these who depended upon them, have
been slaughtered by thousands, and in full many
a German home "A merry Christmas and a
happy new year" (the Germans think quite as
much of these feetivals as we do) must have
been a bitter mockery. But how much more
severely has poor France suffered. The Waugh-
ter of her brave sons has been greater than
those of Germany, and then France has had to
bear nearly all the incidental miseries of the
war. Her fields have been ravaged and devas-
tated ; her farms have been pillaged; her pea-
dant homes have been burnt to the ground, and
whale villages him fallen a sacrifice to

ANOTHER HEAVY REQUISITION MADE
BY THE GERMANS AT ORLEANS.

(FRENCH OFFICULL ACCOUNT.)

BORDEAUX, Thurgday.

General Von der Tann has imposed a further
contribution of 000,000 francs on Orleans,
threatening to arrest fitty of the principal in.
habitants if not paid.
General Chansy reports that the enemy were
surprised by General Jouffroy, on the 27th, near
Moutoire, and retreated leaving a hundred pri•
sorters.

A SUCCESSFUL SORTIE FROM
BELFORT.

BESANCON, Saturday.

A very suocessful sortie was made by the Bel.
fort garrison Met Tuesday night, in which the
Prussian losses were considerable.