The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-09-03 00:00:00

THE BOMBARDMENT OF STRASBURG.
The CurremponcTent of the Dully Telfgroph gives the
feller/3)g interesting account of the eiege of Stras-
burg :

I Lave Putt witnessed a grand and terrible spectacle from
a commanding pint of view—namely, a !debt attack of im-
portance, and the burning of a potion ef Sti sabers( suburb..
The fortress has twee, and is, belching forth firma and
showers of iron, with scarcely a second's pause front a lotto
line of its outer works, rile great forts flanking the Weis-
nenthurrn Thor and the Porte de Severna are particulaily
busy ; while the citadel Itself Is exchai ging bery complitut
with the Kehl batteries in so vivacious a 111-11{1111t r. that the
hoarser utterances of its cannon are blended together in one
deep toned, gloomy roll resembling( pm-littera thunder Myths
lurid light of the bunting ileums, the while northern front of
the defences can be plainly descried, awl the thin spire of
the Cathedral, standing out in hold relief from the dusky-
brown sky lost above the doomed city, electrified, as it were,
every second by the fl sib of heavy guns, and from time to
time illuminated by the transient eters 1 f a bursting shell,
split Needier in the air before its death-dealing mission omid
he f ulfilled. l'heloug rows of poplars converging upon Strasburg
from ilitf,vent directi,us so m to be teatime rip to Tertarus,
baked of to a thickly populated town. They are like stern
double ranks of gigantic spec,ree lining the road to the
dread abode of their ruler, lb- Fire King. Already two th-
eme and fifty men of the 3slh hare 'ellen in front of Mittei.
haushereen, aud the euern)'s practice is better to-night than
it has yet been.
Aug. 25, 1210 am.
The whole sky Is red with refracted light from the fires
kinill-d in and about Steal. urg. To the hest of my judg-
ment, Buprechtsau and the northern part of the city must
tie burning, a. well as the ruins of Schiltightim and
Bischheim to the north, and part of Wee &Mem
to the west ward. The flashes of the exploitive cannon suc-
ceed one another with the reptdity of summer lightning. It
Is pouring with rain—a dreaded night for the troops in the
trenches. One of the great bodies of flame, lam told, pro-
ce-eile from tne railway stain outside the town, several at
tempts to horn which have already been made unsuccesefully.
Another, iron Its dirtction and magintude, I take to
be emierated by the Mahon Rowe, from the roof
of which I get so comprehensive a view of the western
face of the (ortificatinis a week ago. As or in fire is got
under, or even reduced In fierceness, another breaks out
and since the wiod has got up strongly within the last three
hour., whatever is act alight burns Ike limier. It ha bean-
ti MI and awful night. Ev ry one of those brilliant beacon.,
as they seem to be, signifies the ruin if private interests, the
misery of families, the overthrow of houst hold gods. Eeery
e if those spasmodic gleams of dull light heralds the
slaughter or melodeon( fellow-men, whose lives are precious
to their conetry, invaluable ta their tel dives and friends
leaking, as I have heen till within ten minutes if the time I
match 5., scribble these hurried lines, Lein mch a dismally
ao,gesthe and htleounly picturesque spectacle as I feel
more intensely than eve: the horror and hatred I have always
entertathed for war.

NIEDERFIACSPEROEN, Aug. 25.