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

THE HORRORS OF WAR.

"I have read your urgent meals for aid to the won tided,
It'd your long lists of gener us subscriptions for their aid,"
writes a carrespotelent of The Timeil, and thus continuer :
.• Yet I only wish I could conduct there who have subscribed
most liberally through the wens* I have witnessed in the last
few days. I do not know whether they would shudder most
at the suffering they week] witness, or marvel at the exer-
tions and admirable orgaelsation of the German relief
mitten s. I have ten the rows of doomed men in the open
tales at Spicheren vtliae, •It s, after liegerieg in agony for
a fortnight, carry death stamped unmistakably on each
ghastly drawn face. I have heard their shrieks sad groans
echoing in the lonely lanes. I have seen the cloFe-paceed
hospitals at Iltrinneb arid Starben,-k. where the wounded
OVI tflmr and crowd ont the Beteg horn I he enlagee, and,
after Ali, must be forced out to travel by the bible of rawer
wounds and mere newly-shattered h,nee. .4111 how do
they travel? I have seen men slit clean though the
holy lifted into borsebates for a twenty emir hours' railway
j •urney, with only a layer if straw lustre, n th.m and the
j dting hoards I have sat with officers hot through leg or
arm and laid up in first-class cerriegee with air errata°aa and
water cushions, and seen their discomfort and rain, mid set
myself to estimate the misery of the guttering private. groan-
him in the trucks behin.l. I imagine every horrible and eccen-
tric soi t of • wound, aggravated by early neglect and
Inevitable fever, mid Eatery yourself met to travel In the Mr-
cumstences Not that every possible alleviation is not there ;
but no philanthropy can achieve the impossliee, arid the
German means are necessarily limited. A trifle uf money
may make all the defereece of the thickness re straw
that will break the j 'lts. of the blankets that will save
from agony now and mortificetiou later. Let me give
a islet lees of what the Germans are dolrg, by
relating what I have wi'nessed here to-day, and be it
rettlettibered al.etice is a smell town and hy no means rich.
It le a centre point of traffic from the front to the luterior,
and the aleyeuce Intent committee pays for all that goes ON
hi re. There lire comparatively few in hospital, for all who are
ithle to travel ate seat straight to the interior, Bat at the
stet'oni is a long open gallery, with be-'s for 1.000 patients.
Train after :role manes inn, rialment after regiment of stif-
feners toe stretched on the heils. All the surgeons who hive
not gore to the front are here to tend them, resides many
igers atel foreign velunteere. There are troops of Slaters
of Charity. Tin re are hands 1.1 gin I and women curers. The
leading citleens take it by PVC tee to .siet, anti slots man
of them rainiest but may find a crippled sun t r brother arri.
dec on hi. ham's. There Is ekitcht it, whence beef, bouillon
crife., mei all sorts of refreshmetits are served out to al
comers In the first place. There is • surgery and a
dispeneary, piles of Pet and h telages. Ali,ve all,
there are cigars and tahacc for every man craven
em king as an anodyne. This al teruoon when
went there one get were being cleared cut of the way. A
train of 000 more had been telegraphed. In it came. are
Freuch, the rest Ger mans. There were Germans of the Ma al
Guard, with the silver hanit• roiled their caps, who had been
en fearfully cut up at 0 ravefotte and Itexon,alle There were
tie 11,1412 and wrecks of French Regiment's that had been
merly annihilated. In a minute or leo they were beteg
fast strip el and opera.ed 011 t friends and n remifes tended
with equal care and teudernese. It would be disgustiug to
dwell on the wounds, and tel this is no time for false
squeamahriess. Heeds shat,ered and j tm sly .t away;
teenier arid limbs riddLil, for the chevsepot balls e•pecially
have a fiendish habit of skipping round the bone they strike,
like a stone that makes ducki tad drakes' on the surf ace
of a nil blend. And these were the comparatively light
wi undo, the men who could bear tr unporting fa remote lion.
{Mats. As they were dressed the meta were carried on board
Rhine stiamerr—of which the Governmeet Lave charmed
miters at 153 Ostlers a day—most enuely 14 I, at one m iy use
the we •ril, on double rows.' matti es es along the decks sod IA
the telittlie ; the more lightly hurt bestowed upon truss. of
straw nil the hold below It is wrinderful how pluckily th-y
hear their aufferine, arid even 0-retails confess Plat the
Fretioh carry Of the pale, u that re.pect. But ltw hauler-
able the aggregate of eufferng alai tem terrible the Idea
thA thene wretched lima are the fortunate ones wha bare
tanner the ember t. It shows that est:eiee tenacity of life is ,
not counted to tie Inferior animal organuathins. I M.' fele
nian to day bei..g eperated upon for a mbut throueh the •
stomach. Ile had his right hand shattered to levet. I met
him !mime., leg along the Va. form &forward@ with tee 'roe
nanticel roll, and an ruelest..keaely John Bull face, arid be
hailed sic chie•rfiely tin Kim ish. A Fri ma ete)j.ct, It ap-
peared, horn of • Fri nil (Cher and iv. Eterliso mother
Wetit to the army bee mae he omit no, help IC The *hat
hadn't gone very deep in. h s etoeusch or he wool it hare
been hire, arid he thoeght and hoped his heed would mend.
I need not say we Euglish—and there ware sever Kriglieh
serge. a there—bestowed our mites upon our cheerful in loud, ,
and sent him no his ally even more cheerful that. be-
fore. But the Germans are admirable In their general platen-
thrapy, and, consldere•g the strength of their feeling on me
e mama.* i.f the Franca attack, their kludeesa
the inillytmal Frenchman ie hey.4.l all praise. Whet
ttetrindienation more then ail at the employineflt of
the Tee a, iow that ttiey ,uu those say.iges near, they can
apprecatte the mien s the ainorror pieced in the van el his
Irtletille for cosmopolitan civet. odor'. To say tiotheig of
their filthy hail s, the-e wild bee.e bite at tie vete filmes s
which tend them and have =MTV ai tempted to outraae
the S•aters of C tardy in attendance, ter watch tell
were s ei toff tuovi the other day et Berth, 'C meet.;
the G -reran% Vain' u Meer taalder arf Ceir Cowes,
with our wives and daughters at their mercy.' and
they are the more einhateled gamiest the French and the
Einpire. Astor Emelsiiii, them et i 4-111,retit of them have
cat,ed to tan us *Tit violetioo of neutrally, hut they m
sln It was In our power ti have Meats' the war ho the hod.
It was only, they say, the innersole indecision of our
Cabinet that ene• awned the French Minister to abuse the
credulity of the French Chanintr arid people as tot •reldn
sytopethies Meantime I may urge on those who say th it
the war, with all the suffering it has Cased, la no c
cern of ours, that, admitting the self-virtue of selfish-
ness to the fullest extent, they can do nothing mote
economical than subscribe freely to the wounded.

About the most Interesting spectacle which I wl:ne set io
the Bois de Boulogne waa the gigantic pen in which the live
stock for our support. in case at urge, are collected. In an
area of from 70 to 100 acres SOMA] the "Cords des Fan-
-1..1" thoutands upon thousands of oxen are to be men
fenced hi with • light, ten.porary rafting—among them
sheep lit even much lbrger umbers. It Is a capital station
for the cattle, sheltered ell round and with an ai.uodance
et water in the centre. A couple tif dais' groans by such
Poce most, no doubt, have lout little in the way of herb-
age, arid 30t sanguine osen were to be seen nosing aside
the trimses of hey scattered about for their provender
in the driperate effort to grub up something fresh," and
rimy trees left within rat ire were being very assiduously pruned
you etas he sure. The contemplation of beef either in ease
or in ;ow I suppomd to have •c: rpm for all true Britons,
but I cannot soy the lorpection of the.e animals +hose
numbers were lobe increased In the course or last night and
to-day hY 8 000: sfforele much coos dation, fr. du • gastronomic
point of view, in the pro, poet of a siege. Gigantic to stature
are these oxen, horribly powerful. and with a muscular de-
velopment that could on y have been arrived at by years of
service 10 the plough. The prospect of living upon llmse
noble animds for w ea., and perhaps for months, nisk,s
One's *Acta ac' e in advance ; almost as well might one's
larder rupplie dby en-phante, rlnnozerl hit o, o,arril and
pachyderms. T ere will be many hoteobus inutiPs th the end
of the sear, and as It Is "a bad wind that blows nobody
god" the deut's's of Pails alit be mole men I could tot
tint out from what district thee catt'e principally come.
"From every where," ass the curt reply I remised to nip
Quell en, and, as it wee evidentwly di.ireerous hi its political
signininince arid night have comprethised u,cwlh the police,
1 did int purl ue the inversigati