The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-23 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1870.

two consecutive decades. The battles fought in the
American Civil War were throughout upon a scale
of portentous magnitude. The catastrophe of
Sadowa and the .catastrophe at Sedan have been ex-
ceptionally crushing. Never have there been on
record such stupendous capitulations as those of Sedan
and Metz. Never have there been ghastlier battlefield,
presented to view than those of Kiiniggratz and
Gravelotte —whole battalions being mowed down by
the deadly precision of the long-ranged artillery, the
corpses lying in some parts in rows, as if reaped down
by the sickle—in other parts, where the combatants
were driven together in the act of falling, the dead,
the dying, and the wounded being piled up one on the
other to the height of five or six feet,some of them, sword.
in hand, standing upright in the throng, but inani-\
mate. Nor can the terrible destructiveness of war in
modern times be matter in any way of surprise when
there is borne in recollection the simple fact that among
the moat astounding achievements effected by Sciince
in modern times, has been the contrivance of so many
wonderful arms of precision, the Chassepot and the
needle gun, the conical !Juliet, the Gatling gun, and the
mitrailleuse—combatants falling in hundreds befcre
they have come in sight of each other, death descend-
ing upon them in parabolic curves of terrible reach
and precision. So consummate has become man's
skill in the' construction of these deadly weapons and
missiles, that peace can now only be secured
to the human race by some such compact,
with a view to a material transformation, as that
foreshadowed in the prophecy of the Millenium,
when the spear-heads are to be beaten into prnaing-
hooks, and the swords into ploughshares. Otherwise
than through some mutual agreement in this way
among the Powers of the earth, the human race will
be more and more, instead of less and less, liable to
wale of greater frequency and of larger destructive-
; ness.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE CANADIAN FISHERIES.

The American correspondent of the Daily News,
who is one of the best authorities on United States
affairs, pronounces rather against Canada on the
question of the fisheries. There appears, he says, to
be no doubt that the Canadians are exercising those
rights which are undoubtedly theirs, such as the right
to prevent fishing by foreigners within three
miles of their shores, and others which are
not undoubtedly theirs, such as drawing the three-
mile line across the mouth of great bays, in a very
stringent way. But the Canadians would gain more
by good neighbourship, and by abating some of their
strict rights, than by maintaining them. A little
concession must do good, and could do no harm. So,
too, with the navigation of the St. Lawrence. The
Canadians have made all the canals, and without
these the river is useless to the Western States as
a means of communication with the sea. But why
not, asks the writer, adopt the principle of Free Trade
in the matter ? Why not, indeed why do not the
Americans themselves adopt it? They have withdrawn
the Reciprocity Treaty, and yet they expect
generosity from the Canadians, at the very Urns
they are acting ungenerously themselves.

NOTHING more appalling in its way has been
anuounced on the eve of Christmas by the electric
wire since that magical system of telegraphing was
first contrived than the tidings received yesterday
from Versailles, to the effect that "On the road
between Orleans and Blois are more than 0,000
French wounded, who were left behind by the
enemy without any medical assistance." The reali-
sation of the fact of 6,000 fellow-creatures
being so left in December, by the wayside,
in the open air, without a roof to Cover them,
surrounded by snow, nipped by the, • frost, in-
differently clad, without any means of alleviating the
anguish of severe and some of them ghastly mutila-
tions—the realisation of sixty so ileft would
be a something deplorable. But ! instead of
sixty, instead of even six hundred, we
have to read in the inexorable telegram
—6,000 ! The war has certainly achieved a world of
misery alike to conquerors and to conquered. The bitter
end is trembling in the balance between the two
great belligerents. Winter has come to complicate
the horrors of the conflict, and the bombardment of
the chief capital of European civilisation is appa-
rently imminent at the recurrence of the sublime
anniversary when the angels two thousaird years ago
sang the choral pean " Gloria in excelsip Deo et in
terra pax Hominibus." Remembering the hopes that
were inspired nineteen years ago, here; in the very
midst of us that the devilish work of War might be
rendered all but impossible in " the Parliament of
Nations," in the "Federation of the 'World"—the
retrospect of all the sanguinary campaigns which
have since then been fought out in the Crimea, in
Italy, in China, in Mexico, in Austria, in Den-
mark, in Hanover, in the free States of North
America, in Abyssinia, in Japan, and now
in the fairest provinces of Imperial and Democratic
France, the dream of peace seems to nave resulted
only in a series of the most iearful nightmares of
carnage. War has proved in this anticipated epoch
of universal pacification, more frequer i and more
destructive than it has ever been within a similar in-
, terval of time, within a period o less than

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1870.

some of the circumstances which have recently taken
pliti.!e. He says that the recruiting for France, which
wo 3 complained of, was nothing more than that the
ench Consul provided the French who escaped
from Metz with money and clothes. The Luxem-
burg Government could not be called upon to detain
that prisoners when they had escaped. With respect to
the provisioning of Thionville the Prussian armies
ro,,nd Metz received a hundred times as much through
Luxemburg al the one train which got into Thion-
viPe through a ruse played off on the Custom House
officers. The French wounded were met with
pr. ofs o I sympathy on passing through Lux-
emburg, but this should scarcely be called
a crime. No chance was afforded to the
inhabitants of Luxemburg for offering their sympathy
to the Prussian wounded. Were the Luxemburg
Government inclined to indulge in reprisals, it might
mention several acts of aggression on the part of
Prussia. Whatever may be the intention of Count
Bismarck for the future with regard
to • Luxemburg, there can be no doubt that
the Prussian Staff would like to take posiession
of the railways at once. They would thus secure
another line to draw the supplies for the armies
from Belgium, and this desire is no doubt the secret
of the whole quarrel. The writer concludes by
declaring that they only desire to get a fair bearing,
and do not expect England or any other country to
go to war for them.