East Saginaw courier. (East Saginaw, Mich.) 1859-18??, 1861-05-30
HAVOC OF LIFE By WAR.

- IL is difficult to conccive what fearful
havoc this custom has made Of human
life. Some of its incidental ravages
seems to defy belief. 1t has at times en-
tirely dcpopulated immense Districts
In modern as well as ancient times, large
tracts have been left so utterly desoate
that one might pass from village to will
age, even from city to city, without find
ing a solitary inhabitant. The war of
IL 6, wagel in the heart of Europe, left
inone instance no less than twenty con.
tignous villages without single man or
beast. The thirty years war, in the 18th
century, reduced the population OF Ger
many from l2,000,000 to 100000
three.faurths; and that Of Wurtemburg
100000 to 4S,000---more than nine.
tenths Thirty thousand villages were
destroyed; in many others the population
entirely died out; and in districts once
studded with towns and cities, there
sprang up Immense forests,
Ie3h at the havoc of seges- in that
OF Londonderry 10000 soldiers, besides
vast number Of inhabitants; in that of
Paris in the 10th century, 80, 900 victims
Of mere hunger; in that Of Ismail, 40, 900;
of Vienna, 10000; of Ostend l20, 900; Of
Mexico, 100000, of Acre, 100000; of
Cartilage, 100000; of jerusalem, l,OQ0,-
000l
Mark the slaughter of single battles
at Lepanto, $4,000; at Austerlitz, 3d.
900; at Evlau, 10000; at Waterloo and
Quartre Brass, one engagement in fact,
100, 00f; at Borodino, $4,000; at Fon-
tency, 100 1000; at Arbela, 100000; at
Chalons, 100000 of Attilla's army alone;
100000 Usipetess slain by julius Ceser
in one battle, and 100000 Germans in
another.
Take only two cases more. The army
of Xerxes, says DR.. Dick, must amount
ed to 5,2S3 800; and if the attendants
were only one third as great as common
at the present time in Eastern countries,
the sum total must have reached nearly
six millions. Yet in one year this vast
multitude was reduced, though not on.
tirely by death, to 100000 fighting men,
al of these only 5000 escaped destruc'
ton. Jenghiz Khan the terrible ravageI
of Asia, in the 18th century, shot 60, 00O
on the plains of Mesa, and massacred
100000 at the storming of Charasm.-
In the district of Herat, he butohered
1000, 900, and in two cities with their
dependencies, 100000, During tho
last twenty-scven years, he is supposed
by Chinese historians to have destroyed
not less than $4,000, 000-a sum total OF
100000 in forty one years!
In any view what fell destroyer is
war! Napoleon's wars sacrificed full g.
900, 900, and all the wars consequent on
the FRENCH revolution, some 6, or 10,
000,0u0. The Spaniards are said to have
destroyed in forty-two years more than
100000 of American Indians, Grecian
wars sacrificed 100000; Jewish wars
25,000000; the wars of tho twelve
Caesars, 30,000,000; and in all the wars
OF the Romans before Julius Caesar, GO,
100000; the wars of the Roman Empire,
of the Saracens and the Turks, G0,000,-
600 EACH those Of the Tartars, S0,000,-
0O0 those Of Africa, 100,000,000! al
we. take into consideration" says the
learned DR.. Dick, 'the number Of not
only those who have fallen in battle, but
of those who have persisted through the
natural consequences Of war, it will not
perhaps be oyerrating the destruction OF
human life if | affirm that one-tenth OF
the human race has been destroyed by
the ravages of war; and according to Thu
estimate, more than fourteen thousand
millions of human beings have been
slaughtered in the wars since the begin
Ming of the world, Edmund Burke went
still further, and reckoned the sum total
OF its ravages from the first, at no les:
than thir.v-fvc thousand millions"