The weekly Butte record., 1861-11-02
NO. 50
Havoc of. Life by War.

1t Is diitcut 10 conceive What leuiiul hdNoG
war has made of human life. Some of IFS
incidental ravages seem to defy all belief. 1t
has at times entirely depopuated immense dis
! trcts. In moderu as well as ancient times,
large tracts have been left so utterly desolate,
that traveller might pass from village to vii
lage, even from city to city without finding
solitary inhabitant. The war of 1756, waged
/ in the heart of Europe, left in one instance no
| less than twenty contiguous villages, without
single man or beast. The Thirty Years War,
in the thirteenth century, reduced the popula-
ton of Germany from 100000 to 100000
three fourths; and that of Wurtemburg
from 100000 to $4,000 more than nine
tenths Thirty thousand villages were des-
troyed in many others the population entirely
died out and in districts once studded with
towns and. cities, there sprang up immense
forests.
Look at the havoc of sieges-in that of
Londonderry $1,000 soldiers besides vast
number of inhabitants in that of Paris in the
sixteenth century, 10000 victims Of mere
hunger and that of Malplaquet, $4,000 sol
ders alone; in that of Isma, 10000; of
Vienna, 10000; of Ostend, 100000; of Mex
leo, 10000; of Acre, 100000; of Carthage,
100000; of Jerusalem, 100000.
Mark the slaughter of single battles-at
Lepauto $4,000; at Austerlitz 10000; at
Eylan, 10000; at Waterloo and Quartre
Bras-one engagement in fact-700 600; at
Borodino, $4,000; at Arbea, 100000; at
Chalons 100000 of Atilla's army alone
100000 Usipetes were slain by Julius Caesar
in one battle, and 43O 900 Germans in ano-
ther
Take only two cases more. The army of
Xerxes, says DR.. Dick, must have amounted to
5,283,320; and, if the attendants were only
one-third as great as are common at the present
day in Eastern countries, the sum total must
have reached 100000. Yet, in one year
this vast multitude was reduced, though not
entirely by death, to 100000 fighting men,
and of these only 5000 escaped destruction.-
Jenghis khan the terrible ravager Of Asia, in
the thirteenth century, shot 10000 on the
plains of Mesa, and massacred 100000 at the
storming of Kharasm. In tie district. of
Herat, he butchered 100000, and in two
cities with their dependencies, l ,762 .O0O.-
During the last twenty-seven years of his long
reign, he is said to have massacred more than
500, 600 every year. and in the FIRST fourteen
years, he is supposed by Chinese historians, to
have destroyed not less than 100000;
sum total of over 100000 in forty-one
years.
In any view, what a fell destroyer is war!
Napoeon's wars sacrificed over six millions,
and all the wars consequent on the French
Revolution, some nine or ten millions. The
Spaniards are said to have destroyed in forty
two years. more than twelve millions of
American Indians. Grccian wars sacrificed
fifteen millions Jewish wars, twenty-five mil
lions the wars of the twelve Caesars, in all,
thirty millions the wars of the Romans be-
fore Julius Caesar, sixty millions the wars of
the Roman Empire, Of the Saracens and the
Turks, sixty millions those Of the Tartars,
eighty millions those Of Africa, one hundred
millions.
DR.. Dick says that if we take into considera-
ton the number not only of those who have
fallen in battle, but of those who have perished
through TIE natural consequences of war, it
will not be overrating the destruction Of human
life, if we affirm that one-tenth of the human
race has been destroyed by the ravages Of war
and, according to this estimate, more than
fourteen thousand millions of human beings
have been slaughtered in war since the begin
ming of the world. Edmund Burke went still
further, and reckoned the sum total Of its raw
ages, from the first, at 60 less than thirty-fve
thousand millions.