The weekly Portage sentinel. [volume] (Ravenna, Ohio) 1854-1861, 1861-03-06

1t is difficult to conceive what fearful hav.
oc this custom has made Of human life.-
Some of its incidental ravsges SEEN to defy
BELIEF 1t has, at times, entirely depOpula-
ted immense districts. In modern as we'll
as ancient times, large tracts have been
left SO utterly desolate, that one might pass
from village to village, and even from city
to city, without finding a solitary inhSb.
liant. The war Of 1866, wsged in the heart
OF Europe, left, in one instance, not less
than twenty contiguous villages without a
single man or beast! The thirty years. war
in the l7th century reduced the population
OF Germany from $4,000 900 to 5000 900
three. .fourths; and that of Wurtemburg,
from 500 900 to 4s,OOo-more than nine
tenths! Thirty thousand villages were des-
troYed; in many others the population en-
iSsly died out; and ia dfslrien once studded
with towns end cities, 1bere sprsng up i'm
mense forests.
Look at the havoc of seiges-in that oil
Londonderry IL 900 soldiers; besides a vast
number of inhabitants; in that OF Paris, in
the 18th century, 80 900 victims OF mere
hunger; in that of Molphoquat, $4,000 SOL
diers alone; in that of Ismail, 10000; of vi.
ems, 900; of Ostend IL 900; of Mexico,
100000; of Acre, 800 900; of Carthage
7O0,O 900; of jerusalem, 10000
I
Mark the slaughter of single battles-at
Leponto, $4,000; at Austerlitz, 10000; al
Elyau, 10000; at Waterloo and Quartre
Bras, one engagement in fact, 100000; a,
Borodino, $4,000; at Fountenoy, 100 900; al
Arbela. 100000; at Chalons, 100000 OIL
Attlla's Grmy alone; 400, 900 Usipetes slain
by Julius Caesar in one battle, and 430, 600
Germans in another.
Take only two cases. The army of Xerx
es, says Dr.. Dick, must have amounted to
6,2S3, ,s20; and if the attendants were only
one.third as great as common at the present
time in Eastern countries, the sum total mus,
have reached 100000. Yet in one yeal
this vast multitude was sreduced, though
not entirely by death, to 100000 6ghting
men, and Of those only 5000 escaped de-
struction Jenghiz Khan, the terrible raw
Oger of Asia in the 18th century, shot co.
900 on the plains of Nessa, and massacr ed
200 900 Ot the storming of Charasm. In the
Herat district he butchered 100000, and
in two cities, with their dependencies, T.
7o0o 900. During the last twen,y.eeyen
years of this long reign he is said to have
massacred more than half million every
year; and in the first fourteen years he il
supposed by Chinese historians to have de
stroyed not less than $4,000, 10000, sum to
tai Of 80 900. 900 in forty one years.
! In any view, what fell destroyer is war
Napoleon's wars sacrificed some 5000 900
and all the wars consequent on the French
Revolution some 5000 900 or 10. 1000 ,OOO.-
The Spaniards are said to hsve destroyed in
forty.two years more than 10000, 900 oil
American Indians. Grecian wars sacrificed
$1,000 900; Jewish wars 25.OOO,O0o; the
wars of the - Cesurs 80 900, 900; in all the
wars OF the Romans before Julius Ce sar CO.,
900, 900; the wars of the Roman Empire, o
the Saracens and the Turks 6o,oCO, ,oO(
each; those of the Tsrtars 10000, 900; those
of Africa 1OO,oOO,O00! "If we take into
consideration" says the learned DR.. Dick
"the number of not only those who have fal-
len in the buttle, but of those who have per.
ished through the natural consequences Of
war, it will not, perhaps, be overruting the
destruction IF human life il we affirm that
one.tenth of the human race has been de-
stroyed by the ravages of war; and accord
ing TO this estimate, more than $4,000 ,OO0,-
900 of human beings have been slaughtered
In war since the beginning of the world."-
Edmund Burke went still further. and re ck
oued the sum total of it's ravages, from the
first, at no less than $4,000, 100000.
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