Maryland free press., 1862-11-07
From the Advocate Of Ptsce.1 e.
Havoc Of Life by War,

1t 10 difficult to conceive what fearful havoc wal
has made Of human life. Some of Its incidenta
ravages seem to;defy ell belief. 1t has at times
| satirsly depopulated immense districts. In mod
ern, as we'll as ancient times, large tracts Law!
been left utterly desolate, that traveller might
pass from village to village, even from city to
city, without finding a solitary inhabitant. The
war of 1855 waged in the heart of Europe, left in
ene instance no less than twenty contiguous villa
ges without single man or beast. The Thirty
Years. War, In the eventeenth century, reduced
the population CT Germany from Il. 600 900 to 4,
900 00O-three- -fourths: and that of Wurtemburg
from 500, 900 to IS 0e0 mora than nine-tenths =
Thirty thousand villages were destroyed; In many
others the population entirely died out; and in
d.strats once studded with tswrs and cities there
sprang up immense forests.
Look at the havoeS of seiges--in that of Lon
donderry II, ,0e0 soldiers, beside vast number OF
inhabitants; in that of Paris, in the sixteenth CEN
tury, 1000 victims of mere hunger; in that OF
Malplsquet 81, 600 soldiers alone; in that of Is.
mail, 40 900; Of Vienna, 7o,00o; of ostend, i20,-
000 of Mexico $50, 600; of Acre, 500 900; of Car
thase, 700. 600: of I---0~tvHs, 1,0vv,VVVl
Mark the slaughter Of single bsttles-at Lspsn.
-, twenty-five thousandj at Au,tertz, thirty
taousandJ at Ryisu, sixty thorsandj at Waterloo
and Quatre Brss-one engagement In fact-sev-
enty thousand; at Borodino, eighty thousand; at
Fontenoy, one hundred thousand, at Arbela,
three hundred thousand; at Chalons, three hun
dred thousand of Attilla's army alone; four hum
dred thousand Usipetes were slain by Julius Cesar
In one battle, and four hundred and thirty thou
sand Germans In another.
Take only two cases more. The army of xerxes;
says DR.. Dick, must haYs amounted to 5,2s3, 800;
and, If the. attendants were only one-third as
great IS common at the pressnt day in Eastern
Countries, the sum total must have reached nearly
six millions. Yet, in year, this vast multitude
was reduced, though not entirely by death, to
three hundred thousand fgnting men; and sof
these only three thousand escaped destruction.-
genghis khan, the terrible ravager of Asia in the
thirteenth century; shot ninety thousand on the
plains of Mesa, and mastered two hundred thou
sand at the storming of Kharasm. 10 the district
of Hsrat, he butchered enc million sx hundred
thousand, and in two cities with their dependen.
sies, one million seven hundred and sixty-.wo
thousand. During the last twenty seven years of
his long reign, he is said to have massacred more
than half million every year; and in the fret
fourteen yearH, he is supposed, by Chinese histo-
rians, to have destroyed not less than eighteen
millions; sum total ef over thirty-two millions
IN forty one years!
..Iu any view, what fell destroyer is war! Ma
poson's wars sacrificed full six millions, and all
the wars eonsee euent 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. Gre
alan wars sacrificed fifteen millions; Jewish wars,
twenty five millions; the wars of the twelve
Caesars, in all. thirty millions; the wars of the
Romans, before Jalius Caesar, sixty millions; the.
wars of the Roman Empire, of the Saracens aI6
the Turks, sixty millions each; those of the Tar
tars, eighty millions; those Of Africa one hundred
millions
DR.. Dick says, that II we take into eonsidsrs
ton the number not only of those who have fsl-
len in battle, but of those who have perished
through the natural consequences Of war, 1t will
not perhaps be overrating the destruction of hu-
man life. If We affirm, that ope-tenth of the hu.
r,an race has been destroyed by the ravages of
war; and, according to tais estimate, more than |
fourteen thousand millions of human beings have
been slaughtered in war since the beginning of
the world. Edmund Burke welt still further.
aud reekonsd the sum total of its ravages, from |
the first, at no less than thirty thousand mil
liens. |