Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1871-03-16
A Picture Of the Ruin in France.

MIR. Capper, one Of the English Com
missioners tor the distribution of the
War Victims Fund.-" writes to the
London Times, from Thionville. France:
II have just returned from three days
tour among the villages between Metz and
Briey, with brother delegate, Dr. Nichol-
son, and everywhere we found the same
tale of ruin.
Most Of these villages to the north
west of Metz are entirely agricultural.
They were inhabited, in many cases, BY
substantial farmers, and, in some cases,
rich peasant proprietors, but their riches
were all upon the ground
"In August last their granaries were full
Of corn, their stables were full of horses
and oxen, and more prosperous neigh
borhOod it would have been difficult to
find.
"By the end of October all their horses
had been requisitioned, their cattle taken
and killed, their granaries were emptied,
and their seed corn had been eaten-eyen
if the movements of contending armies
had not prevented them from sowing their
fields
"When their own stores were quite ex-
hausted, the Prussian soldiers shared their
rations with them, and in many cases they
had nothing whatever, besides, to depend
upon Even their stores offirewood had
been burned; and thus, stripped and desti-
tute, they had to face winter of tremen-
dous severity.
'This was the state of things when our
society commenced its operations and now
we have about fifty villages, the Mayors of
which supply us with lists of the most
necessitous of their inhabitants, to whom
we supply regular rations Of potatoes, flour
and bacon.
eff any one is afflicted with love Of
military glory, let him visit the neighbor-
hood of Metz; let him see the wasted
environs with the stumps Of thousands of
what were choice fruit trees; let him enter
the half burnt, desolate, famine, fever and
smallpox stricken villages, and as he
drives along the clnussee, now lined with
rows of stumps of what were once trees
giving graceful shade, and notices here
and there great mounds on the bleak
plain mounds under the frozen surface of
which lie the remains of hundreds of brave
men, let him think at how great cost the
glory is purchased Most of these mounds
have no name or sign, but occasionally is
to be seen a rough wooden cross, to tell
you that beneath lie such and such a son
of the Fatherland, who rests in God, hav-
ing found hero's death in one or other Of
the great fights.
cat Ste. Marie aux Chenes, around which
ragged the battle of the 18th of August,
nearly 1000 bodies lie buried under afew
inches of soil. Often has the ploughman
to turn his share on one side. Measures
are, believe, being taken for their rein
terment.
"Thionville, where now write from,
was nearly wrecked by the bombardmeM
Twenty thousand shells fell in the town,
and there was hardly house but was
struck Strange to say, but one inhabi-
tant was killed. The fortress is of i'm
mense strength, and every precaution was
taken to render it impregnable. Thou
sands of beautiful trees were cut down
that they might not interfere with the
range of the guns, yet the Notifications
have hardly been touched; they are as
strong as they ever were. The Prusslan
shells went right over them, and by the
devastation they wrought in the town,
compelled the commandant to yield"