Connecticut western news., 1877-05-18
Submitting to the Conscription.

Robert Buchanan's somewhat over wrought but picturesque romance, '"The Shadow of the SwOrd," is based upon the desperate efforts of Breton fisher man, Rohan Gwenfern by name, to re- sist the conscription so ruthlessly en- forced by the first Napoleon. The fish
 erman is superior to his class; he has been led by the teachings of an itiner- ant schoOlmaster to eXecrate war, and termines to resist to the end the fiat that against his will would make him a kill Ter of men. He takes refuge in a cave |; is besieged there, and, in defending his retreat, inflicts death in order to escape capture. This apparent inconsistency is seized upon by critic to condemn the moral of the story, asserting that the ra- tional human being would declare it better to serve as soldier than be forced to kill people in maintaining ones right not to be forced into fighting.
 Now it seems to us that the moral of Mir. Buchanan's story is not only very good one, but that it indicates the only possible method by which war-making is to end. Just so long as the multitude remain tractable material for the pur- poses of ambitious or reckless rulers, just so long as the people believe they are born to be ''food for gunpowder' at the dictation of superiors, wars will flourish. It is amazing to see in the past with what submission and patience the masses have yielded everything home, hope of happiness, life-to notions of duty, allegiance, and what not, simply because querulous statesmen and ambi- tious kings had neither wit nor human ity enough to adjust their difficulties without setting the nations to slaughter ing each other. For our part we believe that wars are rarely necessary; we be-
 lieve that government does not hold the lives and destinies of it's people at it's will; we deny that allegiance so called involves the surrender of ones life, lib- erty, or right of moral judgment; we affirm that government is nothing more than device for the maintenance of order, and the security of life and prop erty-an indispensable element of soci- ety, perhaps; but it is no more entitled to blind submission and reverence than is the policeman at the corner. The ig- norance, the superstition, the moral cowardice, the spiritless submission of the multitude have alone rendered wars possible; and hence in the name of hu- man rights it is immensely better that the average human being should not ''think it, better to serve as a soldier" than to heroically resist tyrrannical and usurping control of his right to live and fulfil the purposes of his being. There have been holy wars, wars for the defense of home and family-these struggles, however, have needed no con- scription; but wars usually are purely gratuitous evils inflicted ruthlessly upon mankind by heartless rulers. When the peasant class are all of Rohan .Gwenfern's mind, they will unite in re- fusing longer to live as, the mere crea- lures of kings and presidents, to be marched hither and hither at somebody's inscrutable will, to be shot down and butchered at anybody's pleasure; they will emphatically declare that those in authority mast find some other way of adjusting their difficulties than setting innocent persons to shooting and throat cutting, and they will know how to en- force their mandate.-ADpletOn' Journal