Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-12-11
HUMAN CARNAGE.
Slaughter of e,e50, 900 Lives in Wars of
the Last Thirty Years.

Slaughter of e,25o. 900 Lives in Wars of
the Last Thirty Years.
In time of peace the statisticians count
the cost of war in men and money,
which does not seem, however, to have
any effect whatsoever in the way of pre-
vention. The fact is neither govern
ments nor peoples want war in the alb
stract. though there always exist latent
jealousies and hatreds and the desire for
advantages which war alone brings that
render it possible at any moment. You
cannot make governments count their
dead beforehand, though it is easy
enough to count them afterward; while
as for the prospective debt, a nation as
sumes it in advance as coolly as farmer
places mortgage on his farm.
According to the estimates of French
and German statisticians there have per-
ished in the wars Of the last thirty years
2,500, 900 men, while there has been ex-
pended to carry them on no less than
the inconceivable sum of $13, ZOO, ,000,
000 OF this amount France. has paid
nearly s., 500, 900, 900 as the cost of the
war with Prussia, while her loss in men
is placed at 10000. Of these $4,000
were killed on the field of battle. $4,000
died of sickness, accidents or suicide and
20, 900 in German prisons, while there
died from other causes enough to bring
the number up TO the given aggregate.
The sick and wounded amounted to
All ,421, the lives of many thousands of
whom were doubtless shortened by their
illness or injuries.
According to Dr. Roth, a German
authority. the Germans lost during the
war 60 GOO men killed or rendered invalid
and $500, ,0G0, 900 in money, this being
the excess of expenditure or of material
losses over the 81 $50. .0O0, 900 paid by
France by way of indemnity.
DIR. Engel, another distinguished Ger
man statistician, gives the following as
the approximate cost of the principal
wars of the last thirty years: Crimean
war. E, COO. .000, 600; Italian war of 1859,
$500, ,000, 600; Prusso-Danish war of 1864,
$35, 900. 900; war of the rebellion, north
s., 100, 100000, south $4,000, 900 900;
Prusso-Austro war of 1866, $3.50, coo 900;
Russo-Turkish war, S125, 100000; South
African wars, SS,770, 900; Afghan war,
$13, ,25O, 900; Servo-Bulgarian war, $780,
100000.
All these wars were murderous in the
extreme The Crinean war, in which
few battles were fought, cost 100000
lives, only $4,000 less than were killed
or died of their wounds, north and
south d11r-inp tba war of tba raIo11;oy
The figures. it must be remembered, are
German, and might not agree precisely
with American estimates. The Mexican
and Chinese expeditions cost S200, 0,0O0, 900
and s., 900 lives.
There were $50, 900 killed and mortally
wounded during the Russo Turkish war,
and $1,000 each in the Italian war of
1859 and the war between Prussia and
Austria. In the other wars the loss of
life was relatively less, which did not
make either the men or money easier to
part with III the more limited areas
where they occurred.
And this is but part of the account
ing, since it does not include the mill
ions expended during the last twenty
years in maintaining the vast ornaments
of the European powers, the losses caused
by the stoppage of commerce and manu-
factures, and the continual arrangement
of industries by the abstraction from
useful employment of so many millions
of persons held for period of military
service extending from three to five
years.-San Francisco Chronicle.