Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1890-12-06
HUMAN CARNAGE.
sIzaghter of e,s5o, 900 Lives in Wars %
the Last Thirty Years


stzaghter of s.sso. 900 Lives In Wars %
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-
yention. 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
AMI German statisticians there have per
ished in the wars of the last thirty wears
2,5CC, Geo men, while there has been ex-
pended to carry them ON no less than
the uncomfortable sum of $4,000, Co.,
600. OF this amount France has paid
nearly $3.50, OC0, coo as the cost of the
war with Prussia, while her loss in men
is placed at $4,000. OF these $1,000
were killed on the field of battle, $4,000
died of sickness. accidents or suicide and
60, 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
77,421, 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 CO. goo men killed or rendered invalid
and 5000, Zoo in money, this being
the excess of expenditure or of material
losses over the S1,s50.O00,0 900 paid by
France by way Of indemnity.
DR.. Engel, another distinguished Ger
man statiEtician, gives the following as
the approximate cost of the principal
wars of the last thirty years: Crimean
war, 81, o00. 600. 900; Italian war Of 1859,
5000, OO0, COO; Prusso-D Danish war of 1864,
SIS, 200. COO: war of the rebellion, north
$500, 000,0O0, south s., SOC, 600, 900;
Prusso- Austro war of 1866, $3.50, 900, 600;
Russo Turkish war, 1925, O0O, goo; South
African wars, Ss,770,00O; Afghan war,
$13, 250, 900; Seryo-Bulgarian war. $780,
O0O, 900.
An these wars were murderous in the
extreme. The Crimean war, in which
few battles were fought, cost 10000
lives, only $4,000 less than were killed
or died of their wounds, north and
south. during the war OF the rebellion.
The figures, it must be remembered, are
German, and might not agree precisely
with American estimates. The Mexican
and Chinese expeditions cost 5000, COO, 00C
and s., 600 lives.
There were 100000 killed and mortally
wounded during the Russo-Turkish war
and $1,000 each in the Italian war Of
1859 and the war between Prussia ant
Austria. In the other wars the loss o.
life was relatively less, which did mo-
make either the men or money easier Il
part with in the more limited area
where they occurred.
And this is but part Of the account
ing, since it does not include the mill
ions expended during the last twent,
years in maintaining the vast armament
Of the European powers, the losses causes
by the stoppage of commerce and manu-
features, and the continual derangemen
of industries by the abstraction iron
useful employment of so many million
of persons held for period Of militar,
service extending from three to fiy
years.-San Francisco Chronicle.