Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1905-01-31


creased respect for law.
President John A. Mccall, New
York Life-National supervision OF all
insurance companies and casualty cor
porations.
WAR Is LESS DEADLY.
Improvement In Weapons Lessons Loss
Of Life.
1t Is curious and paradoxical thing
that the improvement IN arms has ac-
tuaIly made war less and not more
destructive, and that in these days Of
magazine rifles, maxims and far
reaching. quick firing cannon the
slaughter Is much less than in the
older days of muskets, Of bows and
arrows, and Of hand-to- hand conflict.
And not only this, the wars of today
are mercifully much shorter and thus
less sanguinary than they were In
centuries that are gone, says writer
In Tit-Bits,
Under the old primitive conditions
Of fighting, when gunpowder was un-
known, wars drifted on for genera
tions, even for centuries. For a
hundred years almost without inter-
mission England waged war with
Scotland. and also with France, and
the thirty years war and, later. the
seven years war are epochs In mill
tary history.
The American rebellion, though
fought with muzzle- loading guns,
lasted only four years; a year later
Prussia brought Austria to her knees
in seven short weeks, and genera
tion ago crushed the power Of France
in eight months. The United States
only took ninety days to thrash
Spain, and even the late war in South
Africa, though 1t covered over two
and half years. would have been
considered absurdly short in the days
of Crecy and Agincourt.
Then look for moment at the ter
rible slaughter in the old days, when
men met In hand -to-hand conflict and
quarter was neither asked nor given.
In the battle Of Chalons, fought A.
d. 451, between Attila, King Of the
Huns. and the Roman legions under
Aetius, not fewer than 100000 men
were slain; indeed, the number OF
LII la1 ho MI oh q q
100000. At Hastings $4,000 men fell
though the numbers engaged were
small compared with those in modern
battles. At the Metaurus Hasdrubaps
Carthaginians were practically anrihi-
lated. At Aquae Sextiae and Vercelae
the hordes Of Cimbri and Teutons
were completely exterminated by Ma
rius; hundred years later $4,000 Ro-
mans were wiped out by Arminius In
Teutoberg Forest. and $4,000 Roman
citizens of the Greek cities were siain
in single day by the soldiers Of Mith-
ridates. At Crecy there fell 1000
French knights, t,400 gentlemen and
1000 men-at-arms, besides $4,000 Of
inferior rank; 10000 men were killed
at Agincourt and $4,000 were taken
prisoners, and about 10000 men, too,
were slain out of the 10000 who
fought at Flodden, while out Of the
100000 men engaged in the fierce and
sanguinary battle of Towton $4,000
are computed to have fallen in the
battle and pursuit.
In these old-time battles, where the
weapons were bows and arrows,
swords and battle-axes, and where no
weapon was used which could be re-
lied on to kill at a distance Of more
than a few hundred yards, the NOR
tality frequently rose to one In every
three or four fighters engaged, and
sometimes exceeded this enormous
percentage; whereas In modern bat
ties, with weapons far more deadly,
a proportion Of one in twenty Is
rarely reached.
At Alma the casualties were fifty
four per 1000, or, roughly, one to 1876;
at Inkerman they were one in twenty;
at Sedan, one in sixty; at Gravelotte,
one in III, and at Waterloo, one IN
twenty-one. In the Crimean war 1t
took Ss,OOO,00O shots to kill 10000
nen-742 shots to dispatch one man;
and at Gibraltar 25S,3T shot and
shell found only 1,341 human targets,
and of these many were only wounded.
During the Franco German war one
fighter was disabled by every 254
shots.
From these figures 1t seems clear
that the improvements in death-deal-
ing weapons have certainly led to a
diminished slaughter in war; result
which was long ago predicted by ex-
perts, the reason being that with long
range and accurate firearms the fight
ing must necessarily be at cores
pondingly greater distances.
Competent But Unprejudieed.