The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-09-03

latest book, Arms and the Race is an intelligent discussion of the-rela tion, of military power, to inc futul g
 of the United States, says on pqEe
 26:
 tsAs a general proposition it may be laid down that the less destF5tcttf1e the weapon, the greater win oeE-tho loss of life, and the history a4f. war gives ample confirmation to fhe theory. Loss of life per hour of fight
 ing in battle decreases steadily ,froTn Q bout the middle of the eighteenth 1 century to the present time, No e2lafct statistical formula can Be given =but in a rough sense, it is a decFeaseoD6 1 something like 8 1per cent toa an eighth of ono per cent Arm Uy groups of men with Knives and tell them to get a decision- Arm the same
 groups each with a I1ick-fringt gun; 1 the loss of life will in nine eases out of ten be smaller and the deeisitll
 may be. long postponed. With WcsilC | arms the decision must be sought at short range and system of discipline and tactics must beaey olved that will
 meet this necessity With, powerful
 weapons the emphasis ehangessf 1t tactics are modified, distances are h.
 creased and loss decreases corrcs-
 pondingIy." l The assertion has been freduehgly
 made that the accounts ofsthe ancient | historians are not as accurate as th eY
 ght be, a concession that -n1asT be 1 granted without making it less plain
 that when men are fighting foot to,
 foot there is likely to be more loss of 1 life than when they are miles apart
 with forests and mo untains fnfef-Vefl-
 ing The great power Of the latest artillery simply made burrowinec
 necessary, and being necessary it was done The consequence is that all along the battle fronts for miles tho 1 soldiers are living an underground
 
 ] whine above their heads, aa but they
 pass their life like rabbitsgtin ;taelF
 warrens. down below the peFtlri7s.- l tions on the surface. Now and then there is a great charge and many men are lost, but inevitably comes the re- tirernent to the intrenehments and | the hiding in the earth Again,
 where great forts in the o1den days
 would have been won, only by direct
 a61ault, now they are demolished tby 1 the fire of the great guns. as was Che
 lease in Belgium. with many of the heavy fortresses which it was thought
 would cost thousands of lives before
 they could be destroyed. The mere
 humane bullet that gives Weu4as | from which men recover with sur
 prising rapditty and the greater de
 velopment of aseptic and antiseptic 1 treatment of wounds and the concur
 rent, progress in military surgery all Icontribute toward making battle 1 wounds less dangerous than III O4e4e4A 1 times. It is said that a large propoE- | ton of the wounded in the present
 war have resumed their places on the
 firing line a few months after recelE- | ing wounds which in the days of crude field surgery would have ended lstheir lives.
 The reports of large losses of life | in this war should always be oousid- cred in the light of the millions of
 men engaged in this struggle. MillioRs
 are on the fighting fronts where in other wars there were only hundreds of thousands. In such masses of men the death rate alone without count ing injuries received es in 2. battle
 would make a very respectable total
 but the normal death rate in time of
 peace never seems to be taken into account when hysterical reference is made to battle losses The idea seems to be that if men are not fighting in es war they will live forever. In the United States one in every seven E-S the population of the republic is in-
 jured annually, according to the stat istics of accident underwriters, and
 during the three years ending in 1909
 the annual average of accidents in New York city on the surface, ele-
 vated and subway traction systems was 34,oO0 persons, larger nu111lJ7g
 than the total killed and woupded ed. eR
 both sides at the battle of Esettys-
 burg. Therefore it is reasonable to- believe that when this st1pendous
 conflict is ended and the Statistics of
 killed and wounded in Battle are com pared with the millions engaged ih the war it will be found that. .cllrregzt reports of casualties eare greatly 4esl~
 aggerated. judged by per centages.
 Although modern young women claim to be interested in public affalrs.
 they seem to spend more time studying the soda fountain list of flaverE sthan