The Atherstone, Nuneaton, and Warwickshire Times. — 1884-08-30 (Atherstone, Warwickshire, England)

FRENCH CHIVALRY.  The Times correspondent, writing of the bombardment of Foochow by Admiral COMET, the French commander, describes it "aas sickening business." It, undoubtedly, was so, if' the account which he gives be a true and accurate one. War at any time is a hideous and cruel method of determining the quarrels of nations. It may be a necessity, but by all civilised nations it is the custom to minimise the horrors of war as far as possible. A line is drawn Wyond which destruction should not be carried, and legitimate fighting should never degenerate into wanton massacre. Admiral COURBET, however, appears to have carried out his instructions with a completeness which tells a sickening tale of horror to civilised ears. With nine well-equipped modern ironclads he essayed to take or destroy a port protected by eleven small river boats. In seven minutes he had silenced the guns of his opponents, and by every rule of chivalry and war he was bound to give the defeated crews an opportunity of surrendering. He did nothing of the kind, however, if the story told by the Times Correspondent is true. Ile continued firing at the boats whose guns were silenced, and compelled the crews to jump into the water from the sinking vessels. The river, we are told, was filled with dead and dying Chinamen. Not content with this, however, he fired for two hours on the arsenal and neighbouring villages, massacreing the defenceless inhabitants, and carrying death and destruction for miles round. During the whole of this time not a shot was fired in return. Surely this is an outrage which the rules of civilised warfare do not permit. This was on Saturday. On the following day, Sunday, at noon, Admiral Courbet recommenced his work of destruction, and the ruthless manner in which these poor defenceless peopte were destroyed is discreditable both to the French Commander and to the flag under which the work of carnage was carried on. And it must not be supposed that England is a disinterested observer of what is going on in China. The interests of France in Foochaw may be small, but England has important and weighty interests to be considered. Foochow was no inconsiderable port. It had an arsenal employing 2,000 hands and capable of turning out five men of war annually. It was the port from which the greater number of tea ships sailed—for the most part to England, it was the port through which a great portionl of the English import trade with China entered that country. It is England that will suffer commercially from the wanton and unnecessary destruction of Foochow, and not France. Then, again, it must not be forgotten that the Chinese are a people peculiarly sensitive to revenge, particularly against foreigners, and this outrage will probably make it almost impossible to render the lives and persons of Europeans in China safe. Weeks ago it was found necessary to resort to flogging to prevent the Chinese from giving practical expression to their hatred to foreigners. The first result of Admiral COURBET'S action is the sacking and looting of the Fr-ii li Embassy at Canton. We may expect that the feeling will extend to all Europeans. Our merchants. our missionaries, and other countrymen; will be necessarily exposed to great risk and hazard, and we have a right,therefffe, in the interests of hum mity, as well as of England, to protest against such a scandalous infringement of the well-estahlished rules of civilised warfare. Had England been guilty of such an atrocity, the whole of Europe would have cried shame. Lord BEAUCHAMP never fired a shot at an Egyptian vessel which had ceased to return the fire. What would have been said if Lord WOLSELEY had massacred the wounded Egyptian soldiers ? And yet it is difficult to draw any distinction between killing wounded and unresisting marines and massacreing wounded soldiers. For the credit of the French nation we hope the facts stated by the Times Correspondent are open to some explanation, or are in some respects exaggerated. The French boast of their chivalry,but it is a sorry sort ot chivalry to practise with heavy guns on unresisting and wounded Chinamen, to shell and sink unreplying gun boats, to destroy defenceless villages, to practice, not honourable warfare, but murderous barbarity.