The Bee-Hive. — 1872-08-17 (London, England)

TUE PEACE OF ,EUROPE THREATENED.  TIIE papers say that M. TIIIERS is disquieted an iiabult in consequence of the attitude assumed by ttohe 113AUTU yLTAbNiII consequence of given the French Ambassador at Constantiuople. Emperors, Sultans, and Kings are awkward customers to quarrel with. BENEDETTI insulted the Knia of PayserA, and we all know how dearly Franco  ,10  • has paid for it. Some hundreds ef thousands have been killed and wounded, many villages burned, towns and cities bombarded, public buildings destroyed, and private houses plundered,'.bridges demolished, railways pulled. up, and every other form of mischief the "foul fiend." could suggest perpetrated. And this, it must not be forgotten, for no more sufficient reason than that two European potentates and their agents bit their thumbs at each other across the Rhine. The cause of offence at Constantinople, according to report, is not so grave as this. It seems that the French Ambassador there, whilst waiting for an audience, had the audacity to sit down, because probably he was fat and had. become fatigued by standing. Etiquette was thus violated, and the honour of the SULTAN wounded. This grave offence having got into the hands of the diplomatists has, as is usually the case, been bungled; and now it would. appear that war by some unlucky chance may arise from it. Thus, because the French Ambassador was stout, and during the hot weather became weary and sat down at a wrong time and place, armies may be called out, made to march against each other, to load and fire, to stab and slash, to wound, and kill, and burn, and destroy, because a French Ambassador decided to sit down when, according to rule, he ought to have continued standing. It would be instructive if somebody would undertake to calculate how many wars in Europe have arisen from like trivial causes; how many lives have been destroyed in such wars, and how much property plundered and wasted.; how much of a money cost such quarrels have been carried on at, and what might have been done with this money for the good of the various nations that have sacrificed it if it had. been expended in peace and for purposes of productive industry ; how many roads and canals might be made, swamps drained., factories built, distant regions explored, and all else done calculated to enrich and elevate mankind. As a rule the churches handle with great delicacy this vice of sovereigns. They are prudent enough not to run the risk of offending powerful friends. It must be confessed, however, that in some measure they make up for this by condeinning with much vehemence the peccadilloes of the poor,  Sometimes, however, in an indirect manner the enormities of wars and the vices they originate in, and which nearly always accompany them, are fittingly condemned. When GULLIVER had related to the benevolent KING of BROBDIGNAG With much vanity and self-sufilcieney the wars and, other question. able doings of Great Britain, that Monarch said to him, "By what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains winged and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." If we limit the application of this to the war-like sovereigns of the earth, it would be hazardous to say that the description is not correct. And if we have now another war because an Ambassador's legs became tired and be sat down when he was expected to be standing, we shall have another illustration of its truth. We shall understand more distinetly than ever what "odious vermin" the kings of the world are; and we shall, perhaps, see with a little more clearness our own folly in tolerating patiently such abominable vices as monarchs indulge in at the public expense. If we cannot see these things and compel our kings to make the atrocities of war give place to the activities of peace and the humanising influences of industry, we had better adopt the hideously grotesque customs of Dahomey, and have our public carnivals, festivals, and frolics on the spot where our murders are committed, and in presence of the horrors belonging to them.