Year: 1863

The w az In America.


The state Of war has rapidly become
normal in North America. The spark
dropped on the sun burnt prairie has filled
the horizon with fire. and one sees no out
let not break in the wall of flame. War,
having now ravaged Eastern Virginia, will
either be continued under much greater
disadvantages to the Federal side in the
Carollnas. or on the comparatively unex-
hausted soil of Pennsylvania. On either
side victory only entails a greater distance
from the basis of operations. Meanwhile,
there has started suddenly into life mill.
tary class men who can do nothing but
fight, and who have no sooner spent their
pay than they take the bounty. There are
now, on either side, host of Generals and
men who hope soon to show themselves
better Generals than any yet tried. There
is an aristocracy said to be created by the
war, contractors and manufacturers of ov-
erything wanted for this most consumptiye
and spendthrft Of wars.


Everybody is said to be enriched bv the
war, and no doubt many pray that it may
last their time. The old buccaneering
spirit is thoroughly aroused, and the sea
now vies with the land in sudden product
iveness and the ready prize. Glory, mon
ey, power, distinction, all that dazzles the
crowd, Is now flung about broadcast We
do not hear single protest against the war
on the Federal side on the ground Of its
private and public injuries, for anybody
who can speak thinks himself the better
for it. If the tide of war roll northward,
we shall hear another story but then, pas
SONS Will come to reinforce sel6shness.
If it be the turn of the Federals to see their
cities besieged and bombarded, their home
steads ravaged, their harvests DESTROYED
and their country made desert, they will
ma revenge the master impulse. But that
revenge they will have to seek under en-
hancei difficulties. Nobody can doubt
that they will seek it, but with what sue.
cess time alone can show.


| Disabused as we all must be Of our first
hopes of the early termination of the war,
perhaps we arc driven by the force of rea-
son to the other extreme. Yet every anal
ogy justities the worst fears We cannot
find much fault with the Federals if they
are as long finding out their mistake as we
were 70 years since. Mexico has been in
state of civil war, diversified by foreign
interference, for 40 years Our own Wars
OF the Roses may be considered to have
lasted 80 years, as did also the German war
of opinion. From the division of the Ro-
man Empire its territory was for several
centuries the scene Of an almost incessant
struggle between the so.called "barbarians'
of the North and the more settled inhabit-
ants Of the South.


There is much to be said for the rather
gloomy anticipation that North America is
beginning her Middle Ages, and that, with
new variety of manners and forms, she
will follow the successive stages of Europe
an progress, some fifteen hundred years be
hind. What is there to make peaceg
There is no third power to intervene at the
happy juncture and mercifully compel the
vanquished to accept the best terms. Both
belligerents have been taught to regard us
as aliens and intruders. Hitherto the two
sides have been singuarly balanced, for if
numbers and money have been on one side,
personal strength, generalship, and nation.
al sentiment have been on the other. Our
old history tells us that the latter always
constitute the winning side, and it is at
least difficult to conceive that they will in
this case be the characteristics of losers.-
London Times.