THE HORRORS OF WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 240, 11 October 1870, Page 2

THE HORRORS OF WAR.

The following vivid description of the misery experienced by those living in a country ravaged by war is from a letter describing the battle of Saarbruck, by the special correspondent of the Times : — •'My narrative broke off last Dight ■where the Prussians, having turned the French left, were chasing them from the town in the direction away from Metz. Among this retreating and panic-stricken crowd we found ourselves, and we thought it better to continue with them and avail ourselves of their knowledge of roads and byways, whereby to get, at all events, to a more comfortable distanco from the Prussians. When we had reached the summit of the heights, and •were actually out of immediate danger of the Prussian shot and shell— when, in fact, the poor people could think of something beyond the instant peril of life and limb — they seemed suddenly to realise the entire ruin which had fallen upon them ; they also began to think of their families and friends who were all scattered, flying in desperation through the d ep woods, where the darkness was deepening with the falling night. Such ecenes of anguish and misery I never saw before, and hope never again to see. Mothers ■who had lost their children seeking for them with frantic cries and gesticulations — old, tottering men and women stumbling feebly along laden with some of their poor household gods, silent with the silent grief of age — little children, only half conscious of what these things meam, tripping along, often leading some cherished household pet, an 1 seeking for some friendly band to guide them — husbands supporting their wives, carrying their little ones (sometimes two or three) on their shoulders, «nd encouraging the little family group witb brave and tender words — the woods ringing ■with shrieks and lamentations, with prayers to the Saviour and the Virgin. It is impossible to descrihe in language the sadness aud the pathos of that most mournful exodus. If all the world could only catch a glimpse of such a scene, I will venture to say that war ■would become impossible ; that fierce national pride and Quixotic notions of honor, and the hot ambitions of Kings, and emperors, and statesmen", would be for ever curbed* by the remembrance of all the pity and the desolation of the spectacle.