The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1870.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 287, 6 December 1870, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1870.

The misery and ruin that have been wrought in France by the war, have excited tbe symyathies and aroused the charitable feelings of the English people, who are subscribing largely in order to afford some relief to those who are left penniless, and without husband or father to earn their daily bread. However great may be the horrors of the battle-field, and whatever ghastly pictures of human suffering in every possible shape it may i present, they seem almost as nothing compared with the wretchedness and destitution that must exist among the weaker aud more helpless portions of the' belligerent nations. At the very lowest computation, half a million of men must already have been killed, or so maimed as to be rendered useless for the daily work by which they have hitherto earned bread for their families, so that some slight conception may be formed of the vast number of women and children who must now be entirely dependent upon charity to keep starvation from their doors. The same state of things must exist to an almost equal extent in Prussia, but the German people have this great advantage over their enemies, that their country is not overrun by a huge hostile army, aud they have not been laid under contribution by exacting foraging parties. They have been suffered to gather in their harvest without fear of a squadron of cavalry swooping down upon them, driving them from their fields, and appropriating the fruits of their year's labors

\ -which were to provide them with sustenance during the approaching winter. Their men have certainly been taken from the more profitable occupation of reaping and mowing to fight for their country, but the women have been left in peace to harvest the corn crops, while their sisters in the northern and eastern parts of France have hardly dared to show themselves in the fields, or if, perchance, they were suffered to secure their harvests, it was with the almost certainty that they were only filliug their garners for the benefit of their enemies. An appeal to the people of the Australasian colonies for assistance for these poor starving creatures appeared in the last issue of the Home Neios and we now re-publish it here, feeling sure that it will commend itself to a large number of our readers : — " Having iu view the terrible disaster now devastating Europe, it would seem almost out of place for us to offer any suggestion or opinion of our own. There is, however, a theme that must actuate all men. The sufferings of those who are powerless to protect themselves speak (i trumpet-tongued" to all the civilized world. The war in France has left many a pleasant home devastated and many a family helpless. On the banks of the Rhine, in the pleasant valleys that lie to the west of it, on the mountain sides of the Vosges, all over Alsace and Lorraine, terrible trouble and much wretchedness remain as the result of the war. The people thereabouts are not only deprived of their preseut means of subsistence, but their seed corn, has been destroyed. The people of Alsace and Lorraine are helpless ; just as helpless as the folk living on the banks of Australian rivers are after a flood has swept away their harvest. The people of Eastern France have not only lost their present means of subsistence, but their hope of another harvest. The sick and the wounded would be attended to. We appeal to Australians to assist those who, not being doomed to die, know not where to look for the means to live. Australian journalists will have the chief influence iD this matter, and to them we confidently appeal to carry out our simple suggestion for an Australian subscription to assist those who have unwittingly suffered by the war. When those who starved during the cotton famine craved, and India' clamored for help, Australia was " to the fore" It remaiuswith Australia to show whether the England of the South shall be behind hand now. The Australians .will answer if their leaders call upon them. If ever suffering had a claim it has one in France now." .