DEBTOR AND CREDITOR ACCOUNT OF THE WAR.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 304, 24 December 1877, Page 4

DEBTOR AND CREDITOR ACCOUNT OF THE WAR.

Now, when the summer campaign is over, and ihe winter campaign about to begin, it may be useful to make up a debtor and creditor account, showing how much has been so tar lost, and bow much gained by a peculiarly Christian and hucoauitariaa war. We do oot pretend that the reckoning is complete, possibly a few items have to be added, but our readers must do that for themßclves. On the one Bide we have — 1, A hundred thousaud men or there* aboufcs slaughtered, gashed, and mutilated. 2, Tens oi thousands moro dead of cold, fatigue, privation and disease). 3. Very many others suffering from the same ills. (Traios of aick are pasSag to the Danube by a thousand carts at a time.) 4. Home-aaffering to any degree within the compass of imagination,

occasioned as above, in hundreds of villages and towns. 5. Steady, wholesale destruction through overwork, want of food, and the engines of war, among pt good, useful beasts, (these creatures being incapable of anyentbusiasm of humanity). 6. The crops, cattle, farm-houses of whole provinces ravaged and destroyed, hundreds of villages burnt, and their inhabitants (such as have escaped murder) adrift on the world. 7. Whole populations instructed in rape and massacre aa'a means of securing civil and religious liberty, and practising the same. 8. All the waste of material which accompanies wasta of life in warfare in addition to ao already grinding taxation to make good this waste as it occurs. The certainty that increased taxation will be continued long after the war, to refurnish empty stores and arsenals, and to re-organise shattered forces, and a vast incalculable loss in trade and industry. 9. The re-kindling throughout vast regions, and over several populations, of the most atrocious of all ferocities — religious hate. 10. The evil, whatever it may amount to, of familiarising mankind once more with the worst savageries of ancient uncivilized warfare, with wholesale slaughter, and the most reckless waste of men's lives. 11. The spectaole of lying, hypocrisy, and rapacity passing for truth, virtue, and self-sacriSae. On the other side we have to reckon: — 1. The lessons brought home to Turkey, and the prospect that the Empire, fast lapsing into corruption and desuetude, may become purified and invigorated, 2. The solace of knowing that a large part of the money, lost to Turkish bond-holders has so far ensured the protection of British interests. 3. The discovery of the true use and purposa of autonomous provinces, and the explosion of various blunders and lies as to the condition of the Christian peasantry of Turkey. 4. The unveiling of a vast deal of political imposture abroad, and the timeiy detection of much dangerous nonsense at home. 5. Certain provinces, already blessed with ft fruitful soil, made more fruitful for the future, by the ashes of burned corpses and the bodies of slain men. 6. A Urge percentage of profit for Beveral rich contractors. The Melbourne correspondent of a Sandhurst paper relates ihe following somewhat remarkable story : — " Some little excitement has been created in the principal thoroughfares of the city by the eccentricities of a German named A<iolph Sander, who, attired in a suit of clothes made out of old newspapers, has been engaged in selling a pamphlet deseriptive of a singular wager which he professee to have made with a 'new chum.' If the statements contained in the pnmphlet are to be believed, the bet arose out of a conversation in which the ' new chum' ran down the Colony as a place in which it was almost impossible for an honest man to make a living ; Sander on the other hand contended that there was no difficulty whatever in doing so, and offered to bet £50 that he would start with a capital of 10s 6J, clothe himself out of that Bum, and make £50 within thirty days. The challenge was accepted, and the stakes deposited, and Sander at once proceeded 10- procure the paper costume in which he has exhibited himself to-day, the total cost of which was 5s 7^l. His first step toward clearing £50, which he has undertaken to make in 30 days, is the sale of the abovemeniioued pamphlet, ia which he details the circumstances of the curious wager, and the dedication of which reads as follows :— • Well ! I intended to dedicate my book to all the honorable members of Parliament. But a friend of mine says that's as good. as dedicating it to nobody at all. I wonder if he means that they are all honorable, he can't possibly mean thfi other thin^r, I should think, So I'll just leave the honorable out altogether and dedicate it to members of Parliament aloue.' The huibor of this production has had a crowd round him during the whole day, and the sale of his pamphlets has been so rapid that he appears to be in a fair way of winning his £50."