RAPACIOUS CHRISTIANS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 28, 16 January 1912, Page 2

RAPACIOUS CHRISTIANS.

EUROPEAN POWERS FLAYED BY PIERRE LOTI. MOCKERY OF CIVILISATION. /.'Vi 9 UlfVjl; Of f: ’c.’’ In the “Figaro” on January Bth Pierre Loti, the well-known novelist, made a striking appeal to the world in favour of peace, and at 1 the same time flays Europe for its rapacity inCdealiilg with the Mohammedans. “Italy’s indefonsive seizure of Tripoli and the war on Turkey,” he wrote “are manifestations of a mockery of civilisation which looks tranquilly on massacre, on the war, and on the spilling: of innocent blood. “The European Powers are hyenas waiting to fill their stomachs with the remains of dying Turkey; “The time has arrived for the Christians of the world to cease from human butchery. • They are the greatest assasins of all, killing with swords of fraternity on their lips, destroying with fire and shot the old worlds of Africa and Asia, and treating like cattle the men of the brown and yellow races. “Wars of conquest, on whatever pretext they are undertaken, must be stopped, or the world’s peace, progress, and arbitration will remain empty and derisive, and a shame to humanity.” M. Loti, who was formerly a naval officer is one of the best known French novelists. His real name, however, is Viaud, “Loti”—Japanese for Violet—having been given him as a nickname by his messmates, and ho subsequently adopted it as his nom de plume. Entering the navy in 1867, when lie was just 17 years of age, the famous French author served for a number of years in the, Far East. His first book appeared in 1879, but his early works did not attract much attention. In 1883, when serving off the coast of Annum, he sent to the Paris “Figaro” a realistic article on the operations, for which he was promptly court-martialled and put on half-pay for 12 months. During that time he wrote “Mon Frere Yves,” which brought him fame, and which was followed by a large number of other novels. The Queen of Roumania was so charmed with one of his books bat she sent him a special invitation to visit Bucharest. M. Loti lives in his old homo at Rochefort, and apeculiarity about his liouse is that several of the rooms are furnished in the stylo of the habitaions he occupied in Algeria, Turkey, ind other Eastern lands.