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CHRISTIANITY AND WAR
By
the
Rev. JOSEPH KEATING, S.J.
Note.—In this papei' the term Christianity stands for the full
expression of the message of Christ, viz., the code of belief and
conduct which He guaranteed should be preserved infallibly by
the Catholic Church and taught indefectibly to the end of time.
The above title recalls two facts. First, that there
exists a religious system on earth which claims to
have been founded by God Incarnate and divinely
endowed with the means of enabling man to reach
his final supernatural destiny. Secondly, that from
the beginning of history there has been prevalent
amongst the nations a practice of furthering their
rival claims', whether just or unjust, by actual physical
force or the threat of it.
The question therefore arises, How does the
system regard the custom ? What is the attitude
of the Church of Christ, instituted to unite the races
of men by the bond of a common belief, towards
this age-long practice, the chief effect of which is to
perpetuate and intensify racial antagonism ? What
is the Catholic doctrine on the subject of war ? An
answer to this question will be attempted in the
following pages.
Nowadays there is need of a plain, definite expo
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Christianity and War
sition of the Catholic position in regard to war and
peace, because that position is so often misunder
stood and misrepresented, sometimes by Catholics
themselves. The external aspect of war cannot but
excite the feelings, consequently there is a certain
risk lest judgement should be obscured and a good
cause injured by an influx of emotionalism, which
has not the support of reason and principle. In the
voice of the Church, Catholics*are privileged to have
infallible guidance in moral matters, and are, there
fore, the less excusable if, at the bidding of mere
sentiment, they shut their ears to that sure guidance.
Dwelling as they do here in the midst of a vast
non-Catholic population, which has no -fixed and
uniform standard of ethical judgements, Catholics
in England are exposed to these two temptations :
either to hold themselves aloof altogether from the
vaiious more or less misguided efforts made by their
fellow-citizens to combat abuses and to better social
conditions, thus laying themselves open to the
reproach of not being thoroughly practical Chris
tians ; or to co-operate so unreservedly in the pro
motion of good works that they abandon Catholic
principle altogether or acquiesce in what is ethically
wrong either in aim or method. Under the first
impulse they may abstain from joining non-Catholics
in measures for the furtherance of temperance, or
education, or purity, or social reform, because those
excellent objects are apt to be promoted by out
siders on principles or in ways not sanctioned by
Catholic doctrine. They feel that they cannot, for
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instance, support associations which advocate tem
perance on the ground that the use of alcohol is
essentially evil, or which condemn gambling as in
itself unlawful, or which would abolish vivisection
because brutes are one in kind with men, or which,
again, in their methods as distinct from their prin
ciples, unduly interfere with human liberty and
responsibility. And thus, not being numerous or
influential enough to form similar associations of
their own, they seem to be indifferent to abuses
which their religion would urge them to be foremost
in condemning. Or, if their praiseworthy desire to
share the burdens of citizenship leads them to asso
ciate in such measures with those outside the Church,
they may, through ignorance or timidity, countenance
the application of remedies to social disorders which
ignore essential rights, whether human or divine.
Hence the importance of thoroughly understanding
that sound middle course, which, in this matter of
the ethics of war, as in all others, the Church is
inspired to pursue. It is the privilege of her
members to make the leaven of her doctrine pene
trate the whole mass surrounding them. We can
no longer remain in the detached attitude of aliens,
almost outlaws, in our own country. We are an
integral part of the State, with civil duties corre
sponding to our rights. And, as believers in that
true Christianity whose message is for the healing of
the nations, it is especially incumbent upon us to
bring right principles to bear on all social and
political questions.
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Christianity and War
Unfortunately in the consideration of this par
ticular question of war, right principles have often
been lost sight of. A very slight acquaintance with
non-Catholic “ Peace ” literature, or with the utter
ances of pacificist orators, will convince the educated
Catholic that this most Christian object is not unseldom recommended on grounds that are not
morally or logically sound. For the better under
standing of the true doctrine it may be well to
enumerate here some of the causes of that unsound
ness, which, speaking generally, is the result of
allowing mere sentiment to usurp the functions of
leason. We find, then, non-Catholic advocacy
of peace often disfigured—
1. By want of a clear definition of war itself—a
little word which stands for a vast variety of
things.
2. By the assumption that all the forms and causes
of warfare are radically unjust ;1 no discrimi
nation, for instance, being made between
wars of pure aggression and wars of defence.
The greatest evil of the world is war,” says one “Peace ”
pamphlet, to which the Christian may aptly reply, “ The only
evil in the world is sin.” The pamphleteer fails to prove (i)
that all forms of war are sinful, and (2) that the deprivation of
natural life, which is the worst feature of war, is worse, for
instance, than the killing of the soul or grievous sacrilege or
the crimes of the heresiarchs. Again, “ The crime of war is
inherent, said Mr. Carnegie at the Guildhall on May 24, 1010 •
it awards victory, not to the nation that is right, but to that
which is strong.” To argue the inherent criminality of war
from an accidental effect, is characteristic of the sentimentalist.
He does not apparently consider the possibility of a nation
being both right and strong.
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3. By a confusion between moral and physical
evil, the former affecting man’s soul and
eternal destiny, the latter only man’s body or
goods, things wholly temporal.
4. By a confusion between what binds the con
science under pain of sin and what is merely
recommended as the better course, z.e.,
between precept and counsel.
5. By a confusion between what is forbidden to
the individual who has a superior on earth,
and the sovereign State which has none.
6. By a confusion between the abuse of a thing
and its right use.
7. By a confusion between cause and occasion.1
8. By undue insistence on man’s temporal welfare,
.to the practical neglect of his eternal destiny.
9. By misreading of the history of the past, due to
the want of discrimination indicated above.
The Catholic view wilfbest appear by a discussion
of these several points. It is of the utmost import
ance that everything unsound should be cut away
from the arguments adduced to support the cause
of peace. That cause is overwhelmingly strong
without them ; on the other hand, arguments
logically weak, or at variance with experience, or
palpably exaggerated, only serve to discredit it.
Let us start then by analyzing the idea of war.
1 This confusion is so embedded in English speech through
loose usage that a word of illustration may be helpful. The
cause of the daylight in a room is the sun, the occasion (or con
dition) is the window. Occasion may be necessary, as in this
example, or accidental, as when the agent is free.
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Christianity and War
To avoid unending qualifications, we shall consider
war only in its fully-developed condition, viz., as an
armed conflict between two sovereign States. The
aims of such war is to enforce the will of one State
upon the other, the method consists of inflicting
such damage, each upon other, that one of them
may consider submission a preferable alternative to
further resistance. When appeals to reason, or to
duty, or to interest fail to bring two discordant wills
into harmony, the appeal t8^physical constraint is
the only resource left, for only on the physical plane
is the ultimate trial of strength possible, at any
rate in the case of corporate natures such as ours.
Accordingly, when two independent States fall out
on a point of importance and are unable (or un
willing) to compose their differences by peaceable
means, they instinctively have recourse to physical
violence, the object of each being to make the other
feel that giving-in is, on the whole, preferable to
holding-out.
Now, the first point of difference between Catholic
and non-Catholic teaching lies in the moral aspect
of this appeal to physical force. War, the violent
destruction on a large scale of life and property,
is essentially a physical calamity of the worst sort,
like earthquake and fire, pestilence and famine.
But as, unlike these latter, it is a calamity brought
on by human volition, it has a moral aspect as well,
and its character, good or bad, is determined by the
motives and methods of those that will it. The
taking of individual human life is similarly a physical
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calamity, which may be either a crime or an act of
justice according to its moral circumstances. The
Catholic doctrine is emphatic on this point, that
there are in this fallen world circumstances which
may necessitate, and therefore justify,1 war, as an
instrument to attain certain desirable ends. To
declare it, then, sans phrase, a thing essentially
unlawful, is to fly in the face both of reason and
revelation. Reason justifies the expedient of war
on the part of a State on the same grounds as it
justifies defence and prosecution of personal rights
on the part of the individual, and to a less qualified
extent. The possession of rights implies the law
fulness of defending them, by force if neceesary,
against unjust aggression. Otherwise, there would
be no stability in society and much less security
for the world’s peace than at present.
The
individual’s powei' to assert his rights is limited by
the fact that he is living under the protection of
authority, to which he can appeal in order to obtain
justice. He can use violence only when the need is
imminent and the appeal to law is in the circum
stance unavailing. But the sovereign State, ex
hypothesi, has no higher earthly authority to which
to appeal, and must, therefore, vindicate its position
by its own efforts. Thus reason justifies the use of
physical might to enforce moral right : it is just
1 Herein the Church but echoes and confirms the dictate of
reason, excellently expressed by the pagan historian, Livy, in
the words of the Samnite general—“Justum est bellum quibus
necessarium, et pia arma, quibus nulla nisi in armis relinquitur
spes ” ^Hist. ix 1).
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because it is necessary, and necessary because other
wise, as things are here below, the moral law itself
would lack its most palpable support. That law
not only forbids injustice but also enjoins that
just claims should be protected and outraged justice
vindicated—processes that ordinarily call for the use
or display of force.
But why in that case is the Gospel of Christ full
of exhortations, both against the employment of
violence and resistance to it ? Surely revelation,
at any rate, supports the view that war is unlawful.
Did not Christ proclaim, “ Resist not evil,” “ Love
your enemies,” “Turn the other cheek,” “Give to
every asker,” “ They that use the sword shall perish
by the sword,” and a host of other similar injunc
tions ? Is not His whole spirit one of meekness,
patience, and love ? Certainly, our Lord said those
things, and, as certainly, He inculcated a spirit of
forbearance and mutual charity, which, if universally
adopted, would render war impossible and unthink
able. We cannot doubt that He set up an ideal
to which the notion of war is utterly abhorrent. If
His divine purpose in establishing His Kingdom on
earth—a purpose all Christians should have at heart
—were perfectly fulfilled, all the causes of war
would be done away with. Our Divine Lord set
in the clearest light and taught with an emphasis
impossible to ignore, the great doctrine of the
universal Fatherhood of God and its necessary
consequence, the common brotherhood of men.
From the first, the religion He instituted aimed at
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transcending all natural barriers, whether of race or
nationality, age or sex or condition, and at uniting
all rational creatures in the harmony of one great
family, by the bonds of a common origin, of com
mon duties and interests and a common destiny—
a family wherein “ there is neither Gentile nor Jew,
circumcision nor incircumcision, Barbarian nor
Scythian, bond nor free, but where Christ is all
and in all.” 1
But this glorious ideal was to be realized only by
means of the free co-operation of man, and man,
as a matter of fact, has very generally refused his
co-operation. As a consequence, the vast bulk of
the race is still outside Christian influences, and
even among Christian peoples the principles of the
Gospel, rarely practised perfectly by the individual,
still less completely affect international relations.
Indeed, the struggle that every one experiences in
his own breast when he tries to live up to the
Christian ideal, is a sufficient indication of the small
likelihood of that ideal being fulfilled in the race
at large. Of course, God Incarnate foreknew how
free-will would operate to frustrate His designs,
and, therefore, under what conditions His followers
would have to exercise the Christian virtues, and
He framed His injunctions in the light of that fore
knowledge. He could not have meant any com
mand of His to make human progress impossible.
And in any case His directions are not all imposed
under the same sanction. To attain Christian per1 I Cor. iii 2.
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Christianity and War
fection in this fallen world necessitates the exercise
of moral heroism, but Christ does not exact heroism
or perfection under pain of sin. Beyond what is
of obligation in His service, He leaves a wide
margin for generosity. In the practice of every
virtue a certain degree is enjoined under penalty,
but beyond this we are free to advance or not as
we choose. If we do not choose, we shall of course
lose merit and reward proportionately, but we shall
not be positively punished.1 On the other hand,
to confuse counsel with precept and to make per
fection obligatory under sin is an error into which
many non-Catholic sects, in bondage to the lettei- of
the Scriptures and cut off from the Christian tradition,
have frequently fallen. By promulgating His ideal
of perfection, in the Sermon on the Mount and else
where, our Lord does not bind us to follow it per
fectly ; what He does bind us to is to acknowledge
it to be the ideal and to give it at least our praise
and admiration. We must hold that, ceteris paribus,
the better part, is, after Christ’s example, not to
assert our rights against those that infringe them,
not enter into the obligations of marriage, not to
labour for the acquisition of wealth, and so forth.
This eminently reasonable doctrine, we may notice, is
expressly denied by the fourteenth of the Thirty-Nine Anglican
Articles, which says that works of supererogation “ cannot be
taught without arrogance and impiety,” and cites our Lord’s
words in proof of its assertion— “ When you shall have done
all these things that are commanded you, say, ‘ We are unprofit
able servants ’ ’’—thus plainly begging the question by assum
ing that we are commanded to do all that we can do.
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These self-negations are all means to perfection.
Still, they are not essential means, for His Church
sanctions the natural right of private ownership and
blesses the state of matrimony and supports the
vindication of all just claims, whether individual or
national.
These are good things, even though there are
things better. So far, then, from condemning war
fare as a thing always and essentially evil, Christian
teaching supposes cases which justify and even
necessitate it. War is doubtless the direct cause
of very great physical evils, such as loss of life and
health and property, but physical evil must often be
tolerated in order to prevent moral evil, such as the
spread of injustice resulting from the wrong-doer
going unpunished. And, if it be pointed out that
many moral evils accompany war, howevei* just, we
reply by recalling the important distinction that war
is not the cause but merely the accidental occasion
of such evils. The conditions of fighting and cam
paigning certainly give greater scope for the weak
to fall and the depraved to exercise their depravity,
but the good man owns the obligation of the moral
code on the battlefield as elsewhere. The common
epithets “ brutal and licentious ” have no necessary
connection with the soldier, but there is a neces
sary connection between lawlessness and neglect to
enforce the law.
Another consideration, which further vindicates
the apparent setting aside of the counsels of our
Lord by communities of men engaged in mutual
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warfare, is the following : The Gospel Counsels are
addressed to individuals, and have primarily in view
their spiritual perfection, the acquisition by their
souls of greater grace here and higher glory here
after. Now although those organized societies,
which we call States, are as much bound by the
Commandments of God as are individuals, because
the Commandments are the expression of the
eternal law, and their observance is necessary for
civil well-being, they stand in a different relation
to the Counsels. States exist for temporal ends
alone : they have no grace to acquire nor glory to
hope for ; they have no hereafter, and must reach
their perfection in this world or not at all. And
thus, though an individual may lawfully and reason
ably forgo his rights or neglect his physical and
temporal interests in view of the reward to come,
the State as such must insist on the recognition of
its just claims, whether by its own members or by
external communities. If in any matter of import
ance it condoned disobedience to its laws, it would fail
in one chief object of its existence—the maintenance
of order. And, again, it would fail in a primary
function, if it passed over without effective remon
strance any serious violation of its rights by another
State. Thus the same action—“ turning the other
cheek
is a point of perfection in the individual,
and a dereliction of duty in the community, because
of the difference of their raisons d'etre.
And so the Catholic position—that war may be
justified accords with reason and is not at variance
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with revelation. Nowhere does our Lord condemn
war in itself, and the counsels He addresses to the
individuals are not always applicable, even as
counsels, to the State. To the assertion Chris
tianity is opposed to war, the Catholic reply is,
Christianity is certainly opposed to all that is evil
in war, to the injustice in which it often originates,
to the methods in which it is sometimes pursued,
to the excesses of passion of which it is always the
sad occasion, but Christianity does not oppose war
as the sole means of vindicating moral right, for it
is preferable that these incidental evils should occur
than that wickedness should triumph unchecked in
the world. And hence the divinely guided Church
does not hesitate to countenance war on due occa
sion ; she blesses weapons and consecrates banners
to be used in a just cause. Her rulers in the past
have invoked war as a means to some good end—
whether, for instance, to protect Christendom from
infidel foes or to secure the integrity of the Holy
See. She has even canonized soldiers like the
warrior-maid, Blessed Joan of Arc, showing that
she considers heroic sanctity not incompatible with
the profession of arms. And her recognition of the
fact that the moral law may require war for its
enforcement or vindication on earth, makes it easy
for her to understand how God Himself could have
not merely permitted, but commanded wars, even
wars of aggression and extermination, all through
out the history of His chosen people.
Neither
time nor other circumstances can alter the intrinsic
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nature of a thing ; if war is essentially evil, then
those who profess that doctrine have to face the
fact that the God of Righteousness constantly com
pelled the Jews to commit abominable wickedness.
It is sometimes urged that the early Christians at
any rate did not so learn Christ. We have seen a
catena of passages from early Christian writers,
selected from a tract published by Thomas Clarkson,
the Emancipationist, in 1817, which is supposed to
embody the teaching and practice of those who lived
in sub-Apostolic times, and were therefore most
likely to have caught the true spirit of Christianity.
A more uncritical, untrustworthy, and misleading
document it would be hard to find. Apart from the
initial objection that Christianity, early or late, could
not have taught the essential evil of war, because
Christianity teaches truth and war is not essentially
evil, nothing is said of the circumstances, within and
without the Church, in which these early Christians
were placed, and which readily explain the views
they took of war as they found it. We know, but
not from the pamphlet, that the counsels were much
more extensively practised then than in later times,
that a geneial expectation of the second coming of
our Lord made His followers less inclined to follow
worldly pui suits, and that the dividing line between
the Church and the world was much more clearly
diawn. And on the othei' hand, military service
meant mingling with pagan comrades, serving under
pagan officers, being in constant danger of being
involved in pagan observances or employed in duties
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unbecoming a Christian, It is strange that under
these conditions any Christians were found in the
army at all, yet Tertullian, who is one of the chief
witnesses cited against the lawfulness of military
service, also bears testimony that there were many
believers in the imperial armies.1
The process of establishing the possible justice of
the act of war has incidentally cleared away many of
the other misunderstandings introduced into the
question by those who, having broken with the
Christian tradition, have endeavoured to reproduce
the Christian spirit, as it were from the outside.
Physical evil, not being commensurate with moral,
must often be caused or permitted to prevent the
latter. The individual is allowed by God’s law to
assert and enforce his rights with the moderation
defined by his position and destiny, even though in
cases it might be more Christian to forgo them.
The State existing wholly for temporal ends and
supreme in its own sphere, has a much wider range
of rights and much greater scope to vindicate them.
We may insist on these points, without denying that
many wars are unjust, that horrible excesses are
committed on the battlefield, that war at best is
a desperate expedient and often ineffective of its
purpose, for none of these circumstances alters our
contention. If even good things may be abused,
much more may things which have no moral colour
1 See the well-known passage, Adv. Gentiles, c. 37, beginning
“ Hesterni sumus, et vestra omnia implevimus.”
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of themselves. And we cannot denounce things
merely because they are the occasions of evil, other
wise our human natures, our senses, our passions
and instincts, our very free-will should come under the
ban. In the interests of truth and the moral law itself,
we must insist on the fact, based as it is on the con
sentient witness of reason and experience, history
and tradition, and finally the records of God’s deal
ings with man, that the organized communities we
call States have a right and a duty under certain
conditions to assert or protect their rights by force
of arms.
However, despite this recognition of war as some
times inevitable in this fallen world and consequently
lawful, the spirit of Christianity has always been
opposed to it. If it is sometimes a necessity, it is
always a hateful one, to be used with reluctance and
promptly abandoned as soon as its reason ceases. It
should only be undertaken to avoid worse evils, and
there are not many evils which are worse. It is,
moreover, not unfrequently a useless remedy, for the
big battalions may not be on the side of justice. The
lesistance of weak States to the encroachments of
their stronger neighbours, though valuable as a moral
protest against the pernicious doctrine that Might is
Right, has from time to time resulted in their more
thorough subjugation. So the Christian has no love
foi wai, but regards it as one of the curses of
humanity, one of the worst fruits of original sin,
always implying on the one side or the other, injustice
committed or contemplated, opposed altogether to
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God’s original design and to the perfect Christian
ideal which is the restoration of that design, justifi
able, because in itself a physical evil only, for certain
high ends and under certain clear conditions, and
destined to grow more rare as the international
conscience, the public opinion of civilization, grows
more Christian. Only as an act of justice has war
the support of Christianity. In the ideal our religion
connotes the absence of all injustice, the recognition
of all rights, the harmony of all interests, but in fact
it has to take account of a world where injustice of
every sort is prevalent, and where moral considera
tions are frequently too weak to restrain the wrong
doer. Thus is explained the apparent contradictions
of a Church, founded by the Prince of Peace and
standing everywhere for the rule of justice, still on
occasion giving her sanction to the bloody expedient
of war with all its attendant horrors. It is not that
she thinks that there should be one moral code for
the individual and another for the nation. The un
changing law of God holds everywhere, and what is
unjust as between man and man is equally unjust
in the relations of sovereign States. Murder and
robbery, jealousy and envy, slander and pride and
hatred, do not surely cease to be crimes, because
practised by a community and on a colossal scale.1
But—and this is a distinction ignored by many non1 This was not Othello’s thought: cf.—
“ the big wars
That make ambition virtue.”
Othello, iii 3.
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Christianity and War
Catholic peace advocates—there is an essential
difference between the condition of a sovereign
State and that of a private person. The latter, as
we have seen, is not allowed to avenge himself or to
do more, in self-defence even, than the exigencies of
the moment demand. He cannot, as the phrase is,
“ take the law into his own hands.” Recourse tc
violence in pursuit of right becomes unjust, precisely
when it becomes unnecessary. But from the nature
of the case there is no supreme earthly authority to
which States can have recourse. Whether, if God’s
designs has been fully realized and the whole earth
become practically Christian, the Papacy might not
have been such an authority, whether in the grow
ing tendency towards methods of arbitration such
an authority may not even yet arise, we can only
conjecture. The point is that no such authority
does exist to enforce the moral law in disputes
between independent communities, and if one party
is resolved to push its claims in defiance of that
law, nothing remains for the other, but to resist
aggression by force. Nor is injustice necessarily
all on one side. Although, theoretically, one party in
a contest must be in the wrong, or at least more
in the wrong than the other (since rights of the
same character cannot really conflict, except in
regard to priority, and rights lower in nature ought,
generally speaking, to yield to those superior), still it
is often possible for a state of affairs to arise in
which it is extremely doubtful on which side is
the preponderance of right, and both parties may
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proceed to the arbitrament of the sword, reasonably
confiding in the justice of their cause and the
uprightness of their motives. In default of any
higher authority established by Providence, in
dependent States have generally preferred to be
judges in their own case, and all the Church can
do is to insist upon the necessity of at least a sub
jective conviction of justice in each belligerent.
Accordingly, until some international tribunal is
set up, invested by mutual agreement with the
power of finally settling international disputes, no
State can be compelled in justice to submit what
it holds to be its rightful claims to the decision of its
equals. If it really thinks that it can secure those
rights more effectually by war than by arbitration,
then it may lawfully choose the former desperate
means. Christianity cannot forbid it, but it can and
does lay down very definitely the only conditions
which make it lawful. They have been mentioned
incidentally, but we may summarize them here.
The first is, War should be undertaken in the
interests of justice. The injury received or the
danger to be averted must be genuine, and more
over must bear some proportion to the evils that
war necessarily involves. Thus, the end in view
should not only be good, sc., the assertion or
defence of some real right, but it must be an
occasion of great consequence to the nation, such
as a grievous violation of the country’s honour or
material interests, serious breach of treaty obliga
tions, assistance given to the nation’s enemies, or
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Christianity and War
again, a duty imposed by considerations of humanity,
as the giving help to another nation unjustly op
pressed.1 This condition excludes a .host of evil
motives, which, as human history shows, have
prompted innumerable wars, such as the mere lust
of conquest-and extension of territory, or ambition
of military glory, or rivalry of commerce, or false
zeal for religion, or fear of the growing power of
a neighbour2—in general, all the purposes which
are rightly reckoned unjust and immoral in the
relations of man with man.
Secondly, to escape the Christian’s condemnation,
war must really be, as it has often been called—
ultima ratio regum : the final argument when all
1 This latter point is worth careful attention, for it is directly
opposed to that un-Christian development of nationality which
declares in effect that the different members of the family of the
nations have no concern with each other’s doings, except when
the rights of each are severally involved. This error, under the
name of “Non-Intervention,” was condemned by Pius IX
in the Allocution, Novos et ante (1861).
- One may justly endeavour to preserve whatever excellence
or supremacy one’s particular nation possesses, but this must
be done within the limits of the moral law. The providential
preponderance of any special State in the world has not yet
been divinely revealed, although it is commonly assumed by
the “ Jingo ” press of many nations. Yet we find a presumably
Christian writer, in the April Nineteenth Century, 1910, claiming
that Great Britain has a right to pick a quarrel with Germany
and destroy her growing fleet simply because Britain’s naval
supremacy is menaced thereby ! On what grounds, we wonder,
does he deny Germany a right claimed by him for Britain ? By
strict parity of reasoning a tradesman, threatened with ruin
by the competition of a rival, would be justified in destroying
that rival's goods.
�Christianity and War
21
others have been tried and have failed. If the same
ends, therefore, can be obtained by arbitration
or diplomacy of one sort or another, or if even there
is a reasonable prospect of success by those means,
then, Christian principles forbid the use of the
terrible instrument of war. Nothing but its practical
necessity, as the only means to secure lawful ends of
vast importance, can excuse it. Happily the growth
of arbitration, as a recognized means of settling
disputes between nations, tends to make this con
dition more and more difficult to fulfil.
Thirdly, a just war must be the act of the whole
community represented by the supreme authority in
the State, precisely because it is a matter affecting
the interest of the community as a whole, not those
of any particular person or group.1 In every sove
reign State the right of the sword, whether to
repress internal disorder or to resist and punish
external aggression, belongs by natural law to the
chief power in the State. Subordinate communities,
or classes in the same community, must refer
their disputes to superior authority, and therefore,
so long as there exists a competent superior to
have recourse to, war ceases to be necessary. To
embroil the whole State in conflict, in the interests
of any particular person, or family, or class, or trade,
is against Christian teaching, unless the interests are of
such moment as to be practically national in import.
1 This primarily refers to offensive warfare : just as the in
dividual, so any section of the community may defend itself
against unjust attack without further authorization.
�22
Christianity and War
A fourth and last condition regards the method of
prosecuting a war, which circumstances have made
necessary and therefore justified. This method is
determined partly by natural and partly by positive
law. Natural law requires that the party at fault
should first be afforded the chance of giving satis
faction: otherwise, the necessity of the war is
doubtful and also its lawfulness. If adequate satis
faction is offered, the injured party is bound in
justice to accept it. By positive law, a certain
amount has been done to limit in extent and mitigate
in effect the horrors of war. In u civilized ” warfare
nowadays the lives and persons and property of non
belligerents are supposed to be respected, captives
aie not killed or made slaves of, certain weapons of
destruction, such as chain-shot and explosive bullets,
are excluded, and ambulance-parties are regarded as
neutral improvements which must be ascribed to
the influence of Christian principles.
The application, by the Church’s teaching, of these
piinciples to the circumstances of war is much more
detailed than we have space here to indicate ; but,
judged even by these four requirements for legality,
it must be owned that flagrant injustice has char
acterized the vast majority of the wars recorded in
history. Many have originated in personal pride,
or ambition, or lust of gain. Many have been prose
cuted by heartless methods of barbarism. Before the
rise of democracy, the consent of the nation was not
even asked; since the rise of democracy,the passions
of the nation have ever been played upon by un-
�Christianity and War
23
scrupulous politicians through press, platform, and,
alas ! pulpit—in a word, if ever a method of securing
justice has been discredited by constant misuse, it is
the method of war. The true Christian, then, and
the true patriot as well, must hold war in abhor
rence, and labour with all his strength to abolish
it. But not by wrong methods. He must seek to
promote peace by rooting out the causes of war,
racial enmity, lust of territory, commercial greed—
all springing from that bastard nationalism which is
the mere externation of personal pride, with all the
ugly concomitants of that vice—hatred and contempt
and jealousy of other nations, unwillingness to oblige
01- to own obligations, insularity of outlook, and
inflated self-esteem : a spirit which unfortunately
exists in all nations and flourishes in proportion as
the spirit of Christianity is absent. That spirit alone
can effectually make head against the causes of
war. Unless the peace movement is Christian, it
is doomed to failure. Let Catholics, then, take their
due place in it.1 In addition to the traditions of the
Church, they have the warmest exhortations from
their chief Pastors. Both the late and present Popes
have raised their voices eloquently to plead for peace
amongst the nations, and, nearer home, we cannot
forget the stirring appeal, uttered on Easter Sunday,
1896, by Cardinals Gibbons, Logue, and Vaughan, in
favour of a permanent Tribunal of Arbitration, “ as
A “ Catholic Peace Association ” has lately been established,
particulars as to which may be obtained from the Hon. Sec.,
(/>ro tern.} 194 Battersea Park Road, S.W.
�24
Christianity and War
a rational substitute among the English-speaking
races for a resort to the bloody arbitrament of war.”
“ Others [they say] may base their appeal upon motives which
touch your worldly interests, your prosperity, your world-wide
influence and authority in the affairs of men. The Catholic
Church recognizes the legitimate force of such motives in the
natural order, and blesses whatever tends to the real progress
and elevation of the race. But our main ground of appeal rests
upon the known character and will of the Prince of Peace, the
living Founder, the Divine Head of Christendom. It was He
who declared that love of the brotherhood is a second com
mandment like unto the first. It was He who announced to the
people the praise and reward of those who seek after peace
and pursue it.”
According to those principles we must think and
iy work, for the Peace of the World, ^if it is to be,
k will be finally secured, not by Socialism, which is
y universal tyranny, nor by Herveism, which is universal
* anarchy, but only by practical Christianity, which
* is universal brotherhood, the establishment on earth
xof the Kingdom of Christ.
I
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY, LONDON.
U.
�
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Christianity and war
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War
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Text
CONTEMPORARY WARS.
(1853-1866.)
STATISTICAL RESEARCHES RESPECTING THE LOSS OF
MEN AND MONEY INVOLVED IN THEM.
BY
PAUL LEROY BEAULIEU.
LAURÉAT DE L’INSTITUT.
From the French Edition issued in the “ Peace Library ” of the Paris
“ International League of Peace.”
TRANSLATED AND REPUBLISHED BY THE
LONDON PEACE.
SOCIETY,
19, NEW BROAD STREET, E.C.
1869.
PRICE FOURPENCE.
�LONDON :
R. BARRETT AND SONS, PRINTERS
MARK LANE.
�PREFACE.
The London Peace Society has been engaged for
more than fifty years in endeavouring to create a public
opinion in this and other countries against War and
warlike armaments, and in favour of settling inter
national differences by Arbitration instead of an appeal
to the sword. In the United States there has been a
similar association in existence for about the same
period. But in Europe the English Peace Society has,
during the larger part of that time, been the only
organised body working for that object. Of late, how
ever, there has been a very earnest movement in the
same direction on the Continent, which has given rise
to several societies who are labouring in various ways
for substantially the same ends. One of the most im
portant of these is the International League of Peace,
not to be confounded with another association, with a
somewhat similar title, which originated in the Geneva
Congress of 1867.
The League was founded mainly by the indefatigable
exertions of M. Frederic Passy, and numbers among its
supporters many distinguished persons, not only in
France, but in Germany, Italy, Belgium, and other
continental countries. Among other modes of operation
B
�2
PREFACE.
it is issuing from the press, under the general title of
Bibliothèque de la Paix, a series of small volumes,
admirably adapted for popular instruction. Eight or
nine such volumes have been already published. One
of the most valuable of these is Les Guerres Contem
poraines, by M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, a translation of
which is here presented to the English reader. It is, as
will be seen, a work of great labour and research, and so
careful has the author been not to exaggerate, that he
has in several instances very much understated the
cost in blood and money of the wars in which Europe
has been engaged within the last sixteen years. These
pages must surely be regarded as presenting a melan
choly illustration of the civilisation and Christianity of
the nineteenth century.
�CONTEMPORARY AVARS.
The important legislative debates which for some weeks
have kept the country in a state of suspicion and uneasi
ness, and imbued the public mind with the most painful
apprehensions, have imparted to all the circumstances of
contemporary wars a prominent reality and interest.
Questions of military statistics, which were previously only
interesting to a few persons, have suddenly acquired., in the
estimation of all, an incontestable importance.
Hence we do not shrink from presenting to our readers
a work bristling with figures and facts. We have deter
mined to indicate, with the utmost possible exactness, the
material losses, both of money and of men, involved in the
great wars which have afflicted mankind from 1853 to 1866,
and which constitute, to use the graphic expression of one
of our Deputies, the bill of cost of each war.
The ground upon which we are about to enter has not
been thoroughly explored hitherto. The material losses
comprise the losses of men and money—the losses of men
are enumerated in the official statistics, and the losses of
money are set forth in the respective budgets.
A minute exactness is often difficult to attain. There is
an abundance of official documents respecting the loss of men,
but they are sometimes contradictory ; the greater part of
them are issued too soon after the war, and this precipitancy
is a cause of much inaccuracy. As regards the two great
wars in the Crimea and in the United ¡States, and also as to
the Schleswig War, so far at least as Prussia is concerned, we
have been enabled to attain complete precision. For these
wars have been described in large and comprehensive histo
ries, in which the losses have been studied, enumerated, and
classified, systematically and scientifically. The official re
�4
ports of the Crimean War presented to the British Parlia
ment, the remarkable book of Dr. Chenu, the various memo
rials composing “ the Medical and Chirurgical History of the
American Rebellion,” the very recent publication by Dr.
La?ffleur on the “ Schleswig Campaign,” are works of scien
tific exactness. Unfortunately the documents respecting
other wars neither possess similar value nor authority.
As regards finances, we have also met with some embar
rassing difficulties. There is a means of calculating financial
losses, which is in vogue with our statesmen, and which has
met with general favour—it is to add together the various
loans contracted on account of war, and to take the sum of
these different loans for the amount of the expenses of the
war. Nothing is more simple, but nothing is less exact.
In fact, it often happens that sums of money borrowed in
view of a war are only partially expended upon such war.
Thus, the loan contracted in 1859 by France was not
entirely absorbed by the Italian War, and the considerable
portion which was not required by the war was diverted by
a special law to works of public utility. Further, it often
happens that the sum of the loans is very far from being
equivalent to the sum of the expenses of a war. It is neces
sary to take cognisance of the revival of old imposts, or of
the establishment of new taxes, of the use of extraordinary
resources, and of important sums which may have been pro
cured by the reduction of civil expenses, or bv the transfer
of accounts. Thus, the expenses of England for the Crimean
War were four times greater than the loans which she con
tracted during that struggle.
The only rational means of arriving at moderate precision
is to study carefully the war budgets during the contest,
and to compare these with those of the preceding period of
peace. In order to do this, we must know what the budgets
are. But there are States which have none, or, rather,
which had none. Thus, the expenses of Russia during the
Crimean War will always be difficult to calculate, notwith
standing the able researches of MM. Leon Faucher and
Wolowski. It also happens that, certain wars being very
recent, we do not possess their complete budgets, or returns,
of expenditure. In some countries these returns take a long
time in their completion. We know that it was only in the
�5
session of 1867 that the French Legislative body voted the
law to sanction the financial returns of 1863.
And even when we have been enabled to determine with
precision the total expenses of war to the belligerent
countries, we are still far from the knowledge of all the
expenses, even the public ones, which the war has involved.
We must also study the budgets of neutral nations, for
war in our day has this particular feature, that it strikes a
blow at the finances even of neutral nations, and forces
them into an attitude of anxiety, which involves large
armaments. Again, in some countries, we must extend our
researches still further. Any one who should only estimate
as the expenses of the Northern States of America during
the Secession War, the expense they incurred as members of
the Union, without taking account of those incurred by the
separate states and districts, as such, in their preliminary
outlay upon the volunteers, and their equipment of every
kind, must acknowledge that he has not arrived at the total,
and that his estimate would be incomplete. And this is
not all. There are some countries, both primitive and
advanced, where the initiative efforts of individuals are on a
large scale, and where the private contributions towards war
are a very important accompaniment of the public expense.
The gifts furnished to the Czar by the Russian aristocracv,
and all that English and American patriotism so largely
contributed as offerings, equipments, or supplies, should
also be taken account of. As regards Russia, or England,
these private contributions mount up to a hundred million
francs ; and as regards America, to a thousand millions.
And at length, when we have made all these calculations,
shall we then have accomplished our task ? By no means !
All the private losses, the ravage of the lands, the spoiling
of crops; in case of siege or maritime war, the ruin of
cities and the destruction of shipping ; all these losses,
impossible to be estimated, must be always kept in view,
although they cannot be calculated. And even this is not
the whole. Eor by the side of these losses, which we
may term positive ones, and which consist in the material
destruction of acquired wealth, we must take account of the
losses which we may term negative, and which are involved
in the stagnation of business, the dulness of commerce,
�6
and the stoppage of industry. All these ruinous effects,
which the curse of war accumulates, escape our statistics;
but they are not the least part of that curse.
The Crimean War.
Loss of Life.
The Crimean War is the most murderous of those Euro
pean wars of which the calamities have been scientifically
calculated with some degree of precision.
In the estimate of the loss of men, we shall chiefly take
for our guide the report of Dr. Chenu to the Army Board
of Health. This valuable document possesses the double
merit of being official and scientific; it emanates, in fact,
from the Ministry of War, and it obtained from the Aca
demy of Sciences the grand prize for Statistics.
The French army had to struggle against three great
dangers—the cholera, the enemy’s fire, and the scurvy. In
the month of September, 1854, our army had not yet seen
the enemy, but it had already lost 8,084 men, chiefly through
cholera.—(Dr. Chenu, p. 622.) Throughout the campaign
disease carried off four times as many victims as the Russian
fire. Here is the exact state of the losses of the French
army as given by Dr. Chenu :—
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Various diseases and cholera, from
April 1 to Sep. 20, 1854 ... ... 18,073
Ambulances in the Crimea and
Hospitals at a distance from
Constantinople .......................... 221,225
Hospitals at Constantinople.......... 162,029
Killed by the enemy, ormissing...
—
Died without entering ambulances
or hospitals....................................
—
Loss of the ¿JèmiWante ;—
1. Troops on board .............
—
2. Marines.............................
—
Coast infirmary and naval hos
pitals .......................................... 34,817
Killed
or
Dead.
...
8,084
...
...
•••
29,095
27,281
10,240
•••
4,342
•••
•••
394
308
...
846
�7
Killed
or
Dead.
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Died in France in consequence of
diseases and wounds contracted
during the war, up to 31st Dec.,
1857 ........................................
Total
—
... 436,144
...
15,025
95,615
Thus, according to Dr. Chenu’s calculation, which cannot
be refuted, France lost 95,615 men in the Crimean War;
the number of men whom she had sent to the East at differ
ent periods of the struggle form a total of 309,268 ; hence
we see that the number of dead are, to those sent out,
nearly in the proportion of 1 to 3. It is interesting to in
vestigate the causes of this mortality. The preceding table
indicates that only 10,240 men were killed by the enemy;
the number of those who sunk in consequence of their
wounds was not much greater; there remains, then, about
75,000 men who died of cholera, of scurvy, or of other dis
eases. We have seen that the cholera carried off, during
the first four months of the expedition, on Turkish territory,
8,084 men ; and, according to the estimate of M. Jacquot,
the mortality attributable to scurvy comprehended one-third
of the total loss. The 20,000 men who died on the field of
battle, or in consequence of their wounds, had at least
obtained a speedy death, accompanied by innumerable glo
rious associations. But these 75,000 victims of cholera, of
typhus, and of hospital corruption, were obliged to undergo
all the delays, all the sufferings and miseries of a death of
unmitigated horror.
We are bound to make this distinction between the dis
eased and the wounded, for the amount of the calamities of
war can only be really understood when we take a correct
account of the sufferings of those unnoticed multitudes
slowly and needlessly consumed by disease.
If 95,615 Frenchmen were carried off* by death, are we to
believe that this is the limit of our losses ? Are we to
believe that the 214,000 soldiers who escaped death in this
disastrous expedition, returned to France in the same con
dition in which they left it ? Are we to believe that those
30,000 wounded men, whose wounds were not mortal, those
�8
10,000 cholera patients who were discharged from the
Turkish hospitals, and all those unfortunate beings tainted
and emaciated by scurvy, dysentery, and many other fright
ful diseases, brought back to France, to agriculture, to in
dustry, or to national service, the strength of which they
had been deprived ? Are we to believe that amongst the
214,000 survivors, who have spent so many days in hospitals,
there are not a great proportion—a quarter, at the lowest
estimate, probably a third, and perhaps a half—whose health
will always remain enfeebled, shattered, and prone to re
lapse ? What an enormous and incalculable loss of strength !
Here follow the losses of the English army :—
Received into
Ambulances or
Hospitals.
Wounded................................. ... 18,283
Died in hospitals in consequence of
wounds.................................
Killed on the field of battle ...
—
Fever patients and otherwise
diseased
......... ’.............. . ... 144,410
—
Died in hospital ................ .........
Died at sea or elsewhere
. ...
—
Total
.................. 162,693
Killed
or
Dead.
—
1,846
2,756
..
—
16,298
1,282
...
22,182
The effective force first despatched was 97,804 men ;
hence the mortality was about one-fourth. The immense
superiority of the sanitary service and of the general ma
nagement during the second part of the campaign, explains
why the mortality was relatively less in the English than in
the French army.
The aggregate losses of Piedmont, out of an effective
force of 12,000 men, were, according to Dr. Chenu—
Killed by the enemy................................................
Died in consequence of wounds
.........................
Died of various diseases in the Crimea..................
Died in the hospitals of the Bosphorus..................
Died subsequently in Piedmont .........................
Total
...........................
12
16
1,720
446
1
2,194
Here, again, is a mortality of 18 per cent., although the
�9
Piedmontese army, as is implied by the return of the killed,
took no active part in the siege.
The losses of the Turks and Russians can only be conjecturally ascertained. Dr. Chenu estimates at 10,000 the
number of Turks who perished by the fire of the enemy
before Sebastopol, and during the bloody campaign of Wal
lachia and of the Danube: he places at 25,000 the number
of Turks who died of disease.
Ä3 to the Russians, he believes that 30,000 must have
been killed on the battle-fields of Turkey and the Crimea:
he computes at 600,000 the number of Russian soldiers who
died of disease and fatigue. This computation may, at first
glance, appear exaggerated, but a little reflection shows
that it is founded upon legitimate reasoning. In the first
place it is necessary to take notice of the considerable levies
called out in Russia during the war. Instead of taking for
soldiers 7 serfs out of every thousand, as had been the prac
tice, there were in 1854 two levies, each ot 12 serfs per
thousand. It was the same in 1865. Thus, in these two
years there were raised 48 serfs per thousand instead of 14,
which was the normal number ; that is to say, there were
withdrawn from tillage three and a half times as many men
as in preceding years. In an empire so vast as Russia,
conscriptions, which in two years take 5 per cent, of the
number of serfs, furnish an enormous effective force, and
indicate at the same time the magnitude of the losses.
It must be remembered that the greatest part of these
recruits, in order to reach Sebastopol from the provinces,
whether central, northern, eastern, or western, had to march
three, four, or five hundred leagues across impoverished
districts and where roads are few. Account must also be
taken of the experience of Russia in preceding wars. One
of the most distinguished major officers of our time, the
Baron de Moltke, has written a remarkable monograph of
the war -with Turkey in 1828-29 (“ Der Russische Türkische
Feldzug in der Europäischen Türkei, 1828-29, dargestellt
durch Freiherr von Moltke”).
In six months, says Baron Moltke, from May, 1828, to
February, 1829, the Russian army, of which the effective
force did not exceed 100,000 men, numbered in ambulances
and hospitals 210,108 cases of disease, which was an
�30
average of two illnesses per man within six months, whilst
in the French army in the Crimea, during two years, there
were only 150 cases per 100 men. Major Moltke adds that
during the first campaign alone the Kussian army lost the
half of its effective force. In May, 1829, 1,000 men per
week entered the hospitals ; in July 40,000 men, nearly half
of the effective force, were in hospital; in five months from
March to July, 1829, 28,746 died of disease! The mor
tality increased during the following months, and Major
Moltke estimates at 60,000 the number of .Russians who
died of disease during this short campaign, out of an effec
tive force amounting to 100,000 men ! He adds that only
15,000 soldiers were able to recross the Pruth and that
the Kussian army was almost annihilated by disease.
In the absence of the precise statistics, which are not
obtainable, relative to the Kussian losses in the war of
1853-56, we have thought it appropriate to refer to the
above statistics borrowed from a standard work by one of
the most able and esteemed writers of the day. They will
furnish a base for comparison and justify the calculation
given by Dr. Chenu.
These enormous losses are usual in the Kussian armies.
Those of the Polish campaign in 1831, or of the Hungarian
campaign in 1849, were relatively quite as great. It is
said that the army of the Caucasus loses 20,000 men per
year, and it is estimated that the Kussian losses in the
Caucasus since the beginning of the contest with the Cir
cassian tribes, has been nearly 500,000 men !—{Quarterly
lie view, March 1854.) According to the admission of an
enthusiastic partisan of Kussia, Baron d’Haxthausen, half
the recruits formerly died of exhaustion, disease, and
debility, and this mortality is probably still nearly one
third. All these statements, borrowed from one of the
most valuable military monographs of our time, the book of
Baron Moltke, and from a work pervaded by Russomania,
that of Baron d’Haxthausen, are sufficient to warrant the
estimate of Dr. Chenu, that 630,000 Russians were cut off
by the Crimean War.
He then gives us the following general table of the losses
sustained by the whole of the armies brought into the field
during the war (Chenu, p. 617) :—
�11
Year.
Killed.
Died of Wound s
or Disease.
Total.
French Army...
1854-56 . . 10,240 85,375 95,615
English Army...
19,427 22,182
55
• . 2,755
Piedmontese Army 1855-56
12
2,182
2,194
Turkish Army... 1853-56 . . 10,000 25,000 35,000
Russian Army...
. 30,000 600,000 630,000
>>
Total Deaths ..........
53,007 731,984 784,991
Hence the Eastern War must have devoured nearly eight
hundred thousand men 1
Loss or Money in the Crimean War.
1. The Allies.—The loss of capital in the Crimean War
was not less enormous than the loss of life.
England had at the head of her finances when the war
broke out, a celebrated man whose reputation has increased
subsequently—Mr. Gladstone.
This financial economist
wished to meet the expenses of the war by increased tax
ation ; and taxes were actually imposed to an incredible
extent; but it, nevertheless, became necessary to have
recourse to a loan; just as in Erance where our financiers
had pronounced in favour of a loan, it was not the less
necessary, eventually, to have recourse to taxation, so
greatly did the costs of the war exceed all anticipation.
The following is the abstract of the English budgets from
1853 to 1857
Civil Service.
Army.
Navy.
1853 ............ £7,044,321 ... £9,685,079 ... £6,640,596
1854 ............ 7,638,650 ... 12,397,273 ... 12,182,769
1855 ............ 8,435,832 ... 29,377,349 ... 19,014,708
1856 ............ 8,392,622 ... 25,049,825 ... 16,013,995
1857 ............ 9,839,325 ... 15,107,249 ... 10,390,000
The budget of 1853 may be considered the normal budget
of the time of peace ; it is, however, greater than most
preceding budgets. If we add to it the four war budgets
from 1854, the year in which the war began, to 1857,
the year in which the last expenses were incurred, we find
a total of £81,931,690! Four budgets of army expenses
equal to that of 1853 would only amount to £38,740,316.
Hence, in this department alone, the Eastern War cost
�12
England £43,191,380. The same operation with the naval
department proves that the addition here is £31,039,088.
The extra charge for the two united services gives a sum
total of £74,230,468, or 1,855,761,700 francs: the total
expense which, the Eastern Expedition imposed upon
England !
To furnish these extraordinary costs, and to procure this
£71,230,468, England made unprecedented efforts. Her
taxation was increased in an incredible proportion. The
following are examples of this great increase. The tax on
brandy which had been 7s. lOd. in England, 3s. 8d. in Scot
land, and only 2s. 8d. in Ireland, was increased by succes
sive stages to 8s. in the three kingdoms ; it was then more
than double in Scotland and more than triple in Ireland.
The tax on malt had been from 2s. and 2s. 7d., according to
quality; from May 8, 1854, to July 5, 1856, during the
requirements of the war, it was raised to 3s. Id., and even
tually to 4s. This was an increase of 60 per cent.
The increase bore with special force upon the Income
Tax. The history of this tax is a curious one. It was
created by Pitt to meet the demands of the Avar against
Napoleon. It was abolished in 1816, re-established in 1S42
for three years, prolonged for a similar period from 1845 to
1848, imposed for one year ouly in 1851 and in 1852, and
authorised for seven years in 1853. The Act of 1853,
which legalised its prolongation, extended it to Ireland,
which had always been exempt from it. By the same Act,
the exemption from the tax enjoyed by incomes below £150
was limited to incomes below £100. But incomes of from
£100 to £150 were only to pay 5d. instead of 7d. in the
pound. The EasternWar brought about, after April Sth, 1854,
the doubliug of these taxes. The next year a halfpenny more
in the pound was added to incomes of from £100 to £150,
and 2d. for all others, so that the tax stood at Is. 4d. and
ll^d. These augmentations ceased in 1857, when there
was a return to the former taxation of 5d. and 7d.
Although these augmentations of taxation had raised the
revenue from 50 millions sterling, the average for each of
the ten years, from 1843 to 1853, to the enormous sum of
63 millions in 1855, 68 millions in 1856, and 66 millions in
1857 ; although the year 1853 had left a considerable
�13
surplus, it became necessary to have recourse to a loan, and
to augment that debt which there had been so many efforts
to reduce.
Crushing taxes, an augmented national debt, and exces
sive floating liabilities—such was the harvest reaped by
England from the Crimean War, which demanded for the
British army and navy an increased expenditure of more
than 1,855 million francs ! (£74,000,000).
France had to make sacrifices almost as great as her ally.
This may be judged of by the following table of her total
expenses, both ordinary and extraordinary, from 1850 to
1856
1850 ...... 1,472,637,238 francs
1851 ...... 1,461,329,644 „
1852
1,513,103.997 „
1853
1,547,597,009 „
1854
1,988,078,160 „
1855
2,399,217,840 „
1856
2,195,751,787 „
We see that the advance is frightful. Let us examine it
in detail. We may presume, as a fair supposition, that the
provisional budgets of the army and navy for 1854 repre
sent the normal expenses of these two departments in time
of peace. All that exceeds the extent of these budgets,
whether in the year 1854 or the following years, we may
attribute to the Eastern War.
According to the provisional budget of 1854, the expenses
of the army were to be 308,386,046 francs, and those of the
navy 116,476,001 francs. According to the budget of
1854, sanctioned by the law of the 3rd of June, 1857, the
expenses of the army were raised to 567,245,687 francs,
and those of the navy to 175,088,126 francs, in
addition to 2,797,301 francs for extraordinary expenses.
For the year 1855, according to the special budget, sanc
tioned by the law of the 6th of May, 1858, the expenses of
the army were raised to 865,607,477 francs, and those of
the navy to 212,677,474 francs, in addition to 68,821,S04
francs for extraordinary expenses. In that year, 1855, the
united expense of the two departments of army and navy
amounted to the enormous figure of 1,147 million francs I
In 1856, according to the special budget, sanctioned July
�6th, 1860, the expenses of the army were 693,153,176
francs, and those of the navy 220,163,567 francs, besides
5,555,146 francs for extraordinary expenses — in all,
918,870,889 francs. In 1857, the year in which the last
payments for the war were made, the expenses of the army
department still reached 410,919,408 francs, and those of
the navy 138,962,467 francs, besides 4,862,431 francs for
extraordinary expenses, or 100 millions more than these
budgets had required during the peace which preceded the
Crimean War.
From these statistics, and reckoning as normal taxation
the military and naval expenses of the provisional budget
of 1854, sanctioned June 10th, 1853, we find that the
Eastern War forced upon France more than 1,660 millions
of extraordinary outlay. We do not, however, conceal that
this sum is greater than that which is avowed in the minis
terial account of the Eastern War; but we feel that we
ought to adhere to the figures just given, inasmuch as they
result from an attentive examination of facts, and we
submit them in full confidence to all critics. The method
which we have pursued in obtaining them is as simple as it
is natural. The result must be beyond the reach of
objection.
Nearly the whole of these expenses were covered by
loans, but it was nevertheless necessary to have recourse to
taxation. The duty upon spirits was raised from 34 francs
the hectolitre to 50 francs : from this source alone a gain of
30 millions was anticipated. The tax upon railway fares
was similarly increased, and was expected to produce
6 millions. The freight of goods forwarded at express speed
was tithed: this would bring in 1,800,000 francs. Subse
quently the second general tax of one-tenth was imposed,
and which, as is well known, continued long after the war.
This last tax was calculated to increase the revenue by
52 million francs.
Thus taxes were created by the war, which lasted longer
than the war. The Treasury was burdened with a per
manent charge for the interest of loans. After the special
budget of 1853, authorised by the law of June 25th, 1856, the
interest of the debt only absorbed 374,484,506 francs 74 cen
times ; in the special budget of 1856 the interest required
�15
71,709,380 francs additional. The floating debt, which in
1853 was 614,980,562 francs, became 895,281,625 francs in
1857. The deficiencies and reimbursements, which were
98 millions in 1853, amounted to 110 millions in 1854,
121 millions in 1855, 128 millions in 1856; the expenses
of administration and of the collection of revenue, which
were only 151 millions in 1853, amounted to 164 millions
in 1854, and to 179 millions in 1855. Whilst expenses
were thus augmenting, receipts remained stationary ; thus
the product of indirect taxes was just the same in 1854 as
in 1853. The worst financial evil of the war, in addition to
an increase of 1,660 millions in immediate expenses, was the
permanently high amount of the army and navy budgets
during the subsequent period of peace. These two depart
ments have since involved much greater expenses than
previously. It is thus in all wars: they first produce a
sharp attack of disease, more or less dangerous, though
temporary ; but they always leave behind them a chronic
disarrangement, which occasions permanent disorders and
an habitual condition of anxiety.
Piedmont affords a proof of this. In the special budget
of 1856, which M. Lanza presented to the legislature in
Januarv, 1859, the extraordinary expenses of the kingdom
of Sardinia, on account of the Eastern War, were reported
as follows :—
Army.
Navy.
Total.
Actual payments in 1855... 19,790,741 2,416,467 22,207,208
Actual payments in 1856... 22,654,659 4,897,180 27,551,839
Expenses reported..............
2,500,928
645,415
3,146,343
Demands recognised, but}
not liquidated up to the 1
2,196
.........
2,196
end of 1856..................... 3
Total...... (francs) 44,948,524 7,959,062 52,907,586
Thus this little sub-Alpine nation had spent nearly
53 millions for the Eastern War in addition to the ordinary
expenses of its army and navy. Further, in 1855 and 1856
it contracted two war-loans, one of £2,000,000, and the
other of 30 million francs. It was already marching with
rapid strides along that perilous path of loans which was
destined to involve it in the perplexities in which enlarged,
but young, Italy now finds itself.
�16
Turkey.—It is to be wished that we could ascertain the
share contributed by Turkey to the expenditure of the allies;
but here certainty and precision fail us. M. Engène Poujade
made a calculation, in 1857, of the amount of the Turkish
debt, including the loans contracted during the Eastern
War, the paper money, bearing interest or otherwise, the
old and new bonds, the old and new arsenal debts, and the
various other debts, returned or not returned, after the war.
The total of these amounts he estimated to be at least
705 million francs.—{Annual Report of the Public Credit,
1st year, 265-66.) It is difficult to ascertain exactly how
much of this sum should be attributed to the Crimean
War; but if we reflect upon the expenses which must have
been involved in the autumn and winter campaign in
Wallachia and in the Asiatic campaign, the maintenance of
troops at Sebastopol, an estimate of 400 millions as the
Turkish share in the expenses of the war will be evidently
considerably below the real amount.
Then we have as a general total—
1,855 million francs for England ;
1,660 million „ for France ;
400 million „ for Turkey ;
53 million „ for Piedmont.
In other words, the Eastern Expedition cost the allies
3,9G8 million francs (or £158,720,000) !
2. Russia.—Let us now endeavour to determine, with the
utmost attainable precision, the costs of Russia in conse
quence of this war. “ It is difficult to fix the exact amount of
the Russian public debt,” wrote M. Maurice Block ; “ the
Russian official return respecting it appears to be compiled
w ith so little attention to clearness that those who seek to
receive information from it find its statistics mutually
inconsistent.”—(Puissance Comparée des divers Etats de
TEurope.) Recent works have thrown more light on this
obscure subject, which can be really investigated, provided
sufficient discrimination is exercised. The statements pub
lished three years ago by M. Wolowski in the Revue des
Peux RLondes, further corrected by the definite information
furnished by M. Horn in the “ Year-book of Finances,” and
the anticipatory calculations of M. Leon Faucher at the
�17
beginning of the war, have combined greatly to simplify the
difficulties of this question.
The amount of the Russian consolidated debt, previous to
the commencement of the difficulties with the Porte, was
336,219,412 silver roubles, or 1,513 million francs. In 1857
this debt had reached 522 millions of silver roubles, or
185,785,588 roubles more than it was before the war, that
is to say, 743,142,352 francs. The amount of bills of credit
and paper money before the war did not much exceed 300
million roubles ; at the end of 1854 it was 356 millions ;
in 1855 it was 509 millions; in 1856, 689 millions; in
1857, the year of settlement, it attained 735 million
roubles, or 2,940 million francs. But this was not all the
cost of the war. The Russian Government recalled 100
millions which it had lent to other nations in 1847, and
of which 50 millions were in the French funds. It diverted
from their destination a large portion of the funds intended
to guarantee the repayment of bills of credit. These funds
amounted, in March, 1854, to nearly 160 million silver
roubles ; in the month of September they were only
146,500,000 roubles. They continually decreased during
the war until they fell to about 100 million roubles.
We must also take into account the voluntary contribu
tions to the Russian Government. The clergy, at the
beginning of 1854, offered 80 million francs ; other volun
tary contributions were shown by M. Leon Faucher to be
about 100 million francs. If we suppose, which is probable,
that during the remaining period of the war these voluntary
gifts were doubled, that is to say, making, with a sum of
180 millions contributed bv the clergy, an amount, according
to M. Leon Faucher, of 360 millions, we shall arrive at a
total of 3,183 million francs (£127,000,000). We must
further take cognisance of the increase of the principal
taxes (for instance, by a ukase of December 1, 1854, the
duty on salt was raised from 28 kopecs to 44, and all the
other indirect taxes shared the same fate). Neither must
we lose sight of contributions in kind, which, in a country
like Russia, must be very considerable. It must be remem
bered that requisitions for provender, &c., were made on a
grand scale in that immense empire, then traversed every
where by thousands of men who were marching to the
o
�18
Crimea, even from the most distant provinces. The requi
sitions made by the Russians in Wallachia alone are
estimated by M. Ubicini at 50 million francs. If all these
things are taken into account it will be evident that Russia
did not spend less than 4,000 million francs on the Crimean
War (£160,000,000) !
Further Losses involved by the Crimean War.
1, Austria.—We have not yet done with the extra
ordinary expenses which the Crimean War imposed upon
the European powers. Even neutrality is sometimes costly.
Austria affords an instance of this. The following are the
militarv expenses of Austria for the three years 1855, ’56,
and ’57
1855.
1856.
1857.
Ordinary expenses ...114,320,715 flor. 109,695,558 106,890,019
Extraord. expenses ...101,720,117 „ 14,138,279 11,130,634
The ordinary expenses of the ministry of war for 1857
still continued higher than those expenses were previously
to the Turko-Russian conflict. We may, however, take
this sum of 107 million florins as the normal rate of
military expenses in time of peace ; we then perceive that
the additional expense which the Crimean War imposed
upon Austria amounted to 137,129,000 florins, or about
343 million francs (£13,720,000). It is known that, during
the Eastern War, Austria contracted three great national
loans (so called) which were professedly needed to liberate
the state from its old obligations to the bank, but the
greater part of which was otherwise appropriated, and,
notably, towards the extraordinary expenses called for by
the uncertain neutrality which the nation foresaw would
have to be maintained during the struggle.
2. Prussia, Sweden, fyc.—The same war, and the possible
complications which it might involve, determined the
Prussian Government to demand of the chambers, in 1854,
an extraordinary loan of 30 million thalers (112,500,000
francs) for the ministry of war. At the same time various
taxes were increased. It is, however, to be specially noticed
that the Prussian Government had the wisdom only to
expend a portion of the loan on armaments.
�19
Sweden and Denmark also voted special loans, and the
Germanic Confederation made similar preparations.
If we add these expenses to the 343 millions expended by
Austria, it must be admitted that, without exaggeration,
the total expenditure of the neutral powers amounted to
500 million francs (£20,000,000), which, with the 4,000
million francs expended by the four allies, and the similar
4,000 million francs which the war must have entailed
upon Russia, gives a total of 8,500 million francs, or
£340,000,000!
Additional Losses oe Russia.
But is even this the whole loss ? Certainly not. That
which a war costs to the public finances of a country, or
that which figures in the budget, only represents a small
portion of the losses imposed upon the national property,
such as the suspension of industry, the ruin of commerce,
the unsettlement of all financial prospects, the bankruptcies,
the enforced idleness—these are exceedingly serious evils.
Any one who supposes that the Eastern War only cost
Russia 4,000 million francs, can have no idea of the immense
loss of capital which this war occasioned. Never, since the
great Continental Blockade, has a nation been placed under
the pressure of a struggle so formidable to all its financial
and commercial interests. Its ports being blockaded, per
mitted neither exportation nor importation; its ships were
rotting, at anchor, behind the fortifications. After the
month of March, 1854, not a single Russian flag was to be
seen in the ports of France or of Great Britain, and those
which had been delayed by wnnter were sold to escape the
risk of seizure.—fBlackivood's Magazine, April 1, 1854.)
The trading vessels which allowed themselves to be over
taken in the Baltic, in the Black Sea, and even in the Sea
of Azov (where they appeared to be protected by the fleet)
had been destroyed. At how much are we to estimate the
value of these ships and their cargoes ? And how can we
ascertain the value of the injuries and of the loss of interest
of capital involved by the rotting of so many vessels in har
bour ? Even neutral ships did not enjoy full liberty of
arrival and departure, if loaded with Russian cargoes, as
�22
which burdened the Turkish people ? And, lastly, was it not
the case that both France and England were specially incon
venienced by being prevented from having recourse to Russia
for provisions to supply the deficiency of their harvests ?
Except in Russia, the harvests were at that period smaller
than usual throughout Europe. If peace had continued,
Russia could have easily supplied her neighbours with 40
million bushels during the two years (stated by M. de
Molinari, in the Journal des Economistes). But her crops
were shut up at Odessa by the allied fleets, which, in order
to injure the Russians, starved their own countries. The
Tory reviews announced that, for a few shillings more per
bushel, a ready supply of wheat could be obtained from the
far-west of America.—(Blackwood's Magazine, April 1,
1854.) But “a few shillings more per bushel” are suffi
cient to substitute scarcity for abundance.
Once more, is it not certain that France and England
injured themselves permanently by ruining Russia ? The
amount of business that can be carried on with a nation,
just as with an individual, is in proportion to its resources.
Everything which impoverishes a nation also injures those
who do business with that nation. It is foolish to ruin
him who buys from us, or who sells to us, for by so doing
we deprive him of the means of purchase or production.
In fact it was quite as much to the detriment of English
and French industry, as to that of Russian commerce, that
our cruisers blockaded the Baltic ports. And the fleet
which closed the harbours of the Black Sea were no less
mischievous to the hungry populations of England and
France than to the Russian corn-growers.
Summary.
We have now endeavoured to ascertain the accumulated
losses which were caused by that Crimean War, which was
so thoughtlessly entered upon. Eight thousand Jive hun
dred million francs (340 million pounds sterling') is the
acknowledged burden imposed by this war upon the public
finances of Europe. But it is absolutely impossible to
calculate the sum of those indirect losses which we have
alluded to, or of a multitude of other losses which have not
�23
come under our notice; it would be presumptuous even to
attempt an approximate estimate of these.
THE WAR IN ITALY (1859).
Respecting the losses of the Italian War, we do not
possess any such comprehensive works as those which have
afforded such valuable aid in our reviews of the Crimean
Expedition. Dr. Chenu is now preparing a work on this
subject, and, pending its publication, we are limited to a
critical study of various official papers which, in too many
cases, bear indications of haste and confusion. We shall
take for our chief guide the paper read by Baron Larrey to
the Academy of Medicine, with numerous corrections from
subsequent statistics, furnished either by distinguished
statisticians and surgeons, or derived from recent minis
terial documents.
The general estimate which has been arrived at as to the
total losses in the Italian War, including the number of
persons killed, wounded, and missing in the three armies,
is as follows, viz. 38,650 Austrians, 17,775 Frenchmen,
6,575 Sardinians ; total, 63,000. These results have been
obtained by the researches of one of our most distinguished
military statisticians, M. Boudin, editor of the “Journals of
Medicine and Military Surgery.” This general amount of the
losses is, however, only estimated at 61,978, according to
the official dispatches collected under the direction of
Col. Saget, the head of the historical and statistical depart
ment of the Ministry of War. The discrepancy between
these two estimates is only 1,022 ; and it should be remarked
that in Colonel Saget's papers no account has been taken of
a considerable number of missing and wounded men whose
recovery has not been notified to the hospitals.
The greatest confusion is indicated in some of these
official returns. At Magenta, for example, certain official
dispatches return the number of killed and wounded at only
3,223 ; subsequent dispatches raise the number to 4,535,
including, it is true, the missing, most of whom were even
tually found amongst the dead. It is the same as regards
�24
Solferino, where the first calculation of the killed and
wounded in the French army was 8,530, an amount which was
increased in later documents to 11,670 private soldiers, and
720 officers in addition. In such cases the larger and more
recent returns are the more correct.
“ The statistics of the dead,” says Dr. Larrey, “ appear to be
more difficult to ascertain than those of the wounded. Whilst
giving, in the first place, from the official returns, a total of 8,084
men as killed on the field of battle alone, in the armies of
France, Sardinia, and Austria, those statistics include, so far
as the French army is concerned, the number of persons who,
throughout the campaign, died of wounds or of disease. But
how large a number died subsequently, and how many, who
were reported as missing, may have been drowned in rivers or
have perished in some other way ! ”—Larrey, page 61.
During the campaign itself, disease exercised but little
influence on our army; but during the subsequent occu
pation of Italy and the return to France it made many
victims.
The mortality then caused 11 appears to have
exceeded, in the French army, the number of men killed on
the field of battle.”—{Larrey, page 62.)
“ We are
dropping our men at all the hospitals along the route ! ”
exclaimed a regimental doctor, on the return of the army.
A publication, emanating from the General Statistical
Board of France, gives us the following information re
specting the deaths in the French army in 1859 :—
In
France.
In
Algeria.
Died on the field of battle
or in ambulances..........
32
54
Died in hospitals .......... 5,835 2,361
112
24
Suicides .........................
In
Italy.
In
Rome.
Total.
5,872 0 5,868
4,360 84 12,640
167
31 0
Totals
5,979 2,439 10,263 84 18,675
The 10,263 soldiers who died in Italy were, certainly,
not the only victims of that war; to these must be added
the number of those who, after the campaign, entered the
French hospitals to sink under the wounds and diseases
received during the expedition; and these must have been
very numerous, if we receive the statements of Dr. Larrey.
And, if we follow the plan adopted by all military statis
ticians, by Dr. Chenu, Dr. Laeffleur, and by the authors of
the English reports on the Eastern War, we ought also to
�25
add the number of those who, in the year following the
close of the campaign, perished from its consequences. We
cannot, then, hesitate to admit that the Italian War cost
the lives of at least 15,000 Frenchmen.
Then, as to the other combatants, we must bear in mind
that, for several reasons, such as the greater precision of
our weapons, the larger calibre of our projectiles, and the
disorder inseparable from defeat, the mortality from wounds
must have been incalculably greater in the Austrian army
than in the French. The deaths from disease must also
have been far more numerous in the enemy’s camp than in
ours, from the more excessive fatigue of the troops and the
deficiency of provisions. After the battle of Solferino the
overcrowded hospitals of Verona were swept by typhus and
contagious corruption.—(Larrey, page 57.) Turning our
attention to the Italian army we find, from the observations
of Dr. Cazalas, that, from several causes, there was com
paratively a much greater mortality from wouuds amongst
their troops than in the French army.
Considering all these circumstances, we may legitimately
conclude that, inasmuch as the number of our troops killed
by the fire of the enemy and by disease was 15,000, the
total loss of life in the three armies from those causes, and
from deaths through fatigue and privation, must have
amounted to 45 or 50 thousand !
Loss of Money by the Italian War.
From losses of life we turn to losses of money. "We shall
not here meet with those formidable lines of figures which
encountered us in our investigation of the Crimean War.
But we shall enter into certain details relative to the
disastrous expedients, to which an empire in extremity was
obliged to have recourse, in order to meet the ruinous
expenses in which it had been involved by its unwar
rantable pride. We shall analyse closely those burdensome
contrivances which the evil genius of Austrian finance
suggested to her. We shall see the abyss of paper-money
and of national deficit open before us and become deeper
and deeper, and shall perceive that the war in Lombardv
was, both as regards Austria and Italy, if not the first and
only cause, at any rate the principal source, of the economic
�26
and financial confusion which continues to arrest the com
mercial and industrial progress of two great nations, and
which still deprives them of the spirit of enterprise, and
condemns them to inaction and wretchedness. We shall
also witness the counter-stroke of war upon the neutral
Powers ; we shall watch loans and extraordinary credits
drawing successively within their deadly coil all the German
States, and the contagion of armaments and foolish military
expenditure spreading itself even amongst those whose
situation should render them safe from any fear of war.
France.—So far as France is concerned, the debts autho
rised at first, by the Budget Law, for the Ministry of War,
in 1859, amounted to 337,447,500 francs. Successive im
perial decrees added the following supplementary debts :—
Francs.
Decree of July 2, 1859
„
July 14, „
„
Aug. 17, „
99
„
„
99
99
Dec. 11, „
Feb. 18,1860
850,000
131,360,000
24,470,000
23,500,000
26 380,000
9,380,000
Total
215,940,000
From this there must be deducted the debts an
nulled by the decrees of Feb. 18 and 28, 1860
30,122,000
Balance of debts sanctioned by decrees ...
... 185,818,000
Two former debts, authorised by special laws
March 31 and June 4, 1859, amounted to ... 90,158,691
This gives, with the Budget, a total of ...
To this must be added for closed accounts
276,018,691
613,466,191
7,350,475
Making the Army Budget of 1859 amount to ...
620,816,666
This amount was never before surpassed, except in two
instances, those of 1855 and 1856; when in the first case
the expenses of the army budget rose to 865 millions, and
in the second to 693 millions. The total expenses in the
navy budget of 1859 were 213,800,000 francs, and those
for Algeria and the Colonies 39,600,000. This is 92 mil
lions more than in the preceding years of peace. The
�27
Ministry of War, on its part, had required 283 millions
more than the normal amount in time of peace.
We are thus enabled to estimate the expenses of France
for the Italian War at 375.^ millions (£15,020,000). It is
evident that the loan of 500 millions was far from being
absorbed. The special budget of public works, voted
June 26, 1860, authorised the application, to great works
of general utility, “ of the funds of the loan then remaining
unabsorbed.”
Austria.—Thisltalian War imposed still greater sacrifices
upon Austria. On the very day of the crossing of the Ticino
(April 29) the Vienna Gazette announced to the Austrian
people that a decree, dated April 11, had authorised the
Bank of Vienna to refuse specie payments for its notes and
to enforce its paper currency. The Bank repaid this favour
by a loan of 134 million florins (£13,400,000) on the
security of a public debt of 200 million florins to be con
tracted on the first suitable occasion. But this was
merely an initiative measure, as a commencement of the
business.
The impossibility of having immediate recourse to a
public loan necessitated the levying of heavy duties. The
accumulation of taxation was pushed to its utmost limits
and extended to every source of revenue. The decrees in
the month of May embraced every province. Hungary
which had hitherto been exempted from taxes on wine
and butcher’s meat, was now assessed for these articles.
Throughout the empire the taxes on articles of consumption
were increased 20 per cent. In the economy of nations
as in that of individuals, in proportion as the development
of general wealth is diminished, the greater is the extent
to which the expenses of consumption, strictly so termed
(the consumption of food), encroach upon the total income
of individuals or communities. These excessive taxes upon
butcher’s meat, corn, wine, and beer, weigh much more
heavily on the people of Austria than they would on the
populations of France or England. The duty upon salt,
largely increased since 1850, was again raised by the decree
of May 7. The poorer classes of Austria were already
paying an annual average of 33 million florins upon salt;
they were henceforth required to pay 38 million florins
(£3,400,000).
�28
The decrees of May 7, which so rigorously taxed articles
of consumption, also extended to business matters, and in
creased the charges on all fees, stamps, entries, and regis
tration. The increase varied from 15 to 40 per cent., and
this at a time when the stagnation of business and the
depreciations and changes of currency already rendered
transactions so difficult and hazardous.
A decree of May 13 equally increased the direct taxation,
not only for the whole continuance of the war, but also
during “ the extraordinary state of affairs brought about by
the events of the war.” The tax on cultivated land, already
ranging from 12 to 16 per cent., was augmented onesixth, as was also the duty on rentals. The tax on country
residences, or class-tax, was raised one-half. The indus
trial taxation, laying burdens upon manufacturers, traders,
and artisans, and also the income-tax, were increased
one-fifth. What suffering and misery were thus laid upon
the people for the presumed honour of the House of
Hapsburg !
But nothing equalled the grievance of paper-money and
the sufferings springing from this source. It has been
appropriately remarked that the depreciation of paper
money appears to be subject to a law analogous to that
which regulates the rapid descent of a mass of rock falling
from a mountain. It proceeds according to a geometrical
progression. The paper of the United States, during the
¡Secession War, was maintained for a long time at a loss of
a fifth or a fourth. Then it rapidly descended to a depre
ciation of one-half, and still more rapidly to a depreciation
of two-thirds. If the South had been less exhausted and
could have continued the war one year longer, the loss
upon “ greenbacks” would probably have been five-sixths.
—(Michael Chevalier in the Revue des Deux Mondes, of
June 1, 1866.) Austria, in 1859, was in a similar position.
She was compelled to procure effective resources ; in other
words—gold and silver.
On the 25th of May, 1859,
she forced on the Lombard and Venetian people a specie
loan of 75 millions. The city of Venice could only pay the
first instalment by increasing taxation on income and in
dustrial occupations 85 per cent, and by adding several
additional kreutzers (halfpence) to the already extreme
�29
burden of the tax on rentals. Every imaginable expedient
teas had recourse to, to gain possession of all the gold and
silver in the, empire. The State, which only paid in paper,
demanded by a decree of the 29th of April that the custom
house charges should only be paid in specie. This was
the ruin of the foreign trade. The merchant, who was
already paying an exchange rate of from 30 to 50 per
cent, upon the price of goods bought abroad, now had
to pay a similar rate upon the specie required for fees at
the custom-house. The last of these ruinous decrees was
to involve bankruptcy. The State was irresistibly borne
on to it. On the 11th of June, a decree suspended the
payment of metallic currency throughout the period during
which the extraordinary circumstances, involved by the war,
should continue. It was indeed time that the Peace of
Villafranca should be conceded.
On the return of peace the Bank was, more than ever,
unable to resume payments in specie. With a specie total of
79 millionflorins, it had circulated notesfor 453 millions! The
augmentations of taxation, terrible as they were, were main
tained indefinitely by the decree of December 1S59. The
army budget had become immoderately swelled. It was
106 million florins in 1858. In 1859 it rose to 292 millions,
this was an increase of 186 million florins (£19,200,000).
But this was only to meet the expenses of 1859. The army
budget of 1860 shows 138 millions of ordinary, and 36
millions of extraordinary, expenses—in all more than 174
millions; consequently it exceeds by 68 million florins the
army budget of 1858. The budget of 1861, on the contrary,
manifestly approaches the budget of 1858, which may be
considered the normal budget of the army department in
time of peace. The special expenses of Austria for the
Italian War are therefore 186 million florins spent in 1859,
and in addition 68 millions which were not paid till 1860—
a total of 254 million florins (or about £26,000,000).
But these figures afford no correct idea of the burdens of
the population. The interruptions of trade and industry,
the taxable resources devoured by the treasury, the variations
of currency, the disadvantages of exchange—all these
disasters were to become chronic maladies for Austria. Such
was the cost of a false plea of honour! To estimate the
�32
been raised to nearly 1,000 millions, and notwithstanding,
also, all the increased taxation, there resulted, as in Austria,
a considerable deficit. According to the report presented
by M. Galeotti, on behalf of the commission which had been
appointed to consider a demand for the authorisation of a
new loan of 150 millions in 18G0, the financial account of
1859 had left a total deficit of 104,399,956 francs. The
war of 1859 had cost Piedmont 255 million francs, in
addition to the increase of 10 per cent, upon all taxation,
and irrespective of the incalculable evils of paper-money.
France spent 375| millions (£15,000,000); Piedmont,
255 millions (£10,200,000); and Austria, 650 millions
(£26,000,000) ;
making a total of l,280i millions
(£51,200,000). But this is by no means the sum of the
expenses occasioned by that war. We must also take into
account the outlay of Germany upon special armaments.
Germany.—It is well known that the war of 1859 aroused
a great excitement in Germany, that suddenly old animosities
were revived, and that a convulsion of anger agitated all the
Germanic populations throughout the territory of the Con
federation. Hence originated extensive warlike preparations
which necessitated supplementary credits and loans.
In Prussia, the law of May 21st, 1859, which provided
for the possibly necessary contingency of calling out the
army during the course of the year, authorised the Minister
of Finance to increase, to the extent of 25 per cent., the
income tax, the land tax, and the corn and timber taxes.
The Cabinet Council of June 14th, which ordered the
calling-out of six battalions, was immediately followed by
the above increase of taxation, which continued long after
the end of the war. A second law, also passed on the 21st
of May, authorised the government to incur every expense
which might be rendered necessary by the “ Kriegsbereitschaft ” (readiness for war). According to this permission,
the government might borrow money to the extent of
40 million thalers (£6,000,000). A royal order, of May
26th, immediately prescribed the negotiation of a loan of
30 million thalers (£4,500,000).
The expenses of the smaller German States were, in pro
portion, much greater than those of Prussia. In the Grand
Duchy of Baden, the special military expenses, in conse
�33
quence of the “ Marschbereitschaft,” amounted to 4,257,000
florins (£364,400). This was provided for by the appro
priation of money raised for the construction of railways,
the completion of which was accordingly postponed. On
the 7th of June, the Chambers of Hesse Darmstadt
unanimously voted a loan of 4 million florins (£333,333).
Electoral Hesse had voted a loan of 700,000 thalers
(£105,000), which was exhausted by the end of June,
1859, and the government then demanded a fresh loan of
1,300,000 thalers (£171,000). Wurtemberg raised by loan
7 million florins (£583,333). In Hanover, the special
military expenses amounted to ll| million francs. In
Saxony, subsidies were voted of 5,636,725 thalers (£845,508).
In Bavaria, the loans for special armaments reached to
80 million francs. Hence, for these seven secondary States,
we have an expense of 152 million francs. If to this we
add the expenses of Prussia and those of the other smaller
States, respecting which latter we have not been able to
procure positive information, the costs of the three belli
gerent Powers are found to be 1,280 million francs, and the
total expenses of both belligerents and neutrals 1,500 million
francs (£60,000,000).
We have then, to sum up, a cost of 60 million pounds
sterling imposed on the finances of Central Europe; heavv
taxes, temporarily levied at first, but ultimately rendered
permanent by the course of events; the augmentation of
war-budgets which never completely returned to their pre
vious level; the commercial and industrial disorganisation
of Italy and Austria—these constitute the penalty paid by
Europe for that very short war, which, by the exercise of a
little good feeling on the part of the government at Vienna,
might have been so easily avoided.
THE AMERICAN WAR.
Of all the instances of the squandering of human life
caused by war, this is the most frightful. In four years the
North called to arms 2,656,000 men. To stem this tide or
manhood rolled against her, the South opposed a dyke, long
D
�34
insuperable, of 1,100,000 human breasts. And before the
South could be conquered these 1,100,000 soldiers, many of
whom were youths of sixteen or old men of sixty, were to
be violently swept aside, and more than half of them were
to sink under the force of the struggle.
This gigantic strife involved a carnage previously unheard
of, and which should obtain the attention of philanthropists
and be recorded by a faithful historian. We have before us
a remarkable work, the Report, prepared for general circu
lation, by Major-General Joseph K. Barnes, surgeon-general
of the United States army. (Report on the Extent and
Nature of the Materials available for the Preparation of a
Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion^)
This
medical and surgical history is not yet completed, but the
published materials furnish most valuable information.
The monthly reports issued from rather more than one
half of the regiments in the field, during the first year, give
17,496 cases of wounds by fire-arms. The monthly reports
issued from three-fourths of the regiments, during the year
ending June 30th, 1S63, present 55,974 cases of wounds.
The lists of wounded persons carried off the battle-fields in
1861 and 1865 include more than 114,000 names. But we
are informed that these returns still await completion by
additions from the reports of general hospitals, where many
wounded persons were received whose names had neither
been registered by the hospital clerks on the battle-fields
nor by the regimental surgeons. There should also be
added the names of those who were killed during the
conflicts. There would thus be given a total of 221,000
wounded, without reckoning those killed on the field. This
enormous amount of wounded far surpasses the total of
similar cases in all the armies engaged in the Crimean War.
To understand clearly the gigantic and unprecedented
features of this American War, it is necessary to enter into
special details, and to compare the respective number of
cases of particular injuries or important operations in the
Union army with those in the French and English armies in
the Crimea. If we take, for instance, fractures of the femur
by fire-arms, we find that in the French army in the Crimea
there were 459 injuries of this description and 194 in the
English army, whilst more than 5,000 similar cases were
registered in the United States army. If we take some
�35
important operation, as the point of comparison, for example
the amputation of the upper portion of the humerus, the
Crimean reports mention 16 of these amputations in the
English and 42 in the French army, whilst in the American
army we iind reported 575 operations of this nature. (Recueil
de JUedecin et de Chirurgie Militaire, vol. xvii. pp. 390,
391.) Such details are characteristic, and indicate the extent
and horror of the massacre.
If we pass on from wounds to diseases, we find a result
more satisfactory to humanity. Two distinguishing features
of the American War are the considerable comparative
increase in the number of victims under the enemy’s fire,
and a similarly great diminution in the number of persons
visited by diseases. This demonstrates that the means of
destruction have made gigantic progress, but also that
superior measures for the restoration and maintenance of
health are being extensively adopted. During the first year
of the war, with an effective force of 290,936 men, 14,183
died of disease. In the second year, with an effective of
644,508 men, the number of deaths from disease was 42,010.
During the whole continuance of the war about 97,000 men,
in the Northern armies, were killbd under fire, and 184,000
died of disease; in all 281,000 men.
The losses of the South were much greater; but on this
subject we do not possess any scientific work. In the fol
lowing statistics furnished to us, the number of dead is not
distinguished from that of the wounded:—
Alabama ........... ...
Arkansas........... ...
Florida............... ...
G eorgia ........... ...
Louisiana........... ...
Mississippi ....... ...
Missouri ........... ...
North Carolina ...
South Carolina ...
Maryland........... ...
Tennessee........... ...
Texas ............... ...
Virginia ........... ...
Enlisted.
Killed or Maimed.
120,000 ... ........... 70,000
50,000 ... ........... 30,000
17,000 ... ........... 10,000
131,000 ... ........... 76,000
60,000 ... ........... 34,000
78,000 ... ........... 45,000
40,000 ... ........... 24,000
140,000 ...
65,000 ... ........... 40,000
40,000 ... ........... 24,000
60,000 ... ........... 34,000
93,000 ... ........... 53,000
180,000 ... ........... 105,000
Total....... , 1,074,000 ... ........... 630,000
�36
We have here a total of 630,000 killed or maimed out of
1,074,000 enlisted, or GO per cent.! If, now, we compare
these losses with the total amount of the white population
in the South, we see that they form more than 10 per cent.,
or 20 per cent, of the male population.
It may be said, then, that the American War swept off
nearly all the youth of the Southern States; and this is no
metaphor, but a literally true statement.
If to these 630,000 men, lost to the South, we add the
2Sl,000 who were killed in the Northern armies, we have a
total of more than 900 thousand men. But it must not be
overlooked that, in the return of 630,000 men, many maimed
are included. If we consider that the immense majority of
the Southern losses were occasioned by disease and fatigue,
by the poor constitution of the army which embraced youths
of sixteen and elderly men of sixty, and by the almost total
absence of rest for want of reinforcements, we may estimate
that four-fifths of these 630,000 men as killed and onefifth as maimed, we shall then obtain, in the two armies,
a total of nearly 800 thousand dead! *
Financial Losses.
The financial losses were still more unprecedented. “ The
North expended upon this war 14,000 million francs,” says
M. Vigo Roussillon (Puissance Militaire des Etats-Unis,
since the Secession War.)
He states further that it
cost the South nearly as much, and that altogether the
civil war entailed upon the United States of America
more than 25,000 million francs (£1,000,000,000) in actual
military expenses, and fully double this sum if account is
taken of the loss of productive power and the value of the
property and crops destroyed.
It is our opinion that M. Vigo Roussillon and the public
generally form too low an estimate of the actual expenses of
this war. To say that the American War cost the Northern
States 14,000 million francs (£560,000,000) is to mistake the
amount of the debt contracted for the actual sum of the
costs. We have previously protested against this defective
mode of calculation, which takes no account of the taxation,
the increase in which was enormous during the years of the
Vids Note at the end of this work.
�Secession War. The very exceptional nature of this high
taxation is indicated by the fact that, on the return of peace,
it was found practicable to pay off an extraordinary pro
portion of the debt. The following are, in round figures, the
budgets of the army and navy, from I860 to 18G6 :—
1860- 61 ..........
35 million dollars
1861- 62 .......... 437
„
„
1862- 63 .......... 662
„
1863- 64 .......... 776 „
1864- 65 .......... 1,153
„
„
1865- 66 .......... 327
„
„
{Moniteur of Nov. 3, /866.)
The budget for the army and navy had already required,
in 1860-61, a sum much greater than those of previous years,
which had never exceeded 25 million dollars. We may, how
ever, take the sum of 35 millions, reached in 1860-61, as the
normal amount for the army and navy budgets in time of
peace, and may assume that, if the struggle had not broken
out, this sum would not have been surpassed in the sub
sequent annual expenditures. The total amount of the five
military budgets from 1861 to 1866 w’ould then have been
175 million dollars. But its actual amount, on the other
hand, was 3,355 million dollars, that is, 3,180 million dollars
for extraordinary war expenses.
Now 3,180 million dollars are about 17,000 million francs
(£636,000,000). Thus a very simple calculation has fur
nished us with an estimate of extraordinary war expenses
surpassing, by about 2,000 millions, the amount of the
American debt.
But to these 17,000 millions must be added the amount
of voluntary contributions. According to the Aeiü York
Herald and Dr. Evans, these contributions exceeded,
at the commencement of 1862, 1,000 million francs.
According to M. Elyse Bed us, they had reached 1,144
millions by the 1st of March, 1864. The Sanitary Com
mission and auxiliary or similar societies spent 120 millions
in drugs, maintenance, clothing, and hospital expenses. We
thus obtain the amount of 18,264 millions, which is fully
conceded, and from which there is nothing to abate.
But we have not yet reached the complete amount. We
should add the expenses of states, counties and districts, in
armaments and in bounties to volunteers. The bounties
�38
were very considerable; they amounted to 2,000 dollars
(10,700 francs) per head, certainly the half of which was
paid by the states, districts or counties. M. Vigo Roussillon
gives us the total of these payments to the army, from
July 1, I860. This sum is only 5,145,000,195 francs,
which would only be 1,938 francs per head per each
volunteer. It must surely be admitted that the states,
districts, or counties furnished a sum at least equivalent.
The expenses of the North would amount to 23,500 millions !
{940 million pounds sterling /) As to the expenses of the
South, it is impossible to estimate them.
We venture
to say that the whole of the circulating, or portable, capital
in the rebel States was almost entirely absorbed by the war;
and as to representing statistically an amount which can in
no wise be calculated, we shall not have the presumption to
attempt it.
And how shall we estimate, even approximately, the
indirect losses and ruin ? To say nothing of the immense
number of estates in the richest parts of the Union, in
Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri, constantly traversed and
ravaged, for four years, by innumerable armies; to say
nothing of three million labourers transformed into soldiers
and so depriving agriculture, and other industry, of their
powerful co-operation ; all the crops destroyed; all the
plantations neglected for want of workers ; all the manu
factories closed for want of capital and security ; all the rich
stocks of cotton, for which Europe teas so anxious, devoured
by flames; these incalculable losses we pass by because we
cannot compute their value.
But there is a further loss which does not evade calcula
tion. In consequence of the war, wbat became of that
superb mercantile navy which constituted the glory of the
United States ? To how many millions did the Northern
losses from privateers amount? The injury caused to
Northern commerce by the Alabama alone, in her short
career, is estimated at 80 million francs (£3,200,000).
How many fine ships and rich cargoes became the prey of
Southern corsairs, which, being unable to bring them into
-European ports, burnt them in mid-ocean! Then, again,
what general confusion ensued in all the commercial relations
of the United States, and what a high rate of insurance !
The Northern States were obliged to sell to England,
�39
at a loss, the greater part of their ships, and to denationalise
their mercantile navy.
From 1858 to 1860, the average number of vessels sold by
the Americans to the English was 40, measuring altogether
16,000 tons ; in 1861, it was no longer 40, but 126, and of
a tonnage of 76,000 ; in 1862 it was 135 ; in 1863 it was
320, of 252,579 tonnage. The statistics are wanting for the
years 1864 and 1865, which were the most terrible years for
the commerce of the Union. In 1860, two-thirds of the
exports of the United States were conveyed in American
vessels; in 1863, two-thirds icere conveyed in foreign ships ;
(Langel, “ Les Corsaires Confédérés,” Revue des DeuxAIondes,
July 1, 1864). We have quoted this particular statement
because it presents some exact figures. But it is a matter
of merely secondary importance amid the immense exhibition
of the sufferings, ruin and catastrophe which afflicted the
United States during those four years.
European Losses
by the
American War.
And they were by no means the only sufferers who were
involved : the manufacturing population of Lancashire, of
Alsace and the Lower Seine, were also deeply affected by
the war. This fearful Cotton Crisis, with its disasters
and reactionary effects, that for several years disturbed
Europe, is a wound that must be probed, in connection with
the influence of the American War. The following explana
tion of the subject is given by M. Pouyer-Quertier in his
report on the proposal to the Legislature for the authorisa
tion of a loan of 5 million francs in aid of the localities
affected by the depression of the cotton-industry :—
“ The cotton-industry is one of the principal employments in the
world. Taking Europe only, the imports and labour connected
with this manufacture, within the last few years, have been of the
value of at least 4,000 million francs per annum (£ 160,000,000)
viz. 2,000 millions for England, 800 millions for France, and
1,200 millions for the remainder of the Continent. Of this amount
the raw material (of which four-fifths were derived from the United
States) represents a value of 1,200 millions ; the dyes, grease,
oils, machinery, &c. make up 800 millions, whilst the wages paid
(in Europe) for labour at this branch of industry are about 2,000
millions (of francs).
“ From these summary statistics it may be easily compre
hended how much trouble must have been occasioned in the
�40
cotton-manufacturing countries by the scarcity of the indispen
sable material. England, which is, unquestionably, the greatest
consumer of raw cotton, was the first to diminish the regular
course of its manufacture. From the month of August, 1861,
this industry began to fall off in Lancashire. The American
War having broken out in the spring of 1861, and the blockade of
the Southern ports having been almost immediately made
effectual, the price of cotton rose rapidly. In consequence of
this sudden rise in the raw material, the hours of labour were
further shortened in the manufactories ; and from the month of
July, 1862, nearly all the factories in Great Britain were working
on short time. From that date to the 31st of December, 1862,
the pressure continued to increase, and hence extreme distress
spread throughout the cotton districts.
“ In France the supply of the raw material on hand was com
paratively much greater. Hence a serious diminution of labour
did not commence in Normandy until about August or Septem
ber, 1862, and in the Eastern manufacturing district of France
not until December.
“ In 1860 Europe had attained a weekly consumption of 90,000
bales of cotton, and it was estimated that new sources of produc
tion ■would raise the amount to at least 100,000 bales per week
in 1861, the period when the American War broke out. The
actual stock on hand for all Europe was then only 360,000 bales
of American cotton. For two years the value of American
cotton had been from 70 to 80 francs per 50 kilogrammes. At
the beginning of September, 1862, it had reached 350 and even
360 francs. In November it sunk to 275, but again rose in
December to 300 francs.”—(Moniteur, January 27, 1863.)
We have quoted the above from the words of an eminent
manufacturer; they are, however, open to criticism, and
doubtless contain some exaggerated statements on certain
points, especially as to the reduction of wages in the cotton
working districts of France and of Europe generally.
But the distress occasioned in the Old World by the
American War is not the less immeasurable, as the following
statistics will show:—
“ The imports of cotton into England, for the year 1863,
cost three millions of pounds sterling more than those of
1861, although not amounting, even as to quantity alone, to
one-half the ordinary value of the latter.’’—(Journal des Economistes, January, 1864, p. 118.) There were, it is true,
additional supplies of cotton from India and Egypt, but
of a very inferior quality to that produced in America.
�41
This very necessity of having recourse to Egypt and India
created much embarrassment in European countries. “The
heavy purchases of cotton from countries which hitherto had
only exported it in small quantities, and which' had con
sequently not acquired the habit of a corresponding con
sumption of European products, occasioned in 1863 large
exportations of specie, from which the Continent has been
suffering, especially during the last three months. The
Bank of England, which began the year with a rate of
interest of 3 per cent., reached 8 per cent, in December.”—
(Journal des Economistes, p. 119, January, 1S64.)
Thus it is evident that a great war can import a multitude
of disturbances into our industrial and financial progress.
The year 1863 was a specially terrible time to pass through.
“ This winter,” wrote the Journal des Economistes, in
January, 1864, “will, happily, not be so difficult to undergo
as that of 1863. Calculations, which appear to be correct,
have shown that the average value of the French cotton
manufactures is 530 million francs f £21,200,000), of which
a fifth part, or 106 millions, represents wages, and that
there will only be half the amount of work done this year,
that is to say, that our operatives will lose about 53 million
francs. The importation of cotton has increased in the past
year about 50 per cent., and it will follow that the loss of
wages will be diminished one third. But the loss will be
actually much less, because a considerable number of
operatives have taken themselves to the manufactures
of woollen and linen and hemp, which have profited by the
rise in cotton.”
The calculations of M. Paul Boiteau appear to be more
correct than those of M. Pouyer-Quertier. But a loss
of 53 millions in wages, at an average rate of 3 francs
per day, or 1,000 francs per annum, implies 53,000 opera
tives without the means of existence. Even if this loss and
this number be reduced one half, and if we consider that
the French manufactories only furnish about the fifth part
of all the cotton fabrics of Europe, it will follow that at
least 100,000 of the working population of Europe were, in
consequence of the American War, left almost continually,
for nearly three years, without employment, and that three
or four times as many had to suffer a considerable diminu-
�42
tion of wages. How many deaths must have been occasioned
by this terrible “ holiday ! ” But such is war. Its nature is so
homicidal that it slays thousands of victims even at thousands
of leagues distance from the battle-fields !
But, again, if America overthrew our industry by ceasing
to furnish us with the raw material, she gave us further
trouble by no longer buying our manufactured produce.
“ It is evident that a customer so exhausted can only be a
poor customer to us, and that, when the war is over, the
effects of the past cannot immediately disappear. Hence it
appears from the Customs Returns that French exports to
foreign parts, especially as regards silk and woollen goods,
have undergone an important and significant diminution.”
(Journal des Economistes, vol. xlvii. p. 306.) The operatives
of Saint Etienne were scarcely in a better condition than
those of Mulhouse and Rouen on the conclusion of that
war.
It would be in vain to adduce a multitude of additional
statistics ; they would not enable us to estimate all the
calamities of the war. And yet, says M. Horn, “ 4,000
million francs (£160,000,000) would have sufficed to abolish
slavery by purchasing every slave at the general average
rate of 1,000 francs (£40) each, taking young and old, men
and women, the infants and the aged, uniformly.” What
economy this would have been! But, as was remarked by
M. Michael Chevalier, to have exercised this wise and self
denying foresight, America should have possessed, in the
crisis of 1861, men as great as those who directed the crisis
of the last century,—a Franklin in the North and a Wash
ington in the South. Yet even this should not have been
necessary. For a truly-informed and virtuous people knows
how to act, irrespectively of its great men, and will adopt
useful and right measures from the prompting of its own
intelligence and virtue.
THE SCHLESWIG- AND GERMAN WARS.
(1864—1866.)
The very recent occurrence of the two wars of 1864 and
1866 presents an unfavourable condition for judging with
accuracy respecting even their material results. In par
�43
ticular, we have no precise information as to the financial
expenditure involved. For the European governments have
not acquired the prompt and practical business habits of the
government at Washington, thanks to whose despatch the
financial situation of the Union is as readily ascertainable
as that of a large loan association.
We possess a valuable and quite recent work upon the
human losses in the Danish War (General 'Report on the
Medical Service in the Campaign against Renmark, by Dr.
Laeffleur, Physician in Chief to the Prussian Army). This
book, which has just been issued, has afforded us useful
information.
On the 1st of February, 1864, the allied army crossed
the Eyder ■ it was then composed of 60,000 men, of whom
one-third were Austrians and the remainder Prussians.
The Austrian contingent was not increased throughout the
campaign ; the Prussian force, on the contrary, was raised to
63,000 men. Out of this considerable force the following
losses in the Prussian army took place :—
Killed in action, or died of wounds ... 738 men
Died of diseases or various accidents ... 310 .,
Total ... 1,048
The number of dead in the Prussian army is therefore
only 1-j per cent, of the effective. This very small propor
tion of deaths is very surprising ; and yet the engagements
were very sanguinary, relatively much more so than even
those of the Crimean War; and, in proportion to the num
bers engaged, the assault of Duppel was as terrible as that
of the Malakoff. There were returned, in the Prussian
army—
At Missunde (February 2)
206 wounded, 59 dead
At Duppel (April 17 and 18) 1,780
,,
550 „
At Alsen
...
...
351
„
104 ,,
And what is most striking in this campaign is the very
small number of those who died from disease. There were
only 26,717 diseased, of whom only 310 died. This low
rate of mortality is chiefly owing, as Dr. Laeffleur acknow
ledges, to the philanthropic efforts of private associations
for the assistance of the soldiers.
It is more difficult to ascertain correctly the losses of the
Danish army. But it is certain that, for various reasons,
�44
and, amongst others, on account of the inferiority of its
armaments, it suffered much more than the Prussians. We
may fairly estimate the Danish losses, under fire, at double
those of the Prussian army, or about 1,500 men.
The Danish army was much more severely visited by
disease than its adversary. On this point we cau borrow
some exact details from Dr. Laeffleur. There were 31,575
cases of disease ; typhus made considerable ravages, and the
losses of the Danes from disease were 756 men, or much
more than double the Prussian losses from the same cause.
The Austrian losses must have been very inconsiderable ;
for, being less numerous than the Prussians, they took a
smaller part in the action.
To sum up,—the Prussians lost l,04S men; the Danes
certainly lost more than double as many, and the total loss,
including that of the Austrians, must have been about 3,500
men.
The financial losses are more difficult to ascertain. As
regards Austria and Prussia they were covered by the in
demnities of the war. The Danish budgets are not before
us, but we have, at least, the state of their debt before and
after the war;—
Before the War.
Rixdalers.
Ordinary debt of the Danish monarchy ... 98,261,793
Special debt of the kingdom
...
...
1,289,780
Holstein debt
...
...
...
...
666,000
Total
... 100,217,573
The debt of the kingdom, on the 31st of March, 1865, was
132,110,802 rixdalers; so that the war cost Denmark at
least 30 million rixdalers. To this must be added the war
indemnities paid by the Duchies and the share of the Duchies
in the debt of the monarchy previous to the war. We
thus obtain an approximate amount of 180 million francs
(£7,200,000). 180 million francs and 3,500 men are a
terrible loss of capital and of human life ; and the more so,
when it was so easy to have retained for industry and useful
labour all this money and all those vigorous limbs.
�45
THE WAR BETWEEN PRUSSIA AND AUSTRIA
IN 1SG6.
We now come to the great war of 1866. The statistics
relating to its loss of life are found to vary, particularly as
regards Prussia. An early official statement, dated Decem
ber, 1866, has been greatly exceeded by the most recent
returns from the Statistical Board of Berlin. It is probable
that even the latter do not afford exact statistics, and that
when Dr. Laeffleur prepares, as we hope he will do, a work
on the campaign in Bohemia, similar to that which he has
just published on the Schleswig campaign, it will be seen
that the amount of loss has been even greater than is
already admitted.
The number of wounded men in the Prussian army is,
according to the first report, 15,554; but according to the
later ones, 16,177. The first returns only indicate 2,910
killed; the corrective dispatches place the number of the
dead, within forty-eight hours, at 2,931 ; and of those who
sank afterwards in consequence of their wounds, at 1,519—
a total of 4,450. The first returns are silent as to diseases,
but the later ones announce 6,427 deaths from typhus and
other diseases. This makes in all, 10,877. It is evident,
from this illustration, that the corrective returns give higher
numbers than the provisional reports, and that still further
additions may be expected when the finally-corrected reports
are issued.
As regards Austria, we are still dependent upon the
merely provisional reports. The 13th annual report of the
Statistical Commission of Vienna, contains a series of
authentic results which indicate the strength and the losses
of the Austrian army during the war against Prussia. The
returns are merely based on the state of the army at the
end of August, 1866, from which it is evident that they
must be very defective and much lower in amount than
the reality. For who will tell us how many men have died
of their wounds since the month of August 1866 ? All
military statisticians, as for example, Dr. Chenu,Dr. Lseffleur,
�46
and the English author of the Reports on the Crimean War,
prolong their investigations for at least eighteen months
after the commencement of peace. Further, the Austrian
returns appear to take no account of the number of the
sick and diseased.
The Austrian army, at the beginning of the struggle, was
composed of 646,636 men, of whom 407,223 were then
arrived at the two great scenes of conflict. The total
number of avowed losses is 10,994 killed, 29,304 wounded,
and 43,743 missing. We are assuredly far from the truth
here ; and we do not hesitate to say that the number of
killed must have been double. Out of these 29,304 who
were still living in the month of August, 1866, experience
authorises us to assume that several thousands, at least four
or five thousand, must have died subsequently from their
wounds. We have seen, from Dr. Chenu’s Report on the
Crimean War, that those who died in France, in conse
quence of injuries received during the expedition, amounted
to 15,000 in the eighteen months after the war. Similarly,
those who died in Austria, either in hospitals or at home,
during the period of eighteen months after this contest,
must have been very numerous.
Further, there is not the least allusion, in the Austrian
returns, to diseases, which, amongst the Prussians, carried
off more than 6,000. It is not likely that the losses of
the Austrians, under this head, were less considerable ; their
fatigues were as great, their diet was inferior rather than
otherwise, and the thorough demoralisation of the Austrian
troops was a powerful auxiliary to epidemics. We have,
then, still to await a complete work on the losses of Austria
in 1866, and a revision which will be at the same time a
supplementary addition to the present insufficient returns.
It is, at least, certain that such rectifying statistics will
raise the total losses of the Austrian army to 20 or 25
thousand men.
We have not accurate accounts of the losses of the Ger
manic Confederation, properly so termed. We have only
before us the Saxon returns published almost immediately
after the war ; and they present indications of the greatest
confusion. We have no statistics respecting the Bavarians
and Hanoverians, although they were engaged in bloody
�47
encounters. We may, without any exaggeration, admit an
amount of 3,000 killed from the smaller states.
A supplement to the Florence Gazette, quoted by the
Moniteur, of July 9, 1866, contains the following calculation
of the Italian losses at Custozza: — 951 killed, 2,909
wounded, 4,252 prisoners. The number of dead only in
cludes those who expired in the first few days after the
battle. It must, therefore, be considerably augmented—
almost doubled, in fact—to include those who died from
their wounds in the year following the battle. For the day’s
conflict at Lissa, the Nazione claims to have received infor
mation of a total loss, to the Italians, of 743 killed, and 155
wounded.—(jbloniteur of July 29, 1866.)
We have no
details of the losses of the Volunteers, which must have
been extensive. We may calculate at 3,000, at least, the
number of Italians who perished from the enemy’s fire at
Custozza, at Lissa, and in Garibaldi’s campaign. Notwith
standing the short duration of the war, this estimate of
mortality should evidently be doubled, if we are to take
account of the deaths occasioned by disease, fatigue, poor
food, and all other sufferings, physical or moral.
To sum up—the number of Prussians killed or dead was
about 11,000 ; we consider the probable amount of Austrian
losses as varying from 20 to 25 thousand; those of the
smaller states of the Confederation at from 3 to 4 thousand ;
and those of the Italians as nearly 6,000. This makes a
total of from 40 to 45 thousand killed or dead. We believe
that this amount is not exaggerated, and we hope that a
systematic and scientific history of this war will furnish us,
in two or three years, with the exact figures, which may be
greater than ours, but which will certainly not be less.
Financial Losses oe the Wab.
The financial losses of the war are difficult to ascertain
with rigorous exactness; they are certainly not liquidated,
and we cannot obtain the true amount.
Austria, as early as November 23,1865, had negotiated a
loan at Paris. It was not a war loan, but was applied to
reimburse the advances of the National Bank. Immediately
the war broke out, in the early part of the month of May,
recourse was had to various expedients. The Government,
�48
issued notes of from 1 to 5 florins, for forced currency:
this issue reached the amount of 150 million florins. A law
passed July 7 authorised the minister to obtain a further
200 million florins, either by a voluntary loan or by an in
creased issue of Government notes. The Bank of Vienna
advanced, temporarily, 60 millions in bank-notes. An imperial
decree of the 25th of August authorised the Minister of
Finance to issue 50 million florins in 5 per cent, bonds and
90 millions in Government notes. This was the completion
of the 200 millions which the law of July 7 permitted. In
addition to these resources, the Government had intended,
early in June, to impose on Venetia a forced loan of 12
million florins. This made a total of 362 million florins
which it had sought to obtain. We cannot believe that
this enormous sum, which amounts to nearly 900 million
francs (£36,000,000), was wholly absorbed by the war. It
appears doubtful whether the forced Venetian loan was ever
obtained; and out of the 150 million florins levied in addi
tion to the previous costs of the war, we believe that only a
portion can have been absorbed by its special demands.
Nevertheless, the expenses of Austria, for this war, may be
estimated at 600 millions, at least, without reckoning
the indemnity which she had to pay to Prussia.
The expenses of the latter country are much more diffi
cult to calculate. The cash balance, or reserved fund, of
Prussia, amounted, before the war, to 21 million thalers.
After the beginning of May, these resources being absorbed,
the Government began to have recourse to various expe
dients. For what was the creation of the mercantile loan
Bank but a Treasury expedient ? This bank was authorised
to issue 25 million thalers in paper money (Darlehnskassensclieine'), which were rendered a compulsory currency, at
par, in all public banks. Then again, throughout the war,
the Prussian troops subsisted upon the enemy. And after
the war, the contributions imposed upon the vanquished
amounted to nearly 200 million francs (£8,000,000). In
the Legislature, on the 13th of August, 1866, the Minister
of Finance made a demand for extraordinary loans to the
extent of not less than 60 million thalers (£9,000.000). Of
this amount, however, 21 million thalers were devoted to
liquidate outstanding balances, and another portion was not
�49
expended. But, altogether, the expenses of this war, to
Prussia alone, must have amounted to 400 million francs
(£16,000,000). (Vide Moniteur, Sept. 3, I860.) Of this
sum, nearly one half was reimbursed by the contributions of
the conquered States.
As to Italy's share of expenditure on this war, it com
menced on the 1st of May, 1866, by the decree of an enforced
paper currency, and by a loan of 250 millions from the
National Bank. In pursuance of a decree, dated June 28,
1866, she imposed a general tax upon all moveable property,
a source of many subsequent difficulties. Finally, she had
recourse to a compulsory loan of 350 millions. Although
the total amount of these resources, which exceeded 600
millions, was not absorbed by the expenses of the war, there
is no doubt but that the latter reached at least 400 million
francs (£16,000,000).
We are unable to state accurately how much was the cost
of this war to Hanover, the Hessian States, Wurtemberg,
Saxony, &c. ; but when we remember that in 1859 the
special expenses of these secondary States, as set forth in
their respective budgets, were 152 million francs for the
seven principal States alone, although they did not then fire
a single gun, and were merely put into a condition of readi
ness for war (ffiriegsbereitschaft), it is difficult to believe
that the smaller States can have spent less, during the war
of 1866, than 250 million francs (£10,000,000), at any rate,
and without including the indemnities paid to Prussia.
The sum of the official and immediate expenses of the
war of 1866, may be therefore reckoned at about 1,650
million francs (£66,000,000) for the respective governments
in Germany and Italy.
But in this war, as in every other, the expenses indicated
in the public budgets, were the less considerable ones.
What a commercial and financial catastrophe was produced
in Italy by this inopportune war, with its triple plague of
paper money, forced loans, and the vexatious and inequitable
tax on moveable property ! It was a deadly blow from
which she will, probably, take twenty years to recover.
There had been debates on economy and it appeared that
some effectual steps would be taken in that direction, just
before the war broke out which demanded an unsparing inE
�50
crease of expenditure. How can young Italy struggle
successfully with the pernicious consequences of the ab
sorption of its circulating capital by the forced loan, the
annihilation of legitimate profits by the tax upon moveable
property and the losses and unsettlement of currency in
volved by the paper money ? These losses were especially
disastrous to a country whose imports had, for several years,
far exceeded its exports, and which was now to suffer, in its
foreign commercial transactions, the very heavy expenses of
a disadvantageous and exceedingly variable rate of exchange.
Austria was placed in a similar situation. She was truly
in a pitiable state. She had barely got over one crisis,
and was but beginning to remove the evils occasioned by
that crisis, when she voluntarily plunged herself into another
similar one. In 1858 she had just terminated the com
pulsory currency which had been so disastrous to her for
ten years. In 1859 she re-established it. In 1866 she was
repaying the advances made by the bank and there was a
prospect of the second termination of the forced currency,
when she threw herself, of her own free will, into new
dangers. By her mistakes and faults she became the prey
of paper money, continually increased taxation, commercial
disorganisation and industrial stagnation.
And even Prussia, so powerful and prosperous, had to
suffer, for six weeks, a suspension of all business. At the
beginning of the month of May, 20,000 of the working men
of Berlin found themselves out of employment, and, on the
declaration of war, mechanics, professors, bankers, labourers
and traders were all taken away from their usual avocations.
The Government proclaimed a universal holiday, as it were,
for two months throughout the kingdom, on account of the
war. During this time workshops and schools were closed
or empty. Thus we have the spectacle of a great nation
dead to labour and study for two months ! What an arrest
of civilisation ! In the public catastrophe how many indi
vidual and obscure or unnoticed calamities were involved 1
Failures took place to an incredible extent: they occurred
in Berlin at the rate of twenty or twenty-five per day, or
about the usual weekly number in ordinary times.
The smaller German States, roused abruptly from their
peaceful and industrious life, also expiated, by many losses,
�51
the general folly. All the public works which were being
so energetically pushed forward were checked. Thus Baden
had just contracted a loan for her railways ; the war absorbed
it. A similar exigency had already occurred in that State
in 1859. All the other minor States which, except in the
moment of delirium in 1859, had only contracted peace
loans were now compelled to rush into war-loans. To these
burdens must be added the various military requisitions,
ravages and arbitrary contributions, the six million florins
which General Vogel do Falkenstein extorted from Frank
fort, and the 25 million florins which General Manteufel also
extorted from the same city the very next day. We must
also remember the condition of Bohemia, desolated, laid
waste, and almost ruined by the quartering and conflicts of
600,000 men.
The blow struck in Germany influenced all Europe.
This unforeseen catastrophe, this sudden folly which had
overspread the centre of Europe, affected, by contagion, the
adjacent countries. In every direction men thought of
nothing but new rifles, strange guns, huge or small, and
gigantic armies. It was deemed necessary to have new
conscription-laws, new loans and new taxes. Countries
which had just been reducing their armies now only thought
of increasing them as much as possible.
In short, this German crisis raised the war-budgets of
every European nation. It inscribed 1,650 million francs
(£66,000,000) on the budgets of the belligerents alone;
it resulted in 45,000 deaths, in the ruin of Austria and
Italy, and in the universal and permanent increase of burdens
and public anxieties. Such is the balance-sheet of the
campaign in Bohemia!
Whence comes it that even two years after this war our
industry is languishing and our commerce suffering ?
Whence comes it that our money capital remains idle in
our banks, instead of supporting our manufactures and
creating new enterprises ? It is because war, even when
dead, leaves its spectre behind it, which long continues to
terrify the people afresh and to make them apprehensive of
further misfortunes.
�52
DISTANT EXPEDITIONS.
We now come to those disastrous Expeditions which have
involved so heavy an expense to the European Powers, and
especially to France. Unfortunately here statistics fail us,
especially as respects the losses of human life. We shall
hardly venture even any conjectural estimate. We shall
content ourselves with a mere reference to the great distance
of the scenes of conflict in China, Cochin China, Mexico,
and St. Domingo; the variations of climate, the yellow fever,
typhus and marsh fever, the fatigues of a war of incessant
skirmishes, the obstinate resistance of the enemy in Mexico
and Cochin China, the insufficiency of communication, of
hygienic assistance, and, at times, even of provisions. We
leave it to the reader to form, in view of these disadvan
tageous circumstances, a more or less accurate idea of the
number of victims which these deplorable Expeditions must
have swept off.
Although we are enabled to form a less vague conception
of the financial losses involved, an exact result is not attain
able. The expenses of most of these Expeditions are not yet
liquidated. The Legislative Assembly voted, as recently as
1867, the settlement of the accounts of 1S63. The accounts
of 1864, 1865, and 1866 are not yet known with precision.
Another difficulty in these calculations is that the expenses
of distant Expeditions are returned in the several budgets
under different headings, and are sometimes confounded
with expenses of another description. A state of very great
confusion characterises all these matters, and the time for
putting an end to it does not appear to have yet arrived.
These exceptional expenses have eventually become so
habitual that they have passed from the extraordinary into
the ordinary budgets. A proof of this is afforded by the
publication of the accounts accompanying the law of assess
ment for the expenses and receipts of the year 1863, pre
sented to the Legislative Assembly, May 6, 1S62, by M.
Vuitry, as Commissioner. The ordinary Navy Budget bore
an increase of 18,773,501 francs (£750,940) over the prec eding one ; and M. Vuitry accounted for this increase in
the following manner:—“tFor several years in succession
the various budgets, each copying the preceding one, repeated
�53
the same number of ships as being requisite for the reception
of marines, namely, 152 ships for a force of about 26,000 men,
although different circumstances had obliged the Department
of Naval Affairs either to form new stations or to increase the
capacity of some of the existing ones. Consequently, special
loans were needed to meet these expenses, which, although
appearing to be merely casual and temporary at first, even
tually partook of a normal and permanent character. The
ordinary budget used to provide for 152 armed vessels; in
1859 the number of these was 300, of which, however, 123
were required for the Italian Army and for the Indo-Chinese
Expedition. In 1860 the number of effective war-ships was
raised to 275—77 of which were for the Indo-Chinese and
Syrian Expeditions. In 1861 the number would probably
be nearly the same. Under these circumstances, the Govern
ment had found it expedient carefully to determine what
proportion of the special armaments of preceding years
should henceforth be regarded as indispensable for maintain
ing the service of our naval stations, whose number and im
portance have increased in consequence of the new establish
ments of the kind being formed in distant seas by the French
nation.”—(JZbm’tewr, March 12, 1862.)
These distant Expeditions had, in fact, terribly augmented
our Naval Budget. In 1857 it was only 121,S65,000 francs
(£1,872,600) ; in 1859, without reckoning Algiers and the
colonies, it rose to 213,800,000 francs (£8,552,000) ; and
in 1861 (as admitted in the Exchequer Bill of June 8,
1864), it required more than 230 millions (£9,200,000).
Thus the Navy Budget had increased, in consequence of
distant Expeditions, about 100 millions (£4,000,000), and
this augmentation had almost come to be regarded as a per
manent one. The Army Budget also suffered from the
influence of these Expeditions. In 1861, a year of peace,
it demanded (as is admitted in the Exchequer Bill of June
8, 1864) 400,975,814 francs, an excess of 55 millions over
the anticipated amount of 345 millions (£13,800,000).
Hence one of the most vexatious results of these far-off
wars has been the immeasurable expansion of our ordinary
budgets.
The supplementary loans will cease with the
Expeditions themselves, but the augmentation of the Army
and Navy Budgets, caused by these wars, has been declared
by Government to be normal and permanent; and it has, in
�54
point of fact, been subsequently so recognised as being
normal and permanent.
As to the total expenses of these Expeditions, M. Larrabure estimated them, even four years ago, as already
amounting to 270 millions (£10,800,000) for the Mexican
and Cochin China Expeditions only. In a Legislative dis
cussion at the same period, M. Calley Saint Paul calculated
at 450 millions (£18,000,000) the costs of the wars in China,
Cochin China, Mexico, and Japan. M. Vuitry (Government
Commissioner), in reply, admitted expenses of 17 millions
for the Syrian Expedition, 11 millions for that to the Kabyles
(in North Africa), and 166 millions for that to China and
Cochin China; and at the time of the Treaty of Miramar,
the French Government announced that it had spent 270
millions in Mexico. However, it has subsequently retracted
this statement as an over-estimate.
According to the Report of M. du Mirai on the Budget
of 1868 the expenses of the Mexican Expedition were as
follow
Army.
Francs.
Year.
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
..
..
..
..
..
..
..
Total ...
27,119,000
72,012,000
51,732,000
29,342,000
41,792,000
9,993,000
Navy.
Francs.
.
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
. ..
Finance.
Francs.
3,200,000
35,902,000
24,606,000
15,667,000
10,583,000
13,798,000
13,117,000
..
.
..
379,000 .. .
.. 1,001,000 . .
.. 1,675,000 .
.. 1,480,000 . .
.. 9,567,000 .. .
..
200,000 . .
Totals.
Francs.
3,200,000
63.400,000
97,619,000
69,074,000
41,405,000
65,157,000
23,310,000
231,990,000 . .. 116,873,000 .. 14,302,000 .. . 363,165,000
(£9,279,GOO) . . (£4,674,920) .. (£572,080) .. .(£14,527,000)
According to another table, extracted from the same
Report, the receipts, more or less available, during the
Expedition, consisting of repavments and Mexican bonds,
amounted to 61,975,000 francs (£2,479,000); whence the
excess of expenditure would be 301 million francs
(£12,040,000).
. It is needless to remark that this official return is exces
sively below the actual cost. M. Berrver offers to prove
that the Expedition has absorbed 600 millions (£24,000,000),
but this is impossible. However, inasmuch as the Govern
ment itself avowed an actual expenditure of 270 millions
at the time of the Convention of Miramar, that is to say,
when the war was not half completed, it is difficult to con-
�55
elude otherwise than that the further expenses, after allowing
fordeductions and repayments, must have swelled this amount
to at least 400 millions (£16,000,000).
As regards the Expeditions to China, Cochin China, and
the Lebanon, we cannot estimate them at less than 300
millions (£12,000,000). This sum represents, almost
exactly, the unforeseen augmentations of our Army and
Navy Budgets in the years of peace, 1860, 1861, and 1862,
when the Mexican Expedition had, as yet, cost but little.
As we are aware, the Expedition to Cochin China still con
tinues, and forms a constant increase of our budget.
If we add to these officially recognised expenses the
losses of capital diverted from productive employment
sunk, without return, in Mexican loans, it will be found
that these distant Expeditions have cost France at least a
thousand million francs (£40,000,000), in addition to the
permanent increase which they have imposed upon our naval
establishments.
SUMMARY OF LOSSES BY RECENT WARS.
I.—Loss or Human Life.
Number of men wrho were slain on the field of battle, or
who died through wounds and disease:—
Killed by War.
Crimean War ...
Italian War (1859)
War of Schleswig Holstein
American Civil War—
Northern Army
Southern Army
War of 1866, between Prussia,
Austria, and Italy...
Distant Expeditions and various
wars, Mexico, Cochin China,
Morocco, St. Domingo, Para
guay, &c..................................
Total
784,991
45,000
3,500
281,000 1 #
519,000 j
45,000
65,000
1,743,491
Understated—vide Note at the end of this work.
�56
Hebe is a total of about 1,750,000 men swept off
BY WAB FBOM CIVILISED NATIONS BETWEEN 1853 AND
THAT IS TO SAY, IN THE SPACE OF 14 YEABS.
1866,
This is a number equal to the whole male population of
Holland. It is also a number equal to that of all the work
ing men employed by the industrial or commercial classes in
France. (Audiganne, “ Les Ouvriers d' a present]' page
405.) And yet this immense amount of human life, strength,
and intelligence, has been devoured by war in the eecent
14 yeabs of this century, so distinguished by its civilisation,
industry, and popular liberty !
SUMMARY OF THE FINANCIAL LOSSES BY RECENT
WARS.
Crimean War, 1853-4 ...
American Civil "War,
1861-5—
The North ...
The South
Italian "War, 1859
War of Schleswig Hol
stein, 1864
War of 1866, between
Prussia, Austria, and
Italy
Distant Expeditions to
Mexico,
Cochin
China, &c....
Total
340 million pounds sterling.
940 million
460 million
60 million
n
99
7 million
J,
99
66 million
99
99
J?
99
40 million
... 1,913 MILLION POUNDS
99
STEELING !
Even these are only the immediate and positive expenses
of the wars ; and some of the struggles are not yet ended.
Complete returns cannot be obtained respecting the expenses
of Spain in the Expedition to Cochin China, nor of those of
Peru, Chili, and St. Domingo. We are not in possession
of the costs of recent conflicts between the Republics of
South America and Spain, or of the still continuing war
between Brazil, La Plata, and Paraguay—a persistent and
furiously devastating struggle. Nor have we full returns
�57
from Mexico as to its war for independence against France.
And yet, irrespective of all these unfurnished expenses, we
have accounted for the frightful amount of nearly 48,000
million francs (or £1,913,000,000), which, if employed in
works of peace, would have entirely transformed the social
and financial condition of civilised nations. But the evil
genius of War has devoured the whole of it in fourteen years,
IN OBDEE TO SWEEP FROM THE EACE OF THE EARTH NEARLY
1,800,000 MEN.
NOTE.
A gentleman at New York, after reading “ Contemporary
Wars,” has written to Mr. Henry Richard, M.P., London, to say
that M. Beaulieu’s work greatly understates the losses of life and
property caused by the late Civil War in his country. He says :—
“ M. Beaulieu’s work is an able one, and generally correct ;
but, instead of 281,000 men killed in the Northern armies, the
total loss is known to be 1,100,000 by all causes up to 1867
inclusive.
“ By the census of 1860 the whole property of the United States
(exclusive of slaves) was valued at 14,183 million dollars, and
the loss of capital during the war (also exclusive of slaves) is
known to be over 5,000 millions, or fully one-fifth of the whole
property of the country in 1860. We look upon the present
prosperity, therefore, as merely fictitious, and destined to a
tremendous collapse, which is only a question of time.”
The same writer complains of the terrible amount of vice and
immorality occasioned by the habits formed during the war,
and forwards the following statement on the subject, extracted
from the New York Journal of Commerce, one of the highest
class newspapers in the United States :—
“ The ‘ Moral ’ Effect
of the late
Civil War
in
America.
“The prevalence of bold, wanton crime throughout all parts of
the country cannot be denied. It is not this city or the large
centres of population generally that are chiefly infected, although
some, for selfish purposes, encourage this idea. Many causes
have conspired to produce this outcropping of evil, but the chief
cause, beyond question, is the demoralisation produced by the war.
Some enthusiastic writers and orators claimed that the conflict
would be like “ a purifyingfurnace, ” from which the nation would
emerge cleansed and sanctified, like gold from the crucible. We
�58
pointed to all history in refutation of this theory, and urged the
adoption of every possible means to mitigate the evils that must
inevitably follow and grow out of the long and bitter contest.
Recklessness of life—disregard of the rights of person and pro
perty—the disposition to take by strategy, and still more by the
strong arm, any coveted good—a contempt for laws, so often
violated or silent in the presence of armed force—a sense of the
might of physical power in the presence of restraints purely
moral—familiarity with deeds of blood, rapine, and cruelty,
deadening the conscience and blunting all the finer sensibilities
of the soul—these and many kindred associations suggest them
selves to every careful observer who studies the demoralising
effect of war upon the nation at large. They are peculiar to no
age or race, and they operate on man as man in every com
munity and by every fireside. There is probably as great a ratio
of difference between the past and present condition of the most
moral and virtuous community in the country in the debasing
effect of the war, as between the criminal classes, once partially
restrained, but now rendered more brutal, daring, passionate, and
reckless, as the result of this national experience. We might
safely appeal to individual consciousness to sustain this assertion,
if men were willing to examine and judge themselves impartially;
but its truth is capable of demonstration.”
R. BARRETT AND SONS, PRINTERS, MARK LANE.
/A
�
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Victorian Blogging
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An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Contemporary wars (1853-1866): statistical researches respecting the loss of men and money involved in them
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Beaulieu, Paul Leroy
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 58 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the French edition issued in the 'Peace Library' of the Paris 'International League of Peace'. Printed by R. Barrett and Sons, Mark Lane, London.
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London Peace Society
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1869
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G5394
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War
Pacifism
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Conway Tracts
Peace
War
War Casualties
War-Economic Aspects
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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Essays towards peace
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Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon) [1856-1933]
Westermarck, Edward
Angell, Norman [1874-1967]
Swinny, S.H.
Bonner, Hypatia Bradlaugh [1858-1935]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 91, [4] p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Contents: Superstitions of militarism / John M. Robertson -- Christianity and war / Edward Westermark -- War as the failure of reason / Norman Angell -- Rationalism and international righteousness / S.H. Swinny. Published for the Rationalist Peace Society. Publisher's advertisements on unnumbered pages at the end. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Watts & Co.
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1913
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RA1074
N561
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Pacifism
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Militarism
NSS
Peace
Peace-Moral and ethical aspects
Rationalism
War
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Text
"Tract No. IV. of the Society for the Promotion of
Permanent and Universal Peace.
EXTRACTS
FROM xIIE
WRITINGS OF ERASMUS,
ON THE
SUBJECT OF WAR.
-- —Ono murder makes a villain ;
Millions, a hero.
Bishop Portcut.
----- O I what are these,
Death’s ministers, not men, who thus deal death
Tu'inmanly to men, and multiply
Ten thousandfold the sin of him who slew
His brother : for of whom such massacre
Make they, but of their brethren ; men of men
Paradise Lost, Bock XI. line 63S,
STFEEUTYPE EDITION.
|g
■
>
\
Honson:
PRINTED BY RICHARD BARRETT, MARK LANE.
S0LD Br
TEroMAS WARD & Co., PATERNOSTER ROW;
BY ALL OTHER BOOKSELLERS ; AND
AT THE DEPOSITORY, 19, NEW RROAD STREET,
FINSBURY CIRCUS.
%
�TRACTS OF THE PEACE SOCIETY'.
To be had at Thomas Ward & Co.’s Paternoster Row, and at the
Depository, 19, New Broad Street, Finsbury Circus.
IN OCTAVO.
No. I. A Solemn Review of the Custom of War.
II. War inconsistent with the Doctrine and Example of Jesus Christ, by
John Scott, Esq.
III. An Essay on the Doctrine and Practice of the Early Christians as
they relate to War, by Thomas Clarkson, Esq. M. A.
IV. Extracts from Erasmus.
V. Sketches of the Horrors of War, by Evan Rees.
VI. On Universal Peace, by the Rev. David Bogue.
VII. Observations on the Applicability of the Pacific Principles of the New
Testament to the Conduct of States, &c. by Jonathan Dymond.
VIII. An Examination of the Principles which are considered to support
the Practice of War, by a Lady.
IX. The Principles of Peace Exemplified in the Conduct of the Society oi
Friends in Ireland, during the Rebellion of the year 1798, with
some Preliminary and Concluding Observations, by Thomas
Hancock, M.D. In Three Parts.
X. Historical illustrations of the Origin and Consequences of War, by
the Author of Tract No. VIII., as above.
XI. Reflections on the Calamities of War, and the Superior Policy of
Peace, translated from the French of a Treatise, “ On the Admi
nistration of the Finances of France,” by M. Necker.
XII, An Essay on War, and on its Lawfulness under th.e Christian Dispen
sation, by Joseph John Gurney.
Welsh. — Epitome of the Views
and Objects of the Peace
Society.
French.—Nos. I. to VIII. and XI.
German.—No. I.
Dutch.—No. II.
Spanish.—No. III.
Italian.—Nos. I. and III.
NEW SERIES OF SMALL TRACTS.
IN DUODECIMO.
By the Author of “ Select Female Biography,” “ Annals of my
Village,” fyc.
No. I. Sketch of a Hospital Scene in Portugal.
II. Results of War, with Suggestions for an Amicable Settlement of
National Disputes.
III. Sketch of the Miseries suffered by the Germans during the Seven
Years’ War, from 1756 to 1763.
IV. Peace Societies, and the Scenes which have occurred within the last
Sixty Years, in Two Parts.
V. Account of the Massacre of Corcubion, with an appeal to English
Ladies.
VI. The Sights we have seen
Also “ The Herald of Peace,” published Quarterly, and to b&
had as above.
Every Annual Subscriber of 10s. 6d. and upwards, may, within the. year,
receive in return, Tracts to the amount of one half of his Subscription, on
application at the Office. And Country Subscribers are requested to give
•he Address of some person in Loudon to whom they may be'sent.
�EXTRACTS
FROM
ERASMUS.
If there is in the affairs of mortal men any one thing which it k
proper uniformly to explode; which it is incumbent on every
man, by every lawful means, to avoid, to deprecate, to oppose;
that one thing is, doubtless, War. There is nothing more un
naturally wicked, more productive of misery, more extensively
destructive, more obstinate in mischief, more unworthy of man,
as formed by nature, much more of man professing Christianity.
Yet, wonderful to relate! in these times war is every where
rashly, and on the slightest' pretext, undertaken; cruelly, and
savagely conducted, not only by Unbelievers, but by Christians;
not only by Laymen, but by Priests and Bishops; not only by the
young and inexperienced, but even by men far advanced in life,
who must have seen and felt its dreadful consequences; not only
by the lower order, fickle in their nature, but above all by princes,
whose duty it is to compose the rash passions of the unthinking
multitude by superior wisdom, and the force of reason. Nor are
there ever wanting men, learned in the law, and even divines,
who are ready to furnish firebrands for the nefarious work, and to
fan the latent sparks into a flame.
Hence it happens, that war is now considered so much a thing
of course, that the wonder is, how any man can disapprove of it;
so much sanctioned by authority and custom, that it is deemed
impious (I had almost said heretical) to have borne testimony
against a practice, in its principle most profligate, and in #**>
A 2
�4
effects pregnant with every kind of calamity. If any one considers
a moment the organization and external figure of the body, will
he not instantly perceive that Nature, or rather the God of Na
ture, created the human animal not for war, but for love and
friendship; not for mutual destruction, but for mutual service
and safety; not to commit injuries, but for acts of reciprocal
beneficence.
Man she brought into the world naked, weak, tender, un
armed, his flesh of the softest texture, his skin smooth and
delicate, and susceptible of the slightest injury.
There is
nothing observable in his limbs adapted to fighting, or to vio
lence. Unable either to speak or walk, or help himself to food,
he can only implore relief by tears and wailing, so that from
this circumstance alone might be collected, that man is an animal
bom for that love and friendship which is formed and cemented
by the mutual interchange of benevolent offices. Moreover, Na
ture evidently intended that man should consider himself in
debted for the boon of life, not so much to herself as to the
kindness Of his fellow-man; that he might perceive himself
designed for social affections, and the attachments of friendship
and love. Then she gave him a countenance not frightful and
forbidding, but mild and placid, imitating. by external signs the
benignity of his disposition. She gave him eyes full of affectionate
expression, the indexes of a mind delighting in social sympathy.
She gave him arms to embrace his fellow-creatures. She gave
him lips to express a union of heart and soul. She gave him alone
the power of laughing, a mark of the joy of which he is suscep
tible. She gave him tears, the symbol of clemency and compas
sion. She gave him also a voice, not a menacing and frightful
yell, but bland, soothing, and friendly. Not satisfied with these
marks of her peculiar favour, she bestowed on him alone the use
of speech and reason : a gift which tends more than any other to
conciliate and cherish benevolence, and a desire of rendering
mutual services; so that nothing among human creatures might
be done by violence. She implanted in man a hatred of solitude,
and a love of company. She sowed in his heart the seeds of every
benevolent affection; and thus rendered what is most salutary, at
the same time most agreeable. For what is more agreeable than a
�friend; what so necessary ? Indeed, if it were possible to conduct
life conveniently, without mutual intercourse, yet nothing could be
pleasant without a companion, unless man should have divested
himself of humanity, and degenerated to the rank of a wild beast.
Lastly, to man is given a spark of the divine mind, which stimu
lates him without any hope of reward, and of his own free will,
to do good to all: for of God this is the most natural and appro
priate attribute, to consult the good of all by disinterested bene
ficence. If it were not so, how happens it that we feel an exqui
site delight, when we find that any man has been preserved from
danger, injury, or destruction, by our offices or intervention?
Now view, with the eyes of your imagination, savage troops
of men, horrible in their very visages and voices; men clad in steel,
drawn up on every side in battle array, armed with weapons,
frightful in their crash and their very glitter; mark the horrid
murmur of the confused multitude, their threatening eye-balls,
the harsh jarring din of drums and clarions, the terrific sound of
the trumpet, the thunder of the cannon, a noise not less formi
dable than the real thunder of heaven, and more hurtful, a mad
shout like that of the shrieks of Bedlamites, a furious onset, a
cruel butchering of each other!—See the slaughtered and the
slaughtering!—heaps of dead bodies, fields flowing with blood,
rivers reddened with human gore. It sometimes happens that a
brother falls by the hand of a brother, a kinsman upon his nearest
kindred, a friend upon his friend, who, while both are actuated
by this fit of insanity, plunges the sword into the heart of one
by whom he was never offended, not even by the word of his mouth!
So deep is the tragedy, that the bosom shudders even at the feeble
description of it, and the hand of humanity drops the pencil while
it paints the scene.
In the mean time, I pass over the corn fields trodden down,
peaceful cottages and rural mansions burnt to the ground, villages
and towns reduced to ashes, the cattle driven from their pasture,
innocent women violated, old men dragged into captivity, churches
defaced and demolished, every thing laid waste, a prey to robbery,
plunder, and violence!
Not to mention the consequences which ensue to the people
after a war, even the most fortunate in its event; the poor, the
�6
unoffending common people, robbed of their little hard-earned
property; the great laden with taxes: old people bereaved ot
their children, more cruelly killed by-the murder of their off
spring, than by the sword; happier if the enemy had deprived
them of the sense of their misfortune, and life itself, at the same
moment; women far advanced in age, left destitute, and more
cruelly put to death, than if they had died at once by the point of
the bayonet: widowed mothers, orphan children, houses of mourn
ing ; and families, that once knew better days, reduced to extreme
penury.
Why need I dwell on the evils which morals sustain by war,
when every one knows, that from war proceeds at once every kind of
evil which disturbs and destroys the happiness of human life.
As I just now drew the portrait of man and the picture of war,
so now it is my intention to compare war with peace, to compare
a state most poignant with misery, and most wicked in its origin,
with a state profuse of blessings, and contributing in the highest
degree to the happiness of human nature; it will then appear to
be downright insanity to go in search of war with so much dis
turbance, so much labour, so great profusion of blood and trea
sure, and at such a hazard after all, when with little labour, less
expense, no bloodshed, and no risk, peace might be preserved
inviolate.
Now, amidst all the good this world affords, what is more de
lightful to the heart of man, what more beneficial to society, than
love and amity ? Nothing, surely. Yet what is peace, but love
and amity subsisting between great numbers ? And, on the other
hand, wliat is war, but hatred and enmity subsisting between
great numbers ? But it is the nature of all good, that the more
it is extended, the greater the good becomes, the more benign its
influence; therefore, if the amicable union of individuals is so
sweet and so salutary, how much will the sum total of happiness
be augmented, if kingdom with kingdom, and nation with na
tion, coalesce in this amicable union ? On the other hand, it is
the nature of all evil, that its malignity increases the more it is
extended; and therefore, if it be wretched, if it be wicked for one
man to meet another with a sword pointed at his vitals, how
much more wretched and more wicked, that thousands and tens of
�1
thousands should meet in the same manner ? By union, little things
are augmented to a respectable magnitude; by disunion, the
greatest fall to insignificance and dissolution. Peace is, indeed,
at once the mother and the nurse of all that is*good for man:
War, on a sudden, and at one stroke, overwhelms, extinguishes,
abolishes, whatever is cheerful, whatever is happy and beautiful,
and pours a foul torrent of disasters on the life of mortals. Peace
shines upon human affairs like the vernal sun. The fields are cul
tivated, the gardens bloom, the cattle are fed upon a thousand
hills, new buildings arise, riches flow, pleasures smile, humanity
and charity increase, arts and manufactures feel the genial warmth
of encouragement, and the gains’of the poor are more plentiful.
But no sooner does the storm of war begin to lower, than what a
deluge of miseries and misfortune seizes, inundates, and over
whelms all things within the sphere of its action ! The flocks are
scattered, the harvest trampled, the husbandman butchered,
villas and villages burnt,— cities and states, that have been ages
rising to their flourishing state, subverted by the fury of one tem
pest, the storm of war. So much easier is the task of doing harm
than of doing good; of destroying than of building up!
Many, alas! are the evils by which miserable mortality is tor
mented, worn out, and at last overwhelmed. We read of whole
cities buried in ruins by earthquakes, or burnt to ashes by light
ning, whole countries swallowed up in chasms occasioned by
subterraneous convulsions ; not to mention how many men are
lost by casualties, which, by the frequency of their occurrence,
cease to surprise ; how many are drowried in seas and rivers, how
many destroyed by poison, by falling, by other accidents.
Why should those who are obnoxious to so many calamities,
go voluntarily in quest of an adscititious evil, as if the measure of
misery required to be full to the very brim, and to run over; in
quest of an evil, not a common evil, but an an evil of all human evils
the worst and the foulest; so destructive an evil, that alone, it ex
ceeds them all in mischief; so abundant in misery, that it com
prehends every kind of wretchedness within itself; so pestilential
in its nature, that it loads men with guilt in proportion as it galls
them with woe.
To these considerations add, that the advantages derived from
�8
peace diffuse themselves far and wide, and reach great numbers
while in war, if any thing turns out happily, (though what
can ever deserve the appellation of happy in war!) the advan
tage redounds only to a few, and those unworthy of reaping it.
One man’s safety is owing to the destruction of another. One
man’s prize derived from the plunder of another. The cause
of rejoicings made by one side, is to the other a cause of mourn
ing. Whatever is unfortunate in war, is severely so indeed, and
whatever, on the contrary, is called good fortune, is a savage and
a cruel good fortune, an ungenerous happiness, deriving its exist
ence from another’s woe. Indeed, at the conclusion, it com
monly happens, that both sides, the victorious and the vanquished,
"have cause to deplore. I know not whether any war ever suc
ceeded so fortunately in all its events, but that the conqueror, if he
had a heart to feel, or an understanding to judge, as he ought to
do, repented that he ever engaged in it at all.
Such and so great are the evils which are submitted to, in
order to accomplish an end, itself a greater evil than all that have
preceded in preparation for it. We thus afflict ourselves for the
noble end of enabling ourselves to afflict others. If we were' to
calculate the matter fairly, and form a just computation of the
cost attending war, and that of procuring peace, we should find
that peace might be purchased at a tenth part of the cares, la
bours, troubles, dangers, expenses, and blood, which it costs
to carry on a war. You lead a vast multitude of men into danger
of losing their lives, in order to demolish some great city ; while
the same labour and fatigue of these very men would build, with
out any danger, a more magnificent city, than the city doomed to
demolition. But the object is to do all possible injury to an
enemy. A most inhuman object, let me tell you! and consider,
whether you can hurt him, essentially, without hurting, at the
same time, and by the same means, your own people. It surely
is to act like a maaman to take to yourself so large a portion of
certain evil, when it must ever be uncertain how the die of War
may fall in the ultimate issue.
Where are there so many and so sacred obligations to perfect
concord, as in the Christian religion? Where so numerous ex
hortations to peace? One law Jesus Christ claimed as his own
�peculiar law, and it was the lan of looe or charity. What prac-'
tice among mankind violates this law so grossly as war ? Christ
salutes his votaries with the happy omen of peace. To his disciples
he gives nothing but peace: he leaves them no other legacy but
peace. In his holy prayers, the subject of his devout entreaty was
principally, that, as He was one with the Father, so his disciples,
(that is to say, all Christians,) might be one with him. This union
is something more than peace, more than friendship, more than
concord; it is an intimate communion with the Divine nature.
Solomon was a type of Christ. But the word Solomon, in
Hebrew, signifies the pacific. Solomon, on this account, because
he was pacific, was chosen to build the temple. David was re
jected as a builder of the temple, because he was a warrior. He
was rejected for this, though the wars he carried on were against
the wicked and at the command of God; and though he, who
afterwards abrogated, in great measure, the laws of Moses, had
not yet taught mankind that they ought to love their enemies.
At the nativity of Jesus Christ, the angels sung not the glories
of war, nor a sung of triumph, but a hymn of peace: “ Glory to
God in the highest, on earth peace ; good will towards men.”
The mystic poet and prophet foretold before his birth, (Ps. lxxvi. 2.)
“ In the city or peace (Salem) he made his dwelling-place :
there brake he the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and
the battle-axe.”
“ He shall refrain the spirit of Princes ; he is terrible to the
Kings of the earth.”
Examine every part of his doctrine, you will find nothing that
does not breathe peace, speak the language of love, and savour of
charity ; and as he knew that peace could not be preserved unless
those objects, for which the world contends with the sword’s
point, were considered as vile and contemptible, he ordered us to
learn of him to be meek and lowly. He pronounced those happy
who held riches, and the daughters of riches, Pomp and Pride, in
no esteem; for these he calls the poor in spirit, and these he has
blessed. He prohibited resistance of evil. In short, as the
whole of his doctrine recommended forbearance and love, so his
life taught nothing but mildness, gentleness, and kind affection
Such was his reign; thus did he wage war, thus he conquered
�10
and thus he triumphed. Nor do the apostles inculcate any other
doctrine; they who had imbibed the purest spirit of Christ, and
were -filled with sacred draughts from the fountain head. What
do all the epistles of St. Paul resound with but peace, but longsuffering, but charity? What does St. John speak of, and repeat
continually, but Christian love ? What else St. Peter: What else
all the writers in the world, who are truly Christian?
Whence, then, the tumults of war among the Children of Peace ?
Is it a mere fable when Christ calls himself the vine, and his dis
ciples the branches ? Who can conceive a branch divided against
a branch of the same tree? Or, is it an unmeaning assertion,
which St. Paul has repeatedly made, that the Church is one body,
united in its many members, and adhering to one head, Jesus
Christ? Whoever beheld the eye contending with the hand, or
the belly fighting against the foot? In the whole universe, con
sisting of parts so discordant, there still continues a general har
mony. In the animal body, there is peace among all the members,
and with whatever excellence one member is endowed, it confines
not the benefit to itself, but communicates it to all. If any evil
happen to one member, the whole body affords it assistance. Can
then the mere animal connexion of nature, in a material body,
formed soon to perish, effect more in preserving harmony than the
union of a spirit in a mystical and immortal body ? Is it without
meaning that we pray, according to the command of Christ, Thy
will be done on earth, as it is in heaven? In the Kingdom of
Heaven there is perfect concord. But Christ intended that his
Church should be nothing less than a Celestial Community; a
Heaven upon Earth; men who belong to it living, as much as
possible, according to the model of the heavenly kingdom, hasten
ing thither, and feeling and acknowledging their whole dependance
upon it for present and future felicity.
It may now be worth while to observe in what manner Christians
defend the madness of War.
If, say they, war had been absolutely unlawful, God would not
have excited the Jews to wage war against their enemies. I hear
the argument, and observe upon it,-that the objector should in
justice add, that the J ews scarcely ever waged war, as the Chris
�11
tians do, against each other, but against aliens and infidels. We
Christians draw the sword against Christians. To them a diffe
rence of religion, and the worship of strange gods, was the source
of contest. We are urged to war, either by childish anger, or a
hunger and thirst for ricnes and glory, and oftentimes merely for
base and filthy lucre. They fought at the express command of
God; we, at the command of our own passions.
But since the time that Jesus Christ said, Put up thy sword
into its scabbard, Christians ought not to go to war, unless it be
in that most honourable warfare, with the vilest enemies of the
Church, the inordinate love of money, anger, and ambition.
These are our Philistines, these our Nabuchodonosors, these our
Moabites and Ammonites, with whom we ought never to make a
truce; with these we must engage without intermission till the
enemy being utterly extirpated, peace may1 be firmly established.
Unless we subdue such enemies as these, we can neither have
peace with ourselves, nor peace with any one else. This is the
only war which tends to produce a real and a lasting peace. He,
who shall have conquered foes like these, will never wish to wage
war with any mortal man upon the face of that earth on which'
God placed all men to live, to let live, and to enjoy the life he gave.
I lay no stress on the opinion of those who interpret the two
swords given to Peter to mean two powers, the civil and eccle
siastical, claimed by the successors of Peter, since Christ suffered
Peter himself to fall into an error in this matter, on purpose
that, when he had put up his sword, it might remain no longer a
doubt that war was prohibited; which, before that order, had
been considered as allowable. But Peter, they allege, did
actually use his sword.. It is true he did ; but while he was still a
Jew, and had not yet received the genuine spirit of Christianity.
He used his sword, not in support of any disputable claim to pro
perty, not to defend goods, chattels, lands, and estates, as we
do; nor yet for his own life, but for the life of his Lord and
Master. Let it also be remembered, that he who used the sword in
defence of his Master, very soon after denied and renounced that
Master. If Peter is to be our. model, and if we are so much
pleased with the example of Peter fighting for Christ, we may pro
bably approve also the example of Peter denying Christ.
�12
Peter, in using his sword, only made a slip in consequence of
the impulse of a sudden passion : yet he was reprimanded. But
if Christ approved of this mode of defence, as some most absurdly
infer from this transaction, how happens it that the uniform tenour
of his whole life and doctrine teaches nothing else but forbearance ?
Why, when he commissioned his disciples, did he expose them to
the despots of the world, armed only with a walking-stick and a
wallet, a staff and a scrip ? If by that sword, which Christ ordered
them, after selling every thing else, to buy, is meant a moderate
defence against persecution, as some men ignorantly interpret it,
how came it to pass that the Martyrs never used it ?
But they urge, that the laws of nature, the laws of society, and
the laws of custom and usage, conspire in dictating the propriety
of repelling force by force, and defending life, and money too,
which is to some persons as dear as life. So much I allow. But
Gospel Grace,'of more force than all these laws, declares in deci
sive words, that those who revile us, we must not revile again:
that we must do good to them who use us ill; and that we should
also pray for them who design to take away our lives. All this,
they tell us, had a particular reference to the apostles; but I con
tend that it also refers to all Christian people, to the whole body
which should be entire and perfect, though one member may have
been formerly distinguished by some particular pre-eminence.
The doctrine of Christ, can, indeed, have no reference to them,
who do not expect their reward with Christ.
But they proceed to argue, that as it is lawful to inflict
punishment on an individual delinquent, it must also be lawful to
take vengeance on an offending State. The full answer to be
given to this argument would involve me in greater prolixity
than is now requisite. I will only say that the two cases differ
widely in this respect. He who is convicted judicially, suffers
the punishment which the laws impose: but in war, each side
treats the other side as guilty, and proceeds to inflict punish
ment, regardless of law, judge, or jury. In the former case, the
evil only falls on him who committed the wrong; the benefit of
the example redounds to all: in the latter case, the greatest part
of the very numerous evils falls on those who deserve no evil at
all; on husbandmen, on old people, on mothers of families, on
�13
orpnans, and on defenceless young females. But if any good at
all can be gathered from a thing which is itself the worst of all
things, the whole of that good devolves to the share of a few
most piofligate robbers, to the mercenary pillager, to the pira
tical privateer. It would be better to let the crime of a few go
unpunished, than, while we endeavour to chastise one or two by
war, in which, perhaps we may not succeed, to involve our own
people, the neighbouring people, and the innocent part of the
enemies, (for so I may call the multitude,) in certain calamity.
It is better to let a wound alone which cannot be healed without
injury to the whole body. But if any one should exclaim, “ that
it would be unjust that he who has offended should not suffer con
dign punishment;” I answer, that it is much more unjust that so
many thousand innocent persons should be called to share the
utmost extremity of misfortune, which they could not possibly have
deserved.
But the objector repeats, “ Why may I not go and cut the
throats of those who would cut our throats if they could?” Do
you then consider it as a disgrace that any should be more wicked
than yourself? Why do you not go and rob thieves? they would
rob you if they could. Why do you not revile them that revile you ?
Why do you not hate them that hate you ?
Do you consider it as a noble exploit for a Christian, having
killed in war those whom he thinks wicked, but who still are
men, for whom Christ died, thus to offer up victims most acceptable
to the Devil, and to delight that grand enemy in two instances;
first, that a man is slain at all; and secondly, that the man who
slew him is a Christian?
If we are willing to conquer for Christ, let us buckle on the
sword of the Gospel; let us put on the helmet of salvation, grasp
the shield of faith, and be completely clad in apostolical armour,
the panoply of heaven. Then will it come to pass, that we shall
triumph even in defeat, and when routed in the field, still bear
away the palm of a most glorious victory. If we endeavour to be
what we are called, that is, to be* violently attached to nothing
worldly, to seek nothing here with too anxious a solicitude; if
we endeavour to free ourselves from all that may encumber and
impede our flight to heaven; if we aspire with our most ardent
�14
wishes at. celestial felicity; if we place our chief happiness in
Christ alone;—we have certainly, in so doing, made up our
minds to believe, that whatever is truly good, truly great, truly
delightful, is to be found in his religion. If we are convinced
that a good man cannot be essentially hurt by any mortal; if we
have duly estimated the vanity and transitory duration of all the
ridiculous things which agitate human beings ; if we have any ade
quate idea of being so cleansed, by continual meditation, from the
pollutions of this world, that when the body is laid down in the
dust one may emigrate to the society of angels : in a word, if we
exhibit these three qualities, without which no man can deserve
the appellation of a Christian : Innocence, that we may be free from
vice; Charity, that we may deserve well of all men; Patience,
that we may bear with those that use us ill, and, if possible, bury
injuries by an accumulation of benefits on the injured party ; I ask,
what war can possibly arise hereafter for any trifles which the
world contains ?
If the Christian religion be a fable, why do we not honestly
and openly explode it ? Why do we glory and take a pride in
its namtf ? But if Christ is “ the way, and the truth, and the life,”
why do all our schemes of life and plans of conduct deviate so
from this great Exemplar ? If we .acknowledge Christ to be our
Lord and Master, who is love itself, and who taught nothing but
love and peace, let us exhibit his model; not by assuming his
name, but by our lives and conversation. Let us adopt the love of
peace, that Christ may recognize hrs own, even as we recognise him
to be the Teacher of Peace.
�15
Extract from a Letter addressed by Erasmus to Francis
the First, King of France, anno 1523.
What can be frailer, more transitory, more exposed to misery,
than human life ? I dwell not on the great variety of diseases,
disasters, accidents, fatal calamities, pestilential sicknesses, light
ning, earthquakes, conflagrations, inundations, and other evils
which overwhelm it without limit and without number. Yet,
among all the miseries by which man is infested, there is not one
more malignant, more mischievous than War; not one that, like
War, does more harm to the morals of men, than even to their
property and persons. It is, indeed, a less injury to deprive me of
my life than of my innocence. Nor is war at all the less detest
able, because the greatest portion of its evils falls on the poor and
low; on the farmer, on the manufacturer, or the wayfaring man.
Our Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for the redemption of these
men, despised as they are, no less than for the redemption of
Kings. And when we shall stand before the judgment-seat of
Christ, where the most powerful Lords of this world must shortly
stand, that impartial Judge will require a no less strict account to
be given of those poor and despised ones, than of Despots and
Grandees. Therefore they who deem it a trifling loss and injury
when the poor and the low are robbed, afflicted, banished, burnt
out, oppressed or put to death, do in truth accuse Jesus Christ
(the wisdom of the Father) of folly, for shedding his blood to save
such wretches as these.
Christ, throughout his whole life, displayed the character of a
Saviour, a Comforter, a universal Benefactor. Whether in the
temple or the synagogue, whether in public or in private, whether
in a ship or in the wilderness, he'taught the multitude, he healed
the sick, he cleansed the lepers, he restored the paralytic, the
lame, the blind; he expelled evil spirits, he raised the dead, he
delivered those that were in jeopardy; he fed the hungry; he re
futed the Pharisees ; he took the part of the disciples, of the poor
sinful creature who so lavishly poured out her ointment; he even
comforted the guilty and unhappy woman of Canaan, who was
detected in the commission of her crime. Review7 the whole life
�16
of Jesus; he never did evil to any mortal, though he was himself
used so ill, and if he had chosen it, might have revenged himself
so amply. He was uniformly the Saviour and the Benefactor. To
Malchus he restored the ear which Peter had cut off. He would
not suffer his own personal safety to be secured, even, by so trifling
an injury as that which was done to Malchus. Suspended on the
cross, he saved one of the thieves that were crucified with him.
After his death he brought over the Centurion to the Christian
faith. This was supporting the character of a King, truly so called
—To do good to aid, and injury to none.
; sib jfooj
■ , ■)
.
oq Yuhsiviil oe oii/r iHt'hiOio lolaia
pjKdiiu bog
oil) h- ’ ioimoo
ad lo JCKKKeiauHGo adj ni fjaWilob
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Extracts from the writings of Erasmus on the subject of war
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Edition: Stereotype ed.
Series: Tracts of the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace
Series no.: No. IV
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Richard Barrett; sold at Thomas Ward & Co. [and other booksellers]. A list of the Tracts issued by the Society listed on title page verso. KVK gives original publication details as: Printed by Bensley and Son, 1817.
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Pacifism
Desiderius Erasmus
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Conway Tracts
Peace
War
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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCTPTV
STATE MEASURES
FOB THE ABOLITION OF
wig, War, and
Containing
three Articles, (the two last reprinted from
the “ National Reformer”) :
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY;
CAN AVAR BE SUPPRESSED?
AND
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
BY
A DOCTOR OF MEDICINE,
Author of the “Elements of Social Science''
SIXTH THOUSAND.
LONDON:
E. TRUELOVE, 256, HIGH HOLBORN.
REMOVED FROM TEMPLE BAR.
1886.
�“Poverty, in any sense implying suffering, may be completely extin
guished by the wisdom of society, combined with the good sense and provi
dence of individuals.”—John Stuart Mill.
“ In civil society, either law or force prevails.”—Lord Bacon.
“ Man has it in his power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the
surface of the globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous
generation is a chimera.”—Louis Pasteur.
�2-3 S’
no ,95
STATE REMEDIES EOR POVERTY.
I would here add, to what has been said in previous editions,* a
few remarks on a subject of the utmost possible importance. It
is a subject which has hitherto been little discussed, but on which
many have doubtless, like myself, thought long and anxiously,
BUd which seems to me urgently in need of an earnest considera
tion. However strongly opposed to the prevailing opinions
and sentiments, it will sooner or later, I believe, become the
most momentous of practical questions in every country of the
World. I refer to the endeavour to extinguish poverty by direct
legal enactment in the only way in which this could possibly be
done, namely, by means of a statute limiting the size of families,
and forbidding anyone, whether rich or poor, to have more than a
certain small number of children.
Mr. John Stuart Mill, the great thinker whose loss we deplore,
Was strongly in favour of such a measure. He says in his Political
Economy, “ It would be possible for the State to guarantee em
ployment at ample wages to all who are bom. But if it does this,
it is bound, in self-protection, and for the sake of every purpose
for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be
born without its consent.” In another work, in a vindication of
the French Revolution of 1848, he says, “ The practical result of
the whole truth might possibly be, that al] persons living should
guarantee to each other, through their organ, the State, the ability
to earn by labour an adequate subsistence, but that they should
abdicate the right of propagating the species at their own dis
cretion and without limit; that all classes alike, and not the poor
alone, should consent to exercise that power in such measure only,
and under such regulations, as society might prescribe with a
view to the common good. But before this solution of the problem
can cease to be visionary, an almost entire renovation must take
place in some of the most rooted opinions and feelings of the
present race of mankind.” And, again, he says in his Political
Economy, ‘‘ If the opinion were once generally established among
the labouring classes that their welfare required a due regulation
of the numbers of families, the respectable and well conducted of
the body would conform to the prescription, and only those would
exempt themselves from it who are in the habit of making light
*.These remarks were first inserted in the edition of the “Elements of
Social Science,” which appeared in 1878.
A 2
�4
STATE REMEDIES FOB POVERTY.
of social obligations generally ; and there would be then an evident
justification for converting the moral obligation against bringing
children into the world who are a burden to the community into
a legal one; just as in many other cases of the progress of
opinion, the law ends by enforcing against recalcitrant minorities,
obligations which to be useful must be general, and which, fro®®
a sense of their utility, a large majority have voluntarily c<M«
sented to take upon themselves. There would be no need, how^
ever, of legal sanctions, if women were admitted, as on all other
grounds they have the clearest right to be, to the same right of
citizenship with men. Let them cease to be confined by custom
to one physical function as their means of living and their source of
influence, and they would have for the first time an equal voice
with men in what concerns that function ; and of all the improve
ments in reserve for mankind, which it is now possible to foresee,
none would, in my opinion, be so fertile as this in almost every
kind of moral and social benefit.” I venture to think that even
if women were admitted to the suffrage, and other just rights and
privileges of citizenship, there would still exist the most weighty
reasons in favour of legislation on this subject.
The great reasons for such an enactment seem to me to be that
a law to regulate population, if duly carried out, could of itself with
certainty remove poverty and overwork ; that no other law, or laws,
could do this, and that the force of public opinion, and the con
science and self-interest of individuals are not strong enough,
without the aid of law, to accomplish so vast an object. What is
indispensably needed for the extinction of poverty is a restraint
on population so powerful and general as to riww the excessive
pressure on the soil; in other words, by diminishing the demand
for food, to enable the margin of cultivation to recede to a suffi
cient extent, the worst soils to be thrown out of tillage, and the
land altogether to be less highly and expensively cultivated. In
this way the productiveness of labour would be increased, and
wages would rise, while at the same time there would be a reduc
tion in the working hours, and in the cost, and, therefore, the
price of food. The country would then be placed somewhat in
the position of a new colony, for the essential difference between
an old country and a new colony is that in the former population
is pressing too heavily on the productive powers of the land. Now
it appears to me that a reform of such vast extent and difficulty
as this, requiring the co-operation of the whole of society, will
never be adequately carried out without the assistance and de
liberate sanction of the Government. When the increase of
population is left solely to the discretion of individuals, th#
moderation and self-restraint of some are counteracted by the
recklessness and improvidence of others, and thus the overcrowded
state is constantly kept up. Even in France, where prudence is
most general in this respect, there is still immense over-popula
tion ; as may be seen by the miserably low rate of wages in many
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
D
employments, and the high average price of provisions. It is a
fact, thoroughly established by science, that large families are the
real cause of low wages and dear food in old and civilised coun
tries, and there can be no doubt that Government has the power,
if it only has the will, to suppress the source of the evil, and
thereby remove the effect. Anything else which Parliament can
&> to raise wages must be merely indirect, and can only attain its
object by the circuitous means of acting on the general intelli
gence and independence of the people, and inducing them to limit
their numbers. Why then should we always be content with
indirect and inadequate measures? Why not go at once to the
root of the matter, and grapple with the main cause of poverty
and pauperism, with the earnest resolution to put an end to them ?
It seems to me that this question is sure to be asked before long
by the working classes and social reformers, when the chief cause
of poverty becomes widely known, and is no longer a matter of
dispute. The great idea lying at the root of the socialist and
democratic doctrines which have spread so widely of late years,
■especially on the Continent—an idea which I believe to be pro
foundly true—is that mankind form a community whose interests
are bound up together, and who should mutually aid one another,
and insure one another, as far as possible, against the ills of life ;
that society should have an equal care for the happiness of all its
members, and should see that all are duly provided for ; that
therefore it is the duty of society, through its organ, the Govern
ment, to take energetic steps for the removal of poverty, and to
guarantee to every individual who is willing to work, an ample
Subsistence in return for his labour. Now, a law to regulate
population is in reality the only law by which it is possible for the
State at once and directly to do away with poverty, to shorten the
hours of labour, and to raise wages to a satisfactory amount ; and
If it be true, as was maintained by the Provisional Government of
France in 1848, and was inscribed in the project of a constitution,
that the State ought to guarantee subsistence and employment to
ail who are willing to Work, such a law is the only means by which
the object could be effected. Ought not then the State to adopt
this one and only means for ensuring to all a comfortable subristence ? Should we not choose the most direct and certain path
to deliver our society from the fearful evils of poverty and
pauperism? For my own part, I cannot but entertain a deep
conviction that such a law is quite legitimate in the extraordinary
difficulties arising from the population principle. I think that it
would, if enacted, be the most important to human happiness of
all possible laws, and that it will sooner or later be laid down as
the very foundation and corner-stone of society, in all the civilised
countries of the old world.
It will be said that a measure of the kind described is far too
Sweeping an innovation, and too despotic an interference with
personal liberty to be ever seriously cont«mplated. But those
�6
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
who rely on sueh objections would do well to consider attentively
the actual state of the facts The truth is, that population is
already so powerfully restrained by prudential motives in this and
many other countries, that a little more or less of restraint is a
matter of much smaller importance, and would be far less felt,
than is often supposed. Immense numbers of people, perhaps the
majority of society, are obliged at present by their circumstances
to exercise so much caution in regard to marriage and offspring,
that it would not make the slightest practical difference to them
whether a Malthusian statute were in existence in the country ot
not. To those who are forced to lead a life of celibacy, the change
would bring a positive increase of freedom, for if there were no
excessive families, a much greater number could marry. The only
persons whose liberty would really be interfered with are those
who have large families, and in their case the operation of the law
would for the most part be the greatest possible blessing to them
selves as well as to the rest of society. It is no one’s real interest
in an old and over-peopled country to have a large family.
Children, when too numerous, are a source of intolerable diffi
culties and anxieties among the rich quite as much as among the
poorer classes ; and it is a remarkable fact that in France and
many other countries it is the rich, and not the poor, 'who most
carefully limit the number of their offspring. We see, therefore,
that the question does not really lie between liberty and restraint,
but between two degrees of restraint, one of them unjust and
partial in its action, inefficient, and attended by the most wide
spread sufferings, and the other, which would be just and efficient,
and which would not be practically felt by most people as any
increase of restriction, but only by those who would themselves be
immensely benefited by the change. I believe that the abolition
of poverty, the mightiest of all social revolutions, could be quietly
and peacefully effected by this means, with only such an amount
of interference with personal liberty as would be comparatively
little felt as a positive evil. Moreover, poverty cannot possibly be
got rid of without an increase in the preventive check to popu
lation. It is in vain to wish that there were no poor, and yet
object to a further limitation of the size of families ; if we will
the end, we must will the means to attain it; and if, therefore,
society must of an absolute necessity submit to an increased
restraint in order to effect this grand purpose, what real difference
does it make whether the restraint comes from law, or from public
opinion, or from the conscientious feelings, or the interests, or the
circumstances of individuals ? Another very important matter
to be taken into account is, that legal restrictions on population
actually exist at present in many continental countries, and even,
in England. Mr. Senior, as quoted by Mr. Mill in his Political
Economy, says that in the countries which recognise a legal right
to relief, “ marriage on the part of persons in the actual receipt of
relief appears to be everywhere prohibited, and the marriage of
�STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
7
those who are not likely to possess the means of independent sup
port is allowed by very few.” In Norway, Wurtemberg, Bavaria,
Frankfort, several Swiss Cantons, and some other parts of the
Continent, no one is permitted to marry unless he can show that
he has a fair prospect of being able to maintain a family ; while
in England, by a provision of the poor-law, husband and wife are
separated in the workhouse. Now these laws, however excellent
their intention, and however efficacious they may have been in
diminishing poverty, do not seem to me strictly in accordance with
justice, for two reasons : in the first place, because they prohibit
marriages, instead of prohibiting (what alone, it appears to me,
the Legislature can justly restrict) large families; and, secondly,
because they apply only to the poor, and not to all classes of
society alike. The existence of such enactments shows that a
statute to regulate population would not introduce any new prin
ciple (since restrictions on marriage are really restrictions on
population), but would merely be the extension to the community
at large of a law which exists in this and other countries in regard
to certain classes, and which, in my opinion, is unjust so long as it
is confined to them, and is thus only a law for the poor and not
for the riqh. Is it just that all the restrictions should be laid on
the poor or the paupers, when the whole of society has a share in
the production of poverty and pauperism ? Again, as to the objec
tion that such a statute could never be enforced, we must remem
ber that it could not possibly be enacted without an immense
deal of discussion, and till the majority of the nation were strongly
in its favour, and that the majority would not seek to impose any
obligations on others which they were not ready to submit to
themselves. It may, perhaps, be added that it would be possible
to make the limit of families rather a high one—perhaps four
children as the maximum—since very many would not reach it, and
the penalty could be slight, as the great object of the law would
be to guide and strengthen public opinion, and the dictates of
individual prudence and conscience, and not by any means to
supply their place. The mere discussion of the subject would be
of incalculable value, and would spread a knowledge of the popu
lation truths over the whole country.
Had the population question been openly discussed, so that all
Blight understand it, we should never have seen that perversion of
justice by which two of the most gifted of English citizens have
Been sentenced to fine and imprisonment for seeking to benefit
the poor—for earnestly considering the cause of low wages, as
laid down by political economy, and pointing out the means by
which, in their belief, poverty could be removed from society. It
is the duty of all to meet, and not evade, this question. More
especially is it incumbent on those who prosecute others to state
plainly their own views on the subject. When a remedy for
human miseries is put forward, not as a good in itself, but as the
least oj several alternative evils, one or other of which is necessary
�8
STATE REMEDIES FOR POVERTY.
and inevitable, those who condemn it are bound to say which of
the other alternative evils they think preferable. As there must
always exist a most powerful check to population, either positive
or preventive, in old countries, the question to be determined is,
which of the various forms of the check is most consistent with
the happiness and well-being of mankind ? This is the real point
at issue, and opponents are bound to consider it most carefully,
and to show, if they can, that some other mode of dealing with
the terrible difficulty of population is better than the one pro
posed. Now there are several different ways in which the popu
lation difficulty may be dealt with by those who disapprove of
preventive measures. People may either ignore it altogether, as
the vast majority do, and go on blindly striving to remove from
society all the checks to population, or permanently to diminish
any one of them without a proportional increase of some of the
others-—objects which Mr. Malthus, eighty years ago, showed to
be quite unattainable by human effort. Or they may deny the
truth of the law of population, and contend that man’s choice is
not limited to one or other of the checks to increase, and that
poverty is not the result of too rapid multiplication. Or they
may hold that the existing checks, poverty, prostitution, and celi
bacy, are preferable to preventive means ; or maintain, with Mr.
Malthus, that all the other checks ought to be superseded by an
enormous increase of celibacy or sexual abstinence. Or, finally,
they may see nothing wrong in the preventive measures—nay,
may themselves adopt them—but yet hold that the subject ought
not to be spoken of or discussed in writing ; an opinion which is,
I believe, very common, but which cannot be sustained ; for if it
be morally right to use these means, they must be carefully con
sidered by physicians and others, so as to learn their influence on
human health and happiness, and to free them, as far as possible,
from any injurious consequences. One or other of these views
must be held by opponents, and they are bound to state clearly
and openly which of them they do hold. This, however, has not
been done by the prosecutors or their counsel, and hence those who
honestly meet and try to solve the greatest of human difficulties
are attacked and threatened with legal penalties by those who
evade it altogether, and therefore do not give any real grounds to
justify their condemnation. For the moment the attempt has
been defeated by the heroism and eloquence of Mr. Bradlaugh and
Mrs. Besant, and the heart of every true friend of the people is
with them, and with Mr. Truelove, in their steadfast defence of
the population doctrines and the liberty of the Press—one of the
greatest services ever done in any country to the poor and to
humanity at large.
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
Hs>w long is war with its countless list of horrors and miseries to
continue among us? Every one must feel that war is an appalling
evil and blot on civilisation, and must earnestly desire that means
<fould be taken to put an end to it. War is lawlessness ; it is an
appeal to might instead of right, in which parties decide their own
quarrels by force of arms, instead of submitting them to an im
partial tribunal to be decided according to reason and justice ; and
hence it is utterly opposed to civilisation, which seeks to bring all
actions under the dominion of law. War stands out alone, as an
exception and a fearful remnant of barbarism in the midst of
modern civilised life. But war is not merely lawlessness, it is
murder. We can see this from the parallel case of duelling, which
absolutely prohibited and treated as murder by the law of
England. “ According to the law of England,” said Sir John
Holker, in a recent trial, “ a man who kills another in a duel is
a murderer and liable to be hanged.” No matter what the merits
of the quarrel may have been, whether a man be aggrieved or
aggressor, if he fights a duel and kills his opponent he is punished
by the law as a murderer. But if duelling be murder, what else
is war ? War is simply duelling on a vast scale, and with this
aggravation, that the crime of robbery, in the shape of annexations,
indemnities, and other kinds of pillage, is usually added to that of
murder. Moreover, in duelling the principals fight their own
battles, and an attempt is made to put them, as far as possible, on
a footing of equality ; whereas in war, the rulers who give the
command for it do not usually themselves fight, and every advan
tage is taken of superiority in number, skill, and military resources
between the combatants. Is it not monstrous that now, after all
the progress in humanity, one nation is allowed to attack another,
perhaps a much weaker nation, to kill the people and seize their
land and their goods ? How can the people of England, who
have shown their respect for law and for human life in putting
down the duel, tolerate war ?
Few of the great movements of the age are of such extra
ordinary importance as that for the suppression of war. The
most noble efforts have been made of late years for this end by
Mr. Bright, M. Victor Hugo, Mr. Henry Richard, Mr. Bradlaugh
gnd others, and the Peace Societies in England already number
Several hundred thousand members. Various plans have also been
put forward for superseding war and supplying its place by inter
�10
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
national arbitration, and these plans cannot be too carefully con
sidered and discussed ; for it is not merely by the general advance
of commerce and enlightenment and the growing abhorrence of
war among thinking minds, but also, and above all, by the adoption
in time of peace of active practical measures to prevent war, that
we shall ever be able to free human society from this terrible and
immemorial evil.
The more deeply the subject is reflected on, the more clearly I
think will it be seen that the real cause of wars is the want of a
supreme and irresistible authority, which could force the nations to
conform to law in their dealings with one another and to settle
their disputes by peaceable arbitration. The only effectual remedy
for war, as has been well pointed out, is the introduction of law
—or in other words, of positive rules of conduct, applied by a
court of justice, and enforced by a competent authority—into the
mutual intercourse of nations. At present international relations
are in an essentially lawless state; there is no code of laws govern
ing nations like that which governs individuals ; for what is called
“ international or public law ” or “ the law of nations,’’ as all
writers on the subject admit, is not really law at all, in the legal
sense of the word, but merely custom or usage, or else engagement
by treaty. Nations may disregard these customs, or break their
treaties in particular instances, if they choose to incur the risk of
so doing, and they have what is called the “right of making war ”
on one another and deciding their quarrels by violent means—a
right whichis utterly subversive of the very idea of law. The essence
of law is the compulsory adjudication of disputes by an impartial
tribunal, and if parties are allowed to dispense with a tribunal
altogether and settle their differences for themselves by the sword,
it is evident that law doesnot exist between them. But wherever,
in any department of human affairs, law is absent, or cannot be
enforced from weakness of the executive, the most fatal conse
quences are sure to arise. Thus in the Middle Ages, before govern
ments were strong enough to coerce the barons and feudal chiefs,
private wars between them as well as national contests were so
common that, as Mr. Buckle says, “ there was never a week with
out war.” Even in our own day, when opinion is so much more
advanced, if there were no laws regulating the succession to pro
perty, the fulfilment of contracts, &c., and if people were allowed
to fight for their rights instead of having them determined by a
court of justice, society would be a scene of continual bloodshed
and confusion. War is the natural and inevitable result of the
present lawless state of international relations, and the one and
only remedy for it is to extend to nations, as well as individuals,
the inestimable benefits of law. But how is this to be done ? If
we examine the matter attentively we shall find that the element
which is wanting to constitute a true legal system between nations,
is a supreme authority with adequate executive force. There
exists already a code of rules or usages commonly called inter-
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
11
Rational law, which has gradually become better defined and more
binding, as well as juster and more humane, in the course of
ages ; an international tribunal could be established, consisting
of judges skilled in public law, and chosen from the different
States ; but the grand difficulty to be overcome is the want of a
supreme authority, to approve and, when necessary, add to the
code, and strong enough to compel the nations, however powerful,
to carry their disputes before the tribunal and abide by its de
cisions. It is a sanction, or enforcing authority, of this kind that
the international code really needs. “ The independent societies
of men, called States,” says Mr. Wheaton, in his work on Inter
national Law, “ acknowledge no common arbiter or judge, except
such as are constituted by special compact. The law by which
they are governed, or profess to be governed, is deficient in those
positive sanctions which are annexed to the municipal code of
each distinct society.” If there were such sanctions, war between
nations could be crushed out with the same certainty and com
pleteness as the civil wars between the feudal nobles have been
extinguished by the growing power of the law courts. The
question, How is war to be suppressed, seems to me, therefore, to
tasolve itself mainly into this other question—How is a sufficient
Sanction, or executive authority, to be obtained for the law of
nations ?
We may now turn to the various practical proposals which have
been brought forward with a view to the prevention of war, and
of which the most important seem to be the following : a general
reduction of armaments ,* a confederation of States, and international
armies. The first of these would be an immense boon if it could
be obtained, as it would lighten an intolerable burden on the
nations, and also make war less probable, since governments would
no longer be so fully prepared for it. But there are evidently
most formidable difficulties in the way of carrying out this pro
posal. The disarmament would need to be general, for if any of
the great Powers refused to reduce their forces, it would be dan
gerous for others to do so ; and some governments would be
particularly averse to disarm, either from unwillingness’ to give
up cherished schemes of ambition or revenge or from the vast
size of their dominions and fear of disaffection among their sub
jects. But even if these difficulties were overcome, disarmament
Would be only a palliative, and not a cure for present evils. It
Would still leave arbitration optional, whereas the object to be
aimed at is that it should be compulsory, or, in other words, that
law should be introduced in international affairs. “We hold,”
says Professor Cliffe Leslie, “ that only a law of nations in the
* A resolution in favour of a general disarmament by the European States
was proposed in Parliament by Mr. Cobden in 1849, and again recently in
1880 by Mr. Henry Richard. The latter also, in 1878, moved a resolution,
which was adopted by the House of Commons, in favour of the arbitration
of international disputes.
�12
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
strict sense of the term, can terminate war.” Without law, there
is not only no guarantee for peace, but no provision for securing
justice, between nations. Disputes between nations, as between
individuals, arise on questions of contested right, or in conse
quence of injuries received ; and if one party refuses to arbitrate,
the other must either tamely submit to what it considers an
injustice, or go to war to enforce its rights. But war, like the
barbarous “ trial by combat ’’ in use among our ancestors, can
never be a proper test of justice or of right, for a war does not
show which cause is just, but only which of the combatants is the
stronger. So long, therefore, as Governments may refuse arbi
tration and may go to war, injustice and lawless force are the final
umpires in international disputes, and this must have a profoundly
demoralising effect on mankind and their rulers. In order to have
either peace or justice it is necessary to introduce law, which would
compel arbitration, and secure, even to the weakest among the
nations, its rights and redress for its injuries. This, too, is the
only sure means for bringing about a disarmament, for the real
cause of the enormous armies (amounting at present in Europe
alone to about ten millions of men) is the state of general inse
curity and licence arising from the absence of law. As there is
no law to protect or restrain them, nations arm partly to protect
themselves and partly to carry out secret projects of conquest
and aggrandisement; and we can scarcely hope to see any satis
factory reduction of armaments till there is a real and effective
international law.
How, then, can such a law be obtained? We have seen that
what is mainly needed for this purpose is a supreme authority,
with adequate executive force to give effect to the present inter
national code, which, as Mr. Cliffe Leslie observes, has the features
of law “in its inchoate or rudimentary form.” Now there is
evidently only one way in which an authority of the kind can be
established, namely, by means of a combination between different
States. Nothing but the combined strength of many States can
force single States to obey the law and to keep the peace. The
real sanction of the law between individual and individual is the
general community of individuals, and in like manner the sanction
of the law between nation and nation can only be the com
munity of nations. It seems to me the clearest and most urgent
duty of nations to take measures for introducing positive law
between them and putting an end to war. Until provision can
be made for the legal settlement of international disputes, the
responsibility for war with all its horrors rests in great part on
the nations generally ; and this leads to the utmost confusion of
ideas with regard to the criminality of war. One. of the most
frightful of crimes is not generally seen to be a crime at all.
Thus at present wars are commonly divided into just and unjust,
because, in the absence of law, it is sometimes necessary, and
even an act of the most heroic virtue in a nation to fight for its
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
13
rights and liberties; but if law were once firmly established,
and means of legal arbitration afforded, war would simply be a
crime, to be repressed and its chief authors punished, as in the
case of other heinous offences. There would then be only one
kind of lawful and justifiable war, namely, that which is analogous
to the action of the police, and consists in putting down by force
any resistance to the orders of the supreme authority. . Not only
can and ought the nations thus to put down war as a crime, but it
is their most vital interest to do so. At present any nation is
liable at some time or other to be involved in war, and even
neutrals during a war often suffer most severely ; for their.com
merce and communications are interrupted by blockades, sieges,
and other military operations ; and, besides, war has a great ten
dency to spread, and the best efforts on the part of neutral States
are often unavailing to prevent their being dragged into it. Why
should neutrals submit to these fearful evils and dangers at
the hands of belligerents, who are morally bound to arbitrate
their disputes, and are therefore committing a crime in going to
war?
These considerations are so immensely important that they
■lust, I believe, before long lead to a combination among civilised
States for the purpose of preventing war. But States may com
bine in different ways, either by alliance or by a more or less inti
mate confederation ; and the great difficulty of the question is to
decide which kind of combination is at once suited to effect the
object in view and also capable of adoption by existing States.
^Professor Seeley, in a lecture delivered before the Peace Society,
Bias held that nothing short of a close federal union, like that sub
sisting between the States of North America, who are all under a
common government, would be sufficient; and a similar view seems
to be taken by those who advocate, as a remedy for war, the for
mation of what they term “ the United States of Europe.” It
geems to me, however, that so vast a change as this is neither
©raoticable nor necessary, and that the form of union to be aimed
at is one which, while binding the nations very strongly together,
would interfere as little as possible with the sovereignty and inde
pendence of each. This could best be done, in my opinion, by
means of an alliance, with mixed or international armies; a proposal
which was brought forward some time ago by Mr. G-lasse, in the
columns of the National Reformer, and to which I had myself
independently been led on thinking on the subject. The means
which I would venture to suggest as best adapted for the pre ven
tton of war are the following :—-That two or more nations should
enter into a close alliance together, unite their armies, and invite
other nations to join them, with the declared intention of arbi
trating their own disputes in future, and also of putting an end to
war throughout the world and compelling all disputes to be settled
by peaceable arbitration, as soon as the alliance was strong enough
to effect this. The object of such a league would be to sanction
�14
CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED ?
and enforce international law, and compel all disputes between
nations to be settled by it, and not by war; and if only two or
three powerful States were thus to ally themselves, it would pro
bably be sufficient in great measure to effect the object, since the
alliance could often prevent a war by threatening, in the event of
a quarrel between two States, to assist in hostilities against either
party which acted illegally—or, in other words, which either re
fused to arbitrate, or, having arbitrated, refused to submit to the
judgment of the tribunal. It is to be hoped, however, that in time
all civilised nations would join the alliance, so that it would
become irresistible, and that single States would as little dare to
defy its authority as individuals now think of setting themselves
against the civil powers. In this manner war would not merely be
suppressed, if it occurred, but, what is infinitely more desirable,
would be entirely prevented from occurring.
A league of the kind here suggested would bind the nations
very firmly together by uniting their armies, and yet would not, as
it appears to me, interfere materially with their existing rights of
sovereignty and independence. One part of the mixed forces
could be kept in each country, and would be subject to the national
government, as armies now are ; while in all operations external to
the country the troops would be under the joint command of the
allied powers, and would never be used except against those who
refused to settle their differences in a legal and peaceable manner.
This, I submit, is the only true function of an army—namely, to
defend and enforce the law, and not merely, as hitherto, to carry
out the arbitrary will of individual governments. An army should
be the guardians of international law, as the police are the guardians
of the municipal law. Like the police, too, an army should be
strictly impartial, having nothing to do either with the merits of
quarrels or with the parties concerned in them. It should be as
culpable for a soldier to show partiality to his own country, at the
expense of international law, as for a policeman illegally to favour
his personal friends. This impartiality, so indispensable in all
officers of the law, would, I think, be best secured by having
armies of mixed nationality. Another great advantage of the
league would be that the allies could, if they pleased, at onep
reduce their forces, without waiting for other nations to do the
same, and without dangerously diminishing their strength ; for
they would be able to draw upon the combined armies and re-*
sources of two or more countries, instead of one only, for their
protection against foreign or domestic foes. It appears to me that
in this manner, or by some similar means, a sufficient executive
authority could be obtaiued for the international code ; while any
difficult question that might arise, or amendment that might be
needed in the code itself, could be discussed and settled, as is now
the practice, by conferences or congresses between the different
States.
The extension of law to nations as well as individuals, and th®
�CAN WAR BE SUPPRESSED?
15
abolition of the barbarous “ right of making war,” seem to me
beyond all comparison the greatest improvements which could be
effected in international politics, and would be a glorious triumph
of statesmanship. If statesmen of different countries, and among
them Mr. Gladstone, who has already done so much for the cause
of international arbitration, and who speaks in one of his works of
“ the rising hopes of a true public law for Christendom,” could do
something towards the realisation of these hopes, it would be a
priceless boon to a world sick of war and bloodshed, and longing
for the advent of a new era of settled peace, law, and real brother
hood among mankind.
[The momentous change in our Constitution which has lately
been proposed—the setting up, namely, of a Parliament in Ireland,
separate from that of Great Britain—is a change in the opposite
direction to those suggested above, and would, I cannot but think,
be a calamity and great danger to both countries from the clashing
of the legislative wills. It seems to me that the object of re
formers, all over the world, should be to strengthen and not to
relax the legal ties which now bind nations together. Why not
rather do our utmost to conciliate the Irish people and to satisfy
their legitimate aspirations, while at the same time enforcing
obedience to law and maintaining inviolate the Union ? a union
which has been the source of incalculable benefits to England and
Scotland, and also, I am firmly persuaded, to Ireland itself, in spite
of the confiscations and hateful penal laws of bygone ages.]
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES,
Of all the doctrines recently brought forward in medicine, none
seems to me so extremely important as that which has been gain
ing ground with regard to infectious fevers, and has been earnestly
urged by the highest medical authorities, in particular by Sir
James Simpson and Sir Thomas Watson. I allude to the momentous
and startling doctrine that by taking proper measures to prevent
them, all the purely infectious or contagious febrile diseases might
be, and ought to be, completely and finally extirpated. The diseases
in question have more and more occupied the attention of Parlia
ment and sanitary reformers of late years, and were a leading sub •
ject of discussion at the International Medical Congress held a few
years ago in London. They form a peculiar class of affections,
having the following very remarkable characters in common.
They are fevers of a specific kind, most of them attended with an
eruption on the skin ; they are propagated by infection from one
person to another, usually by breathing the exhalations from the
sick, and they occur, as a rule, only once in a lifetime. In all of
them the minute poison which communicates the disease is im
mensely multiplied in the body of the patient, and as in this and
some other points the fevers have a resemblance to the action of
a ferment, they are often called zymotic, or fermentation-like
diseases.
The late Sir Thomas Watson, in an article on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease,” which was published in the Nineteenth Cen
tury lieview, for May, 1877, and has since been re-issued with
others in a separate form, expresses his firm belief, that these
diseases “ might be finally banished from this island,” and ob
serves, that with regard to them, “it is of vast importance that
the public, no less than the medical profession, should have the
fullest attainable knowledge.” He thus enumerates the diseases to
which he refers :—“ They are not numerous,” he says, “ these
zymotic diseases. There are not more than nine or ten of them.
Small-pox, chicken-pox, typhus fever, typhoid or enteric fever,
scarlet fever, the plague, measles, hooping-cough, mumps—these
belong to, and, I think, constitute, the group of diseases now to
be considered.” Two of the number, chicken-pox and mumps
are slight affections, but the others are among the most ter
rible and fatal maladies that afflict the human race. If we
think of the prodigious amount of suffering and death these
diseases have caused and are causing yearly—the millions they
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOJS DISI A.SES.
17
have slain, and the panic they spread around them, the danger
which a person affected with one of them becomes to his fellow
features, and the broken constitutions and disfigurements they so
often leave behind even when they spare life, we can form an idea
of the immense and incalculable blessing which their extinction
Would be to mankind.
The great fact which warrants us in believing that these
diseases might be entirely extirpated, or “ stamped out,” is, that
whatever their primary origin in past ages may have been, they
never norv-a-days arise spontaneously, but are invariably propagated
ig infection. They are not merely infectious diseases, but have no
other source than infection. “ They are communicated from
person to person by contagion,” says Sir Thomas Watson, “and,
a® I venture to maintain, arise in no other way ; and this quality,
with their non-recurrence, forms the key to their supreme in
terest.” Small-pox, for example, never arises except by contagion
from a pre-existing case of small-pox, measles from a pre-existing
case of measles, scarlet fever from scarlet fever, and so on with the
rest. Moreover, they always, to use a common expression, “breed
tea®/* propagating their own kind, and no other, and maintaining
their characteristic type and features unchanged from generation
to generation. Thus measles always breeds measles, and never
scarlet fever or hooping-cough ; typhus breeds typhus, and never
typhoid fever; and each disease runs the same course in the
present day, has the same average duration, and presents the same
symptoms as it did when first clearly described by the earlier
physicians. In the above respects the infectious fevers bear a close
and most, striking resemblance to the different species of plants and
animals. We do not know how these species at first came into
existence (though we believe them to have been gradually deve
loped from lower forms), but we know that at the present day the
individuals belonging to each species always descend from parents
like themselves, and never spring up spontaneously. We know,
top, that they propagate their own kind and no other ; and that,
although admitting of some modifications, they adhere tenaciously
through the ages to their distinctive form and characters. From
their remarkable resemblance to species in these respects, the
infectious fevers are often called specific diseases ; that is, diseases
which are Like species in their constant characters, and in the fact
that they never originate spontaneously.
Sow it follows as a necessary consequence from this single and
definite mode of origin, that both the infectious fevers and the
different species of plants and animals are liable to extinction if
certain conditions be fulfilled. As they never arise in any other
way than by continuous succession, the fevers from diseases like
tbemgelves, and the plants and animals from parents like them
selves, if the line of descent be entirely broken through at any
time, the race perishes and can never re-appear. Many animal and
vegetable species have thus perished in the world’s history, as the
B
�18
THE EXTINCTION OB' INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
geological records show us, and some races hurtful to man have
been intentionally exterminated over large tracts of country, as,
for instance, wolves have been exterminated in England. In order
to extirpate a living species all that is needed is to destroy at any
given time every individual belonging to it ; and, in like manner,
to extirpate a form of infectious fever, it would be sufficient that
every existing case of it should be prevented from spreading to
others; if this can once, and once only, be accomplished, the
species, or the fever, ■will become permanently extinct. We see,
therefore, that as regards their preventibility, no less than their
mode of origin, the contagious fevers are a peculiar class of dis
orders, separated by a broad line of demarcation from others.
They are often called “ the most preventible of diseases/’ but the
truth is, that their preventibility is of a very different kind from
that of other affections. They are not merely preventible, in the
ordinary sense of the word, but extinguishable, or abolishable
diseases. Other diseases cannot be extinguished, and for this
reason, that we cannot destroy the causes that produce them. We
can only avoid their causes by the exercise of constant care and
vigilance, and if our efforts were relaxed at any time, the diseases
would appear again ; but in regard to the contagious fevers, as
they never arise but from other fevers of a similar kind, it is pos
sible to destroy the only causes known to be capable of producing
them. Thus, if every existing case of small-pox, typhus, scarlet
fever, and the rest, could be prevented from propagating itself to
others, these fevers would be definitively extirpated, and no im
prudence on the part of mankind, nor any other circumstance, so
far as we have reason to believe, could ever revive them. They
would then be extinct forms of disease, like the extinct species of
plants and animals, and only the memory of them would remain
to posterity.
The two assertions here made—that the infectious fevers have no
other source than infection, and that therefore, unlike other dis
eases, they might be finally extirpated—are among the most mo
mentous conclusions ever brought forward by science, and should
be thoroughly known to every one. The first of them is the
foundation of the other, and has a bearing on human health and
happiness whose importance cannot be exaggerated. If it be true
that these diseases have no other source than infection, then we
may hope by vigorous sanitary measures to stamp them out com
pletely, so that no further anxiety on their account would ever
afterwards be needed ; but if, on the other hand, besides being
infectious, they can also arise spontaneously, or de novo, as it is
often expressed (that is, from any other cause than infection), not
only would their prevention be far more difficult, since we should
have to guard against two or more modes of origin instead of one,
but we could never hope permanently to extinguish them. The
great question, therefore, is—Have these diseases no other cause
than infection ? This is a point on which the present medical
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
19
opinion has been slowly and gradually arrived at. In former times
the infectious fevers were very commonly confounded together,
and their mode of origin was not clearly understood, but they
were often supposed to be due to some unknown atmospheric
influence ; as may be seen from the fact that even in the seven
teenth century the celebrated Sydenham, who was the first to
draw the distinction between small-pox and measles, did not know
that small-pox is infectious. Afterwards their infectiousness
became recognised, but it was thought that they might also pro
ceed from other causes ; and lastly, increasing experience and
careful observation and reasoning, especially since the publication
of Dr. Bancroft’s essay in 1811, have led to the modern view that
they never in any single instance arise but from infection. This
is now the prevalent medical doctrine on the subject, and with
regard to many of the diseases above enumerated it is rarely, if
ever, disputed.
Thus Sir Thomas Watson says: “ As life springs only from
preceding life—as, according to the verdict of exact scientific
experiment, there is no such thing as spontaneous generation, so,
under similar testimony, there is, now-a-days at least, no spon
taneous origin of any of these specific disorders.” In like manner,
in a “ Proposal to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious
Diseases,” published in the Medical Times and Gazette for January
4th and 11th. 1868, the late Sir James Simpson says, speaking of
small-pox: “We would no more expect this known species of
disease or poison to originate de novo at the present day, under
any combination of circumstances, than we would expect a known
species of animal or plant—as a dog or a hawthorn--to spring up
de novo and without antecedent parentage.” Dr. Aitken, also, in
his “Science and Practice of Medicine,” 7th edition, 1880, says,
in discussing the origin of scarlet fever: “ On this point Dr.
Ballard writes most distinctly (and with him I fully agree) that
‘ thus much is certain, it does not arise spontaneously—no disease
of its class ever does.’ ”
The most convincing argument against the spontaneous origin
of any of these diseases is the great length of time during which
they may be entirely absent from a district, a country, or even a
whole continent, until they are introduced from some external
source. Indeed, the contagious fevers, like the animal and
vegetable species, seem at first to have arisen in certain parts of
the world only, and thence to have gradually spread to others,
with the progress of human intercourse and the increased facilities
of communication, so that in most countries they are not indigenous
but imported diseases. Sir Thomas Watson observes that small
pox, though existing from remote antiquity in China and Hin
dustan, “does not appear to have been known in Europe till the
beginning of the eighth century,” and that “ there was no small
pox in the New World before its discovery by Columbus in 1492,
In 1517 the disease was imported into St. Domingo. Three years
b 2
�20
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
later, in. one ot the Spanish expeditions from Cuba to Mexico, a
negro covered with the pustules of small-pox was landed on the
Mexican coast. From him the disease spread with such desolation
that within a very short time, according to Robertson, three
millions and a half of people were destroyed in that kingdom
alone.” As to scarlet fever, Dr. Aitken says that “ the earliest
source of the poison is distinctly traceable to Arabia,” and adds
that “ measles was first noticed at the same time and in the same
country as scarlet fever, and the two diseases have subsequently
followed nearly the same course. They now prevail all over the
world.” Of hooping-cough -(which is not, like the others, afever)
he says that “ its origin is not beyond 1510, when it was endemic
in Paris ; but its epidemic character was not determined till 1580.
That most fatal of all epidemic maladies, the plague, had til'/
within the last forty years its chief home in Egypt and other
countries bordering on the Levant, from which it repeatedly
spread to different parts of Europe, committing fearful ravages.
In the middle of the fourteenth century it is computed to have
carried off, under the name of the “ Black Death,” from a fourth
to a third of all the inhabitants of Europe ; and in 16G5, the date
of its last appearence in our country, the “ Great Plague of
London” was fatal to 68,596 persons out of a population amount
ing at the time to about half a million. The prolonged absence
of a contagious fever is best seen in islands, and isolated places on
the mainland, to which infection is less readily carried ; and
among many remarkable instances of ths kind on record, there is
one which has often been cited in the recent history of measles.
There was no measles in the Faroe group of islands on the north
of Scotland, for sixty-five years previous to 1846, at which date
it was imported into them by a man affected with the disease.
It spread from him with vast rapidity (as usually happens when
measles or small-pox is introduced among a population, few or
none of whom are protected by having had it before), so that
within six months, out of the 7,782 inhabitants of the islands,
more than 6,000, old and young alike, suffered from the com
plaint.
Now, if any of these contagious fevers were capable of arising
spontaneously, why did they not show themselves during the
long periods just referred to? Why was there no small-pox in
Europe till the eighth or in America till the sixteenth century ?
Why has the plague been unknown in England since 1665, or,
since 1844, even in Egypt, which was formerly looked upon as
its peculiar home? Why was measles entirely absent from the
Faroe islands between 1781 and 1846? It cannot be said
that surrounding circumstances were unfavourable—on the con
trary, as events proved in regard to measles and small-pox, they
were extremely favourable to the existence and propagation of the
diseases. Why, then, did the latter not make their appearance ?
The answer evidently is, that they did not appear because there
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
21
was no antecedent case present to produce them by infection, and
these diseases are as little capable of arising from any other cause
than injection as a plant can spring up except from a seed, or an
animal except from an egg.
I The argument against the spontaneous origin of the infectious
fevers, drawn from the great length of time during which they
®»ny be absent from particular countries or localities, until intro
duced from an external source, is so convincing that, when taken
®fong with the results of daily experience, it has led to a very
general agreement among medical men with regard to many of
these diseases. Thus, of the six principal kinds of infectious
fever now existing among us—namely, small-pox, measles, scarlet
fever, hooping-cough, typhusfever, and typhoid or entericfever'—the
first four are almost universally admitted never to arise spon
taneously at the present day, but to be propagated solely by
infection. On this point I may quote, in addition to the high
authorities already given, the opinion of Dr. Karl Liebermeister,
who says, in his introductory essay on Infectious Diseases, in
Stanssen’s “Cyclopaedia of the Practice of Medicine” (1875):
“ The spontaneous origin of small-pox, measles, and scarlet fever
could scarcely find a defender now.” Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson
observes also, in his article on Constitutional Syphilis, in Reynolds’
** System of Medicine
“ Like small-pox, scarlet fever, measles,
and the others in this group, syphilis is communicable from the
diseased to the healthy, and can be produced by no other means.”
One of the few who still advocate the doctrine of a spontaneous
origin is Dr. Charlton Bastian ; but he admits nevertheless, in
•peaking of “ hooping-cough, measles, scarlet fever, and small“ the knowledge we possess concerning the mode of
origin of these, otherwise than by infection, is almost nil."
With regard, however, to the origin of the two remaining
fevers, typhus and typhoid, and especially the latter, there is, un
fortunately, not yet the same general agreement; and as these
fevers are exceedingly important from their frequency and
fatality, they deserve particular attention. In their outward
appearance the two diseases are very much alike, being long
continued fevers, with obscure, though different eruptions, and
attended with great prostration and delirium—typhus lasting from
two to three weeks, and typhoid fever about a week longer.
Owing to their external resemblance, they were always confounded
together till within the last thirty or forty years, and were thought
to be merely modifications of the same disease, as other fevers
had been previously ; but the labours of several eminent observers,
among whom Sir William Jenner holds a conspicuous place, have
shown them to be quite distinct. In the Registrar-General’s
Imports of the causes of death in England they were first sepa
rated in 1869. The chief difference in their symptoms is, that in
typhoid fever there is always present an inflammation and ulcera
tion of some of the intestinal glands, accompanied by a peculiar
�22
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
and copious diarrhoea lasting for several days, which intestinal
affection is not found in typhus. For this reason, and also to
avoid the confusion arising from the similarity of the namM
typhus and typhoid, the latter disease is now more suitably called
enteric, that is, intestinal fever.
But the difference between the two diseases which is most
important with a view to their prevention is in the mode of their
infectiousness. Typhus fever, like small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and hooping-cough, is propagated directly from person to
person by breathing the air which surrounds the sick; but enteric
or typhoid fever is very little, if at all, communicable in this way.
It is spread, as it were, in an indirect manner by means of the dis
charges from the bowels, not in their fresh state, but some time
after they have left the body of the patient, and when they are in
the form of sewage, undergoing decomposition or putrefaction.
These discharges, by oozing from drains or cesspools, find their way
through the soil into the drinking water, and are swallowed, or else
the effluvia rising from them are inhaled, and thus the disease is
communicated. Another terrible epidemic disease, Asiatic cholera,
is also held, on carefully considered grounds, to be propagated
mainly in this indirect manner by means of the decomposing bowel
discharges of the sick. From the obscurity attending its mode of
propagation, the infectiousness of typhoid fever, as of cholera, was
long doubted or denied, and is difficult to trace in large towns,
where the houses are connected together by a network of drains ;
but in country places it is much more evident. Cases have again
and again been observed in which typhoid fever has been imported
by persons affected with it into country villages where it had not
previously been known for years, perhaps not within human
memory, and the disease has spread from them as from a centre—
facts which conclusively demonstrate its infectious nature.
Few, if any, now deny that typhoid fever is infectious ; but the
question has of late years been repeatedly debated, whether infec
tion is its only cause, or whether it can also arise spontaneously or
de novo, that is to say, from any other cause than infection ? Dr.
William Budd has urged with particular force and ability the
former doctrine, and his conclusions have been very widely accepted
among the medical profession. He holds the view just explained,
that typhoid fever is usually due to poisoning by sewage, but
that, whenever sewage acts in this virulent and deadly manner,
the reason is that it contains the stools of typhoid patients.
Ordinary sewage not containing typhoid stools has, he contendsf
no power whatever to produce the disease. On the other hand,
the doctrine that typhoid fever is sometimes generated spon
taneously has been advocated by the late Dr. Charles Murchison, in
an elaborate and most valuable work on “ The Continued Fevers of
Great Britain” (2nd ed., 1873). Dr. Murchison gives numerous
cases showing that typhoid fever is communicable from the sick to
the healthy—a conclusion which, he says, “with such facts before
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
23
us, it is impossible to deny but he also holds that the disease is
BOmetimes produced afresh by a poison derived from ordinary
sewage not containing any admixture of typhoid stools. He says :
“It may be generated independently of a previous case by the fer
mentation of fsecal and, perhaps, other organic matter and this
is an opinion which is shared by many other medical men. Accord
ing to Dr. Murchison, moreover, the poison of typhus fever, a
highly and unmistakeably infectious disease, is sometimes “genefated de novo in the exhalations of living human beings, by over
crowding and bad ventilation,” especially in circumstances of great
poverty, dirt, and insufficiency of food ; but this view has, I think,
met with comparatively few supporters in this country.
In his article in the Nineteenth Century, Sir Thomas Watson
vigorously combats Dr. Murchison’s views on these two points,
and endeavours to show that neither typhus nor typhoid fever
has ever any other source than infection. The extreme importance
of this question can be readily understood. Our power to prevent
a disease depends on our knowledge of its cause, and it seems to
me that the question whether infectious disorders can also arise
spontaneously is in reality the most important of all questions
Relating to the causation of disease, from the vast practical conse
quences involved in it. In all efforts to prevent and eradicate
infectious diseases, the question of their spontaneous origin presents
itself, and few subjects in medicine have been so long and so
vehemently debated. It was discussed several hundred years ago
With reference to the plague, and within the present century the
controversy has been renewed again and again, not only in regard
to every one of the contagious fevers already enumerated, but also
to many other contagious maladies, among which I may mention
Asiatic cholera, yellow fever, relapsing fever, diphtheria, syphilis,
hydrophobia, glanders, and malignant pustule. The very same
question has been often discussed as regards the principal con
tagious diseases of the domestic animals, namely, rabies, glanders,
anthrax or splenic fever (which produce respectively, when inocu
lated on man, the very fatal affections of hydrophobia, glanders,
and malignant pustule), the cattle plague, pleuro-pneumonia or
infectious lung disease, sheep-pox, swine plague, and foot and
mciith disease. If we take these eight diseases in man, along
With the six infectious fevers prevalent among us, and also the
plague, which still exists in some countries, they form together
fifteen affections of the utmost gravity, besides eight most destruc
tive disorders of the domestic animals, the cause of almost all of
which is held very widely, and of many of them nearly universally,
by the best medical and veterinary authorities, to reside in con
tagion alone, while our hopes of preventing and extinguishing them
are inseparably bound up with the question whether or not they
can also arise spontaneously. If they are propagated by contagion
alone, their prevention is much easier, and their extinction is pos
sible ; but it) unfortunately, they can also arise in other ways,
�24
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
their prevention is far more difficult, and we cannot hope to
extinguish them. A few years ago, Professor Tyndall, as chair
man at a lecture delivered by Dr. Corfield, pointed out the extra
ordinary importance of the doctrine that infectious fevers “ breed
true,” and never arise spontaneously. He said that “ he entirely
agreed with all that the lecturer had stated as to these diseases
‘ breeding true,’ for they never found the virus of small-pox pro
ducing typhoid, or vice versa. The subject was one of the most
important -which could engage the attention of the scientific
physician, for in the whole range of medical art and science there
was not a subject of equal importance. But in applying to daily
practice this question of infectious diseases, the physician must
not stand alone—he ought to be aided by the sympathy of an
enlightened public.” On another occasion Professor Tyndall
quoted on this subject the words of the famous French chemist
and experimenter, M. Pasteur, who says, “ Man has it in his
power to cause parasitic diseases to disappear off the surface of the
globe, if, as we firmly believe, the doctrine of spontaneous genera
tion is a chimera.” The question as to the spontaneous origin of
infectious diseases has been so long under discussion, without being
yet decided, that there must evidently be something very difficult
in its settlement; and as it is a question of such vital interest to
human happiness, I may perhaps be permitted here to refer very
briefly to the arguments which Dr. Murchison brings forward
in favour of the spontaneous origin of typhus and of typhoid
fever.
I may remark, in the first place, that in order to prove an in
fectious disease to be capable also of arising spontaneously, it is
necessary to show one of two things—either that in a certain case
or cases infection cannot be the cause of the disease, or else that
some other influence, such as overcrowding or bad drainage, has
produced it. In other words, it is necessary to prove either the
negative proposition that the disease in some cases does not arise
from infection, or the positive or affirmative proposition that it
does arise from some other given cause.
Now in seeking to establish the first or negative proposition, the
main argument which Dr. Murchison uses is that several cases of
typhus and of typhoid fever, whose circumstances he relates, could
not, on careful enquiry, be traced to any exposure to infection as
their source. There was, he says, “ no evidence of infection ” to
be found in the history of these cases. But this argument, which
has always been the one most strenuously urged in such discussions,
is admitted by Dr. Murchison himself to be quite fallacious in
regard to small-pox. He recognises the well-known fact that in
certain cases of small-pox, as indeed of all infectious disorders, no
evidence of infection can be found, and yet he holds that small
pox never arises spontaneously at the present day. Speaking of
infectious diseases, he says: “ Some of them, such as Variola
(small-pox), are not only extremely contagious, but at the present
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
25
day can nev yr be traced to any other cause than contagion. Whole
continents, such as America and Australia, have remained exempt
from them until they were introduced by an infected person. It
is true that now and then we cannot trace even these diseases to
contagion.” If then the argument is admittedly of no avail to
prove that small-pox can arise spontaneously, why should it be
relied on in other infectious complaints ? How can that be a good
argument for typhus or typhoid fever which is allowed to be a bad
one for small-pox ?
In answer to this obvious question, Dr. Murchison says that
there are mr.ny more cases of typhoid fever than of small-pox
which cannot be traced to contagion. This, however, is probably
to be accounted for by the very obscure and indirect mode of pro
pagation in the former disease, and there is reason to believe that
the number of unexplained cases will diminish as we gain a fuller
knowledge of the different channels or vehicles by which the in
fection may be conveyed.
We can easily see how unreliable is any argument founded
merely on negative grounds like the above when we consider the
extremely subtle and insidious nature of the poisons that give rise
to the infectious fevers. These poisons are invisible, they can be
carried long distances and kept, under favourable circumstances, for
an indefinite time, and moreover they can be communicated, not
only by the patient himself, both during his illness and his conva
lescence, but by everything that has been in his neighbourhood. A
person suffering from an infectious fever exhales constantly into
the air a multitude of extremely minute infectious particles, which
cling tenaciously to all the surrounding objects and persons, and
can be transmitted by them. There are thus three ways in which
these fevers can be communicated: either by the patients, by
tainted or contaminated objects, or by tainted persons ; the tainted
objects, or “ fomites,” as they are often called, acting simply as
©atriers of the poison, while the “tainted” or “suspected” persons
act not only in this way, but also as themselves perhaps infected
with the disease and already suffering from it in its latent or incu
bative stage. When we add to this that the little infectious
particles can be transported to a great distance in clothing, bedding,
furniture or other goods, drinking water, milk, etc., as well as by
persons, and that if kept from the air or dried, they may long
retain their virulent properties—a cloak, for instance, having been
known to give scarlet fever after being laid by for eighteen months,
and the poison of anthrax or the splenic fever of cattle having
been found active after keeping for four years—we can understand
how little warrant there is for inferring positively from the mere
fact that we cannot trace infection in a particular case that there
fore infection does not exist. The argument would be wellfounded if the case were a solitary one, and occurred in an island
or other locality having no communication whatever with adjacent
parts; but in a populous country where there are always many
�26
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
other cases of the same disease to he found, and where more or
less intercourse takes place, even with the remotest districts, it is
rarely possible to exclude entirely the chance of infection, and
unless this can be done the reasoning is evidently inconclusive.
In seeking to prove that typhus and typhoid fever, besides
being infectious, can arise spontaneously or de novo, Dr. Murchison
relies not only on the negative evidence afforded by our inability
to trace infection in particular cases of these diseases. He holds
that there is also positive evidence to show that typhus fever may
be produced by overcrowding and deficient ventilation, especially
among squalid, dirty, and ill-fed persons ; and that typhoid fever
is sometimes generated, independently of infection, by the fer
mentation of sewage and perhaps other organic matters. The
third kind of infectious disease described in his very able work
on “ The Continued Fevers of Great Britain ” is relapsing fever
(a less dangerous affection, always attended by a relapse, and
occurring from time to time in epidemics, especially in Ireland);
and this disease also he holds to be sometimes generated afresh by
famine or prolonged scarcity of wholesome and nutritious food.
The reason which he gives is that in cases where infection could
not be traced, the above influences were present, and appear to
him to have produced the diseases.
Now the causes here assigned by Dr. Murchison are the very
ones which have at all times been popularly believed to have a
power of breeding infectious fevers. Overcrowding and bad ven
tilation, dirt and squalor, the concentrated exhalations of numerous
uncleanly human beings pent up together in close and ill-smelling
rooms, prisons, or ships ; the foul effluvia rising from sewers and
cesspools, from graveyards, and other collections of putrefying
animal or vegetable substances; war, with its sieges and battle
fields. and its multitudes of unburied bodies polluting the air and
the water; and famine with its wasted victims—to these causes,
either singly or combined, it has been usual to attribute outbreaks,
not only of typhus and typhoid, but of nearly every other kind
of infectious fever, including the plague, scarlet fever, and small
pox. Even the best medical authorities commonly held such
views before the publication, in 1811, of Dr. Bancroft’s invaluable
work treating on febrile contagion. “Most writers on the subject
of contagious fever,” says Dr. Bancroft, “ have either inculcated
or believed that it might be generated—first, by an accumulation
of those disgusting matters commonly denominated filth ; secondly,
by the offensive vapours emitted by corrupting dead bodies, or by
other matters in a putrid state ; and, thirdly, by crowding persons,
even when healthy, in ill-ventilated and unclean places.” Dr.
Bancroft maintained that, although these causes greatly favour
the diffusion of a contagious fever when once it has been intro
duced by a person suffering from it, yet of themselves they are
utterly unable to generate a single case ; and his reasonings, with
those of others, had so powerful an effect, that this immensely
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
27
important conclusion has been more and more widely received as
the true medical doctrine on the subject. “Never,” says Dr.
Murchison, “ has any work effected a greater revolution in pro
fessional opinion in this country. The doctrine of Bancroft was
generally adopted.” The chief argument used by Dr. Bancroft
was the one to which I have already referred—namely the complete
and prolonged absence of the contagious fevers till introduced by an
infected person, though the other causes alleged to be capable of
producing them are in full operation.
Thus Dr. Bancroft showed that, among the Esquimaux and
Greenlanders, in slave-ships, and in Continental prisons, there was
no typhus, in spite of over-crowding and bad ventilation together
with filth, hunger, and squalor, often in the most aggravated
degree. Typhus fever, it may be remarked, is the disease which
has been popularly known by various names, such as “camp fever,”
“ship fever,” or “gaol fever,” from the frequency with which it
has decimated armies in the field, and used formerly to infest
emigrant ships and the English prisons. Epidemics of typhus
have repeatedly occurred in most parts of Europe, especially when
imported into them by war ; but at ordinary times the disease is
not so widely spread as enteric or typhoid fever, which is a pre
valent affection in almost all countries. Typhus, on the other
hand, has its peculiar abode in some of the large towns of Great
Britain, and, above all, in Ireland, where it has always been fear
fully common and destructive; while in the rural districts of
England, throughout the whole of France, and in many other parts
of the Continent, it is very little known. “ In the country districts
of England,” says Dr.Murchison, “typhus is a rare disease ; almost
all the examples of 1 typhus ’ reported as occurring in small country
towns and villages are really cases of enteric fever.” He says
also : “ The disease is at all times so rare throughout France
that few French physicians have ever seen it;” and adds : “ It is
especially to be noted that in many parts of the Continent of
Europe where typhus never occurs in time of peace, it becomes
epidemic in time of war.” But over-crowding and defective ven
tilation, dirt and privations of all kinds, are exceedingly common
in the rural parts and small towns of England, as well as in France,
and indeed everywhere among the very poor ; and this seems
plainly to show that such causes are not of themselves able to give
rise to typhus fever.
Again, as regards typhoid or enteric fever, that it cannot be
generated merely by the fermentation of ordinary sewage may be
seen from the fact that multitudes of people habitually breathe
air, or drink water polluted by sewage without ever contracting
the disease. In such towns as London, and still more Paris, as Sir
Thomas Watson observes, more or less of sewer air almost always
finds its way into the houses even of the wealthiest classes ; and in
country places, where there are no sewers, the drinking water is very
frequently tainted, from the dangerous practice which prevails of
�28
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
having the pumps or shallow wells in too close proximity to the
privy and cesspit, and allowing the excremental matters to soak
into the soil. The Rivers Pollution Commissioners say in their
report that estimating the town population of Great Britain at
about fifteen millions of people, “ the remaining twelve millions
of country population derive their water almost exclusively from
shallow wells, and these are, so far as our experience extends,
almost always horribly polluted by sewage and by animal matters
of the most disgusting origin.” Yet in many country villages
where such water is used, typhoid fever is entirely absent for
years, till a case is imported which gives rise to a local epidemic
of the disease. An outbreak of the kind in the village of Nunney,
in which seventy-six persons were attacked out of a population of
832, and which was traced to the fact that the bowel-discharges of
a typhoid-fever patient had been allowed to mil gl j with the
drinking water, is thus commented upon by the emir ent authority
on Hygiene, the late Dr. Parkes. “ The case,” he says in his
“ Manual of Practical Hygiene,” seems quite clear—first that the
water caused the disease ; and secondly, that though polluted with
excrement for years, no enteric fever appeared until an imported
case introduced the virus. Positive evidence of this kind seems
conclusive, and I think that we may now safely believe that the
presence of typhoid evacuations in the water is necessary. Com
mon faecal matter may produce diarrhoea, which may perhaps be
febrile, but for the production of enteric fever the specific agent
must be present.” Facts such as these seem to show clearly that
neither typhus nor typhoid fever can be generated by the causes
assigned by Dr. Murchison. How can a disease be said to proceed
from a cause which, in numberless instances, over wide areas and
during long periods of time, though constantly and powerfully
operating never gives rise to a single case of it ?
Whenever a cause is given and known, we can try it in the
above manner, by observing its action at different times and places,
and under a variety of circumstances ; and notone of the numerous
influences supposed to generate the infectious fevers has been able
to withstand this test. Indeed, our belief that these diseases have
no other source than infection is mainly founded on the fact that
every other cause which we see operating around us fails in count
less instances to produce them. But when the cause is not given
or known, and it is merely alleged that some cause, other than in
fection, is capable of generating an infectious fever, we cannot
entirely disprove this assertion, since we do not know all the causes
that may possibly exist in nature. As Mr. Simon observes : “ To
say that a disease is contagious is not to say that it cannot arise
without contagion.” It seems to me to be this difficulty in proving
a negative which has so long prevented the settlement of the con
troversy. We cannot show that the spontaneous origin of the
contagious fevers is impossible, but only that it is not proved, and
that all the evidence adduced in its favour is inconclusive. We
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
29
hold, moreover, that such a mode of origin is not only unproved,
but very improbable ; in the first place, because every known agent
whose effects have been carefully watched seems incapable of
producing them, so that if they really have any other source than
contagion it is an unknown one ; and secondly, because their pro
longed absence from extensive areas where a multitude of causes
under a great variety of conditions are at work, renders it unlikely
that any cause whatever, except contagion, is able to generate
them. With respect to small-pox, which has been absent for cen
turies from whole continents, till introduced by a person suffering
from it, the improbability of its ever originating de novo is so great
as to amount to a practical certainty ; and although the question
as regards typhoid fever is a much more difficult one, yet if we
consider the very significant facts that typhoid fever has no other
known and proved cause than infection, that many of the cases
formerly thought spontaneous have been shown to depend on in
fection conveyed in drinking-water, milk, etc., and also that the
disease is often entirely absent for long periods from country
districts till imported into them, we have strong grounds for be
lieving that typhoid fever has never in reality any other than an
infectious source.
Besides the foregoing arguments, which are the chief ones, Dr.
Murchison brings forward two others, on which I would like to say
a few words, on account of the extreme importance of the ques
tions connected with them. The first is an argument from analogy.
He points out that “ there are certain contagious diseases, such as
erysipelas, pyaemia, and puerperal fever,” which are well known to
be capable also of arising spontaneously or de novo, and infers from
analogy that typhus and typhoid fever can probably do so likewise.
In order to understand what is the force of this argument, it will
be necessary to advert very briefly to the other great leading divi
sion of infectious diseases, the inflammatory and septic group,
with which, as well as with those previously mentioned, it is most
important that the public should be acquainted.
There is a numerous class of diseases— some of them of very
common occurrence, and others terribly fatal—which have the
power of arising, not only from infection, but also independently
of this source, and which, therefore, we can never hope completely
to abolish or extinguish. Among them are purulent ophthalmia,
common catarrhal ophthalmia, gonorrhoea, erysipelas, dissection
wound poisoning, pycemia and septicaemia, puerperal fever, hospital
gangrene or phagedoma, and dysentery. These may be called the
'non-specific, or not purely infectious diseases, in contradistinction
to the specific, or purely infectious disorders, already considered.
I may remark here that the word “specific,” as applied to a disease,
is often used in a different sense from this to signify merely pecu
liar or special, as opposed to common or ordinary ; but of late
years it has been frequently employed in the very important sense
here intended, namely, to signify “like a species.” A specific
�30
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
disease, in the latter sense of the term, is a disease which resembles
a species of plants or animals, in having singularly regular and
unvarying characters, and also more especially in the fact that it
has only one kind of cause—in other words, that it always arises
by infection from another disease like itself, just as the members
of a living species always descend from parents like themselves.
A non-specific infectious disease, on the other hand, can arise from
other sources as well as from infection.
Now. there is this wide difference between the infectious dis
orders belonging to the non-specific class and typhus and typhoid
fever, that, in the former the power of or ginating without infec
tion has been proved, while in the latter, as we have seen, it is not
proved. It has been conclusively shown, partly by the observation
of the sick, and partly by experiments on animals, that all the ten
infectious disorders just enumerated (except the last of them,
dysentery) can be generated by introducing into the blood, or
applying to a mucous surface, the products of ordinary inflam
mation or putrefaction. Recent researches have ascertained the
fact that inflammatory products, such as pus, are all more or less of
a contagious nature, and tend to excite a similar inflammation in
other parts or persons. Thus one of the highest authorities on
infectious diseases, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who investigated the
subject of contagion under the direction of the Privy Council and
their eminent medical officer, Mr. John Simon, says : “ In a certain
sense it has been long familiar that an inflamed part is a focus from
which irritating material is distributed to healthy parts by radia
ting lines of absorption; but it is only of late years that it has
been distinctly seen and recognised clinically that every exudation
liquid of an inflamed part carries more or less with it the pro
perties of an inflammation-producing virus.” In like manner, Mr.
Simon, in one of his Reports to the Privy Council, speaks of the
“ essential contagiousness ” of the inflammat ry process. He says :
“Inflammatory excitement tends to diffuse itself. Within limits,
hitherto not defined, inflammations, both common and specific, are
communicable from part to part and from parson to person.” I
may add the opinion of Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, who says : “ Let
us accept clearly the doctrine, so essential to the explanation of
numerous p ithological phenomena, that all living pus is contagious,
and is capable of producing an inflammation similar to that in
which it originated.” Putrid or septic matters also, such as
ichorous fluids or putrescent pus, are highly p nsonous, and when
introduced into the blood, or absorbed into it from the surface of
a wound, they give rise to the frightfully fatal diseases, pyaemia
ind septicaemia. These affections, together with hospital gangrene,
ire commonly termed the septic diseases, and aie one of the chief
ilaDgers to which patients suffering from wounds are exposed,
whether the wounds have resulted from injuries or from surgical
operations, --bout a third of the deaths after operations in the
Londop 'mspitals being due to pyaemia. Another disease often
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
31
arising from the noxious influence of putrefying substances upon
wounds is erys pelas, which is included by some surgeons among
the septic diseases. Puerperal fever also—that fearful malady
whose real nature was first pointed out by Dr. Robert Ferguson,
and which he describes as “ the most fatal of those peculiar to
women, as seven-eighths of the total mortality in child-birth are
owing to it ”—is essentially a septic disease, consisting of various
forms of pyaemia, sep'icaemia, and internal erysipelas, caused by
absorption into the blood of decomposing matters from the inner
surface of the uterus, which, after delivery, partakes of the charac
ters of a wound.
All the septic diseases are particularly apt to be generated by
the overcrowding of patients suffering from suppurating wounds,
which loads the air with putrescent animal products, and hence
they are sure to be of frequent occurrence in close and ill-venti
lated surgical hospitals. “ Overcrowding of patients after opera
tions,” says Mr. Erichsen, in his “ Science and Art of Surgery,”
“ is one of the most fertile causes of disease and death ; for the
overcrowding of wounded people, whether the wounds be accidental
or surgical, will inevitably produce one of the four septic diseases
—phagedsena, septicaemia, pyaemia, or erysipelas.” When once
produced by such means, they are afterwards propagated by infec
tion from one person to another ; the infection having this pecu
liarity, that it can act only on wounded people, since the poison
apparently cannot affect the system except through a wound.
Hence these diseases belong rather to surgery than to medicine,
and are often called the traumatic or surgical infections. Before
their generation by the overcrowding of the wounded, and their
propagation by infection, were clearly understood, the mortality
from septic disease in civil and military hospitals and in lying-in
institutions was sometimes perfectly appalling. An important
fact, pointed out by Dr. Burdon Sanderson and M. Davaine, and
which help- to explain the generation of these disorders, is that
their virulence is greatly increased by transmission from one animal
to another ; so that from a product at first but slightly contagious
there may be developed, after a few transmissions, a most deadly
poison. Even without any transmission, however, a contagious
poison of the utmost intensity can be rapidly generated, de novo,
by inflammatory and septic processes in the body ; as may be seen
from the fact that an unhealthy inflammation of the peritoneum,
excited by a purely non-infectious cause, such as a surgical opera
tion, may give rise to an effusion of serum and pus so virulent,
that the mere prick of a needle dipped in it is enough to occasion
death by septicaemia. Many medical men have lost their lives by
blood-poisoning from dissection wounds of this nature.
With regard to dysentery—one of the most destructive diseases
of hot climates—its mode of origin is very different from that of
the septic affections. The contagiousness of dysentery has only
been recognised of late years, and seems to be confined to the
�32
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
epidemic form of the disease prevalent in the tropics, while the
scattered cases which occur in this and other temp -rate countries
are not held to be contagious. As in the case of cholera and
t\ phoid fever, the infection is, in all probability, conveyed chiefly
by means of the discharges. The peculiar exciting cause of dysen
tery appears to be a miasma or malaria, generated in hot, swampy
districts, and closely allied to the malaria which gives rise to ague ;
the word miasma or malaria being commonly used to denote a
poisonous matter bred outride the body, while a contayium is one
which breeds and multiplies within the body itself. Since dysen
tery may arise from a miasm as well as from contagion, and since
the inflammatory and sepfic infections can be generated by the
products of ordinary inflammation and putrefaction, it is evident
that we can never hope to abolish these diseases, however greatly
they may be reduced m amount by human skill and energy.
The diseases which can be abolished, and on which above all
others, therefore, the attention of society should be fixed, are the
zymotic diseases, strictly so called. The word zymotic signifies
“ like a fermentation,” and is often employed in a looser sense so
as to include all infectious dise ises, and even some which are not
infectious; but Sir Thomas Watson, in his article on “ The
Abolition of Zymotic Disease,” restricts the term to a certain
group of infectious disorders, consisting of small-pox, scarlet fever,
measles, and others, which in their course and symptoms most
nearly resemble a fermentation. The resemblance between these
maladies and a fermentation, as pointed out by Liebig, is in many
respects very striking. Thus, for example, when a ferment, such
as yeast, is added to a fermentable liquid, there is first a period of
quiescence; then follows a period of disturbance, with rise of
temperature, during which two periods a great multiplication of
the ferment takes place ; next comes a stage of subsidence or
decline; and afterwards there remains an immunity or insuscep
tibility to the further action of that ferment. In like manner,
when the virus of a zymotic disease, such as small-pox or measles,
enters the body, there is first a period of quiescence or incubation ;
then a stage of disturbance, attended with rise of temperature or
fever, an eruption on the skin, and a great multiplication of the
virus or infecting matter ; then a stage of decline or defervescence ;
and, lastly, an immunity from the further action of that contagion.
The stages not only follow one another in regular order, but each
of them lasts a certain time, which varies but little in different
cases of the same disease. There is a large group of infectious
disorders, both in man and the domestic animals, presenting the
remarkable characters here described, and it is these disorders
which are specific, or, in other words, which resemble species in
having only one kind of cause, and in being therefore liable to
extinction. Many of them are admitted almost universally to arise
at the present day from contagion alone, and not one has been
proved to have anv other mode of origin. Op the other hand, the
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
‘Septic and inflammatory group of disorders have not such regular
and unvarying symptoms, and none of them give immunity from
future attacks : and these are the non-specific infectious diseases,
that is to say, the class which can arise from other sources as well
as from infection. But typhus and typhoid fever, and the former
more especially, have well-marked zymotic characters of intubation
fever and eruption, regular stages and lesions, and subsequent
immunity, and Sir Thomas Watson includes them among the true
zymotic diseases. Their real analogy is to small-pox and scarlet
fever and not to pyaemia and erysipelas, with which Dr. Murchison
compares them, and this seems a strong argument against their ever
originating de novo. Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of
the Privy Council and Local Government Board, says, in his article
on Typhus Fever in “Reynolds’s System of Medicine,” in dis
cussing Dr. Murchison’s theory : “ The most serious obstacle to the
reception of this theory arises from the analogy of other specific
diseases, as to the present production of 'which by contagion, and
contagion alone, there can be no question.” The argument from
analogy, therefore, instead of supporting Dr. Murchison’s view,
seems rather to tell very strongly against it.
The last of Dr. Murchison’s arguments to which I shall refer is
of an a priori character, and is one which has been repeatedly
brought forward in discussing the spontaneous origin of the in
fectious fevers. It is urged that such a mode of origin is not only
possible, but must actually have taken place when the diseases first
came into existence, since the first cases must have arisen with
out infection ; and as this has happened once, why, it is asked,
might the same thing not happen again ? “ In the first sufferer
from a contagious disease,” says Dr. Murchison, “ its origin
must have been
novo, and there is no reason why the unknown
causes of the first case may not operate at the present day.” But
Dr. Murchison himself disregards this argument when he concludes,
from a careful survey of the facts, that small-pox and some other
disorders never now arise de novo ; and it is evidently by facts, and
not by speculative considerations, that the question has mainly to
decided. Still there is one thing, a knowledge of which would
be of immense value, and might aid us in forming an opinion on
this and every other point relating to infection. If we knew what
rhe poisons that give rise to infectious diseases real/y are—if we
knew their intimate nature, and how they produce the extra
ordinary phenomena of infection—we might be able to say
whether or not it is likely that they should ever be generated
Sp mtaneously. This brings us to the great question which of late
years has occupied, more than almost any other, the attention of
medical inquirers, namely, wliat, is contagiumt and how do the
different kinds of contagia produce their effects?—the word
contagium, in the plural contagia, being used to denote the
material substance or poison which gives rise to a contagious
disease. When we have carefully considered what the couc
�34
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
tagia really are, we shall be in abetter position to decide as to their
modes of origin, and also as to the possibility of their utter extinction.
Till within the last twenty or thirty years the nature of con
tagion remained an inscrutable mystery and standing enigma in
medicine, and more has been done in the present generation than
in all past ages to clear up the difficulty. The explanation of the
facts of infection now given by the best authorities is contained
in the great theory known as “the Germ Theory of infectious
diseases,’’ and also called the doctrine of contagium vivum and
miasma vivvm (living contagium and living miasm), which Dr.
Liebermeister regards as “perhaps the most important questions
which have ever busied the medical world.” According to this
doctrine, the different contagia are in reality different kinds of
extremely minute living beings, which produce disease by growing
and multiplying in the body of the patient, and communicate
infection by passing from the body of one person or animal int o
that of another. These little organisms are generally considered
to be plants belonging to the bacteria, a tribe of the lower fungi,
and they have received various names, su'-h as microbes, micro
phytes, microzymes (Lttle living things, little plants, little fer
ments), on account of their vital properties, or else, from their
peculiar forms, they have been called bacteria, bacilli, spirilla,
micrococci, etc. (that js, rod-like bodies, very minute rods, little
spiral filaments, or little rounded organisms). Each kind of contagium attacks by p eference certain parts and tissues of the body,
and hence the pecubar symptoms and lesions that characterise the
different infectious diseases. If this view be correct, it is evident
that the contagia are not. properly speaking, poisons but parasites;
and the reason why certain disorders are called specific and never
arise but from infection, is that they are caused by distinct species
of living organisms which, like other species, are kept up only by
continuous propigation. Like other species, too, they might be
completely extirpated by human intelligence and energy. In Let,
the battle with contagious fevers and specific disorders is nothing
else than a war of extermination against a class of excessively
minute disease and death-producing parasites, which, though the
smallest of living beings, are infinitely mnre dangerous and deadly
to mankind than any venomous reptile or beast of prey.
The truth of the germ theory in its main features seems now to
be firmly established, and is admitted by large numbers of the most
eminent medical and scientific authorities in this and other countries.
On this point I may quote the opinion of Dr. Burdon Sanderson, who,
in 1870, in discussing the doctrine that the little particles found in
contagious liquids “ are organised beings, and that their powers of
producing disease are due to their organic development,” says :
“ We have accepted the doctrine as the only one which affords a
satisfactory explanation of the facts of infection.” Mr. John
Simon, in his Address as President of the Public Health Section
at the International Medical Congress held in London in 1881,
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
35
says: “ We have learnt, as regards those diseases of the animal
l)ody which are due to various kinds of external cause, that pro
bably all the most largely fatal of them (it is impossible yet to
say how many) represent bur, one single kind of cause, and respec
tively depend on invasion of the animal body by some rapidly
multiplying form of alien life.” At the same Congress, Professor
Klebs, of Prague, read a paper on the subject, in which he says :
The conclusion which appears tome to follow inevitably from
■this short survey of the results of modern investigation is this—
that specific communicable diseases are produced by specific
organisms.” In the discussion following the ] aper, Dr. Virchow,
the eminent German pathologist, observed that “ the study of
pathological anatomy had been greatly changed by the discovery of
parasitic organisms.” I may quote also the opinion of M. Bern
heim, who says, in his article on “ Contagion ” in the “ DictionBaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales” (1874) : “Now we
ghall see that the results of existing science tend precisely to make
the contagia be regarded as animal or vegetable parasites, and
that consequently between contagious maladies and parasitic
maladies there is perhaps no essential difference.” In like manner,
Dr. Frankland, president of the Institute of Chemistry, says:
“ The researches of Chauveau, Burdon Sanderson, Klein, and
fethers, scarcely leave room for doubt that the specific poisons of
the so-called zymotic diseases consist of organised and living
®rganic matter.” In an address delivered in St. James’ Hall
during the London Congress of 1881, the celebrated chemist,
M. Pasteur, who has done so much to promote the knowledge of
this subject, alluded to his own “labours during the past twentyfive years upon the nature of ferments—their life and their
nutrition, their preparaiion in a pure state by the introduction of
organisms under natural and artificial conditions—labours which
have established the principles and methods of microbism.”
It was M. Pasteur’s brilliant researches on fer mentation ana
putrefaction that led the way to the discovery of the true causes
of infectious disorders. Fermentation is a process which occurs
When a fermentable compound, such as sugar, is pla< ed in coni act
with gluten, casein, albumen, or other nitrogenous substance, pro
vided air be admitted ; and it was held by Liebig that the ferments
in such a case are the dead nitrogenous substances, which begin to
decompose when acted on by the oxygen of the air, and thus in
duce changes in the sugar. But M. Pasteur showed that in every
fermentation, properly so-called, the alcoholic, the viscous, the
lactic, etc., little, living beings are present, which are the real fer
ments or agents in the process. Fermentation consists, in fact, in
the changes arising from the growth and multiplication of a microgoopic plant, whose germ is at first brought by the air, but which
afterwards lives without air, feeding on the sugar and the nitrogenised substances, and using their elements to build up its own
tissues. “When sugar is placed in the presence of gluten, or
C 2
�36
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE3.
casein, or an animal membrane,” says M. Pasteur, in a notice of
bis researches published in 1861, “it is not the nitrogenised matter
which is the ferment. The true ferment consists in a microscopic
vegetable, the germ of which is brought by the air at the com
mencement, and which multiplies itself, taking its carbon from
the sugar, its nitrogen and its phosphates from the gluten or tbe
casein.” In his “ Studies on Fermentation,” a translation of
which was published in 1*79, he says : “ The essential point of the
theory of fermentation, which we have been concerned in proving
in preceding paragraphs, may be briefly put in the statement that
ferments, properly so-called, constitute a class of beings possessing
the faculty of living out of contact with free oxygen; or, more
concisely still, we may say fermentation is a result of life without
air.” Putrefaction also, which is a kind of fermentation accom
panied by foul smells, was shown by M. Pasteur to be due to the
action of little living organisms, the septic bacteria, whose germs
are derived from the air. By a beautiful series of experiments,
which were confirmed by the researches of Professor Tyndall, he
showed that all ordinary air contains large numbers of these germs,
and that if they be totally excluded by boiling, hermetically closing
vessels, or other means, animal and vegetable substances can be
kept for years without putrefying. As it appeared from these en
quiries that little living beings are the real causes of fermentation
and putrefaction, the question naturally presented itself whether
the infectious fevers, which are so like a fermentation, may not have
a similar source. Accordingly this great question was vigorously
attacked by M. Pasteur and a number of most able observers in
different countries. The methods by which they sought to solve
it were chiefly the search for organisms by an examination under
the microscope of the contagious products and the blood in the
various infectious disorders of men and animals ; the endeavour to
separate from one another the different parts of which contagious
liquids are composed, in order to determine which of them pos
sesses the virulent properties ; the chemical analysis of these
liquids to see whether they contain any chemical poison; the
artificial cultivation of the little organisms or microbes, that is to
say, rearing them in some nutrient fluid, such as serum or meat
juice, in which they can grow vigorously, so as to rid them of
impurities, and to study their nature and development; dnd also
testing the powers of infectious liquids, and of the little organisms
in the pure state, by experiments on animals, which formed an in
dispensable part of the inquiry. By these means a large amoun t
of evidence was obtained, which seems to show in the clearest
manner the truth of the germ theory.
The reasons now usually given in proof of the germ theory, are
drawn pirtlyfrom facts of infection that have long been known,
and partly from the results obtained more recently by the exami
nation of contagious liquids. Among the former, the two facts
on which Dr. Burdon Sanderson lays particular stress as showing the
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
37
contagia to be living beings, are their enormous multiplication within
the body of the patient, and also their long preservation and resist
ance to adverse surrounding influences outside the body. He holds
the germ theory to be “ the only one which affords a satisfactory
explanation of the facts of infection, and in particular of those
which tend to show that witbin the body of the infected individual
the particles of contagium rapidly reproduce themselves, while
out of the body they are capable of resisting for long periods the
influence of conditions which, if not restrained by organic action,
would produce chemical decomposition.” The multiplication of
the virus or infecting matter which takes place in a contagions
disease is extraordinary, and should be carefully noticed, as it is
one of the most important points relating to infection. “ A
quantity of small-pox matter not so big as a pin’s head,” says Dr.
Aitken, “ will produce many thousand pustules, each containing
fifty times as much of the specific pestilent matter as was originally
inserted ; and moreover the blood and all the secretions of the
body are equally infected with the specific poison of the pustules.
The miasmata from one child labouring under hooping-cough
are sufficient to infect a whole city.” This fact alone would seem
almost enough to show that a contagious virus must be organised
and living, for living beings are the only things we know of pos
sessing the faculty of reproduction or self-multiplication. No
chemical poison, whether of the inorganic or organic class, as
arsenic, or snake venom, has any power of reproducing itself, oris
evei’ multiplied in the body. Hence it takes a certain amount of
these poisons to produce death, and their effects are proportional
to the dose ; but the contagia can act in what is termed a minimal
dose, that is, a quantity quite impalpable and infinitesimal. Thus
Mr. Marson says of small-pox that “ a single breathing of the air
where it is, is enough to give the disease.” The reason of this
remarkable difference is that a chemical poison is not multiplied in
the body, whereas an infectious virus is rapidly multiplied, so that,
if once it gains a footing, the amount originally taken into the
system matters but little. Professor Naegeli, of Munich, in his
work on the “ Lower Fungi in their relation to Infectious Diseases”
(1877), holds this fact to be conclusive evidence .on the question.
“ The infectious matters,” he says, “ cannot be chemical com
pounds or collections of them, but can only be organised bodies,
because in this case alone is their increase conceivable from the
minimal quantity taken in, to the amount in which they become
dangerous to the human frame.”
Another important fact is the power of the contagia to retain
their virulence for long periods, sometimes for many years, outside
the body, and to resist changes of heat and cold, dryness and
moisture, or other influences which would speedily decompose and
destroy any dead organic matters. This accords well with what
we know of the bacteria and other minute organisms, which are
wonderfully tenacious of life, and moreover are able to exist in two
�38
TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
states or forms—the one an active parent form when they are comp irativelv perishable, and the other an inactive form, as little buds
or spores, when they are very indestructible, and can continue in a
sort of dormant vitality for an indefinite time. It is on this
ground chiefly that Dr. Burdon Sanderson objects to a theory of
germs, differing from the one usually adopted, which has been
put forward by the distinguished physiologist and microscopist
Dr. Lionel Beale, in his work on “ Disease Germs ” (2nd ed,
1872). Dr. Beale holds as strongly as any one that the contaaia
are living and not dead substances. “ The only condition in which
matter is known to exhibit these powers of self-multiplication.”
he sa.vs, “ is the living state;” and be adds: “Every one will
admit that the particular forms of disease now under consideration
—the contagious fevers—r< suit from the introduction of living
particles of some form or other.” Assuming the infectious par
ticles to be living, however, there are evidently two suppositions
possible as to their nature; either they are independent organisms
or parasites coming from without, or else they are little living
cells or portions of protoplasm derived from the patient’s own
tissues. Dr. Beale adopts the latter alternative, and holds the
disease germs to be particles of degraded protoplasm, which are
capable of living independently, and can be engrafted on other in
dividuals, in whose bouies they can grow and multiply. This view,
however, is objected to by the great majority of observers here
and abroad, as purely hypothetical and wanting a real instance to
support it, and especially as being inconsistent with the fact that
many kinds of disease germs can live for such long periods out of
the body. “ Considering,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “ that of
all perishable things protoplasm is among the most perishable—so
much so that no living particle of our bodies can be abstracted
from its place in the organism, even for five minutes, without
dying and being disintegrated—it appeared to me quite out of the
question to suppose, as Dr. Beale had suggested, that the particles
could be of this nature consistently with the astonishing power
which they evidently possess of retaining their activity for such
long periods, in spite of their being subjected to enormous varieties
of moisture, temperature, and all other conditions.” “If, then,
the doctrine of a contagium viviftn be true,” says Dr. William
Roberts, in his Address on Medicine to the British Medical Asso
ciation in 1877, “we are almost forced to the conclusion that
contagium consists (at least in the immense majority of cases) of
an independent organism or parasite.”
The results which have been obtained of late years by the
examination of contagious liquids with high powers of the micro
scope, relate in the first place to the physical characters of the con
tagia. Some infectious diseases, such as small-pox and measles,
are propagated through the air by inhalation ; while others, as
cow-pox and glanders, are communicated by inoculation with
liquid products, and hence it is often supposed that the infecting
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
39
matters must have the form of a vapour or a fluid. But if this
were so, it would follow that they cannot be living, for living
beings are always solid, and never fluid or gaseous bodies. A
closer scrutiny has shown, however, that the real infecting sub
stance, or contagium, is neither a fluid nor a vapour, but consists
in all cases of extremely minute solid particles. “ As regards the
physical characters of contagious liquids,” says Dr. Burdon Sander
son, “ the fundamental fact is that contagium is particulate.’'
This important fact was pointed out in 1865 by Dr. Chauveau,
Professor in the Veterinary School at Lyons, after a prolonged
inquiry into the virus of cow-pox and other contagious diseases.
When vaccine, or cow-pox lymph, is examined under the micro
scope, it is found to consist of three parts,—namely, first, of
corpuscles which are similar to ordinary pus globules, and are
sometimes few in number, or even entirely absent in good vaccine ;
Secondly of numerous particles, far more minute and not exceed
ing 2^00 of an inch in diameter : and thirdly, of a clear liquid in
which these bodies float. The larger corpuscles were separated by
Subsidence, and were found on inoculating them to be inert. The
Separation of the smaller particles could not be effected either by
subsidence or filtration, but was at last accomplished by what is
termed the method of diffusion ; that is, by bringing carefully a
little water into direct contact with the contagious liquid, when
the soluble and diffusible parts of the liquid mix with the water,
an<1 the insoluble ones are left behind. In this way the minute
particles were separated from the rest, and were found on inocula
tion to communicate cow-pox, whereas the fluid after being deprived
of them was found absolutely inactive. M. Chauveau investigated
in a similar manner the virus of small-pox, sheep-pox, and farcy
(a form of glanders), and with the same results. It thus appears
that when an infectious disease is communicated by means of a
fluid, or through the air, it is because the air or the fluid contains
little solid particles, invisible to the naked eye, which are the real
infecting substances ; and this fact is a strong additional argument
in favour of the view that the contagia are living beings.
Besides showing the physical characters of infectious liquids,
tecent investigations with the microscope have ascertained that in
some of them little vegetable organisms of peculiar shapes are
present ; and it is these organisms, and the inquiries to which they
have given rise, that most fully demonstrate the germ-theory.
“ The doctrine that microphytes have to do with the process of
contagion,” says Dr. Burdon Sanderson, “is based on two sorts of
observations, viz., those relating to the physical characters of con
tagious liquids, and those relating to the existence of organisms of
characteristic form in them.” “ There are four contagious diseases,”
he says also, in 1874, “in respect of which the presence in the
contagious liquids of forms of vegetation, differing from those met
with after death in the normal tissues or liquids of the body, or
during life in the products of primary or secondary inflammation,
�40
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
has been established. These are small-pox, sheep-pox, splenic
fever, and relapsing fever.” The first disease in which charac
teristic organisms were detected was splenic fever or anthrax—a
very deadly disorder of cattle, sheep, and horses, common in all
parts of the world, and inoculable on all kinds of animals, includ
ing men, in whom it produces the rapidly fatal affection called
malignant pustule. Dr. Davaine and Dr. Pollender, in 1855, or
even earlier, discovered in the blood of animals suffering from
splenic fever, a microscopic plant, to which the name of Bacillus
authracis has been given, and which consists of little rods or staffshaped bodies, endowed with the faculty of developing spores.
In relapsing fever also, an infectious disease peculiar to man.
Dr. Obermeier, in 1872, detected in the blood a little organism or
microbe, having the form of minute spiral threads or filaments,
and since called the Spirillum (Jbermeicri. The organisms which
have been discovered in the matter taken from small-pox pustules,
are of the kind called Micrococci, that is, little rounded bodies,
and exactly resemble the minute particles already described as
occurring in vaccine lymph.
Although these little bodies have been found by numerous
observers to be continually present in the above diseases, this fact
cannot in itself be regarded as sufficient evidence that the diseases
are due to them. The organisms might be the consequence rather
than the cause of the morbid state of the blood, and might be
simply carriers and not producers of the infecting virus. In order
to decide this point, therefore, it is evidently necessary to separate
the organisms and obtain them in a pure state, and then to try
whether by inoculation they are able to produce the disease , and
for this purpose a more perfect process of separation is needed
than that employed by M. Chauveau, which merely divided the
insoluble from the soluble and fluid portions of a contagious
liquid. We want to know the vital as well as the physical
characters of the organisms, and whether they are the real causes
of the disorders in which they occur. This object has been
attained by the very important purifying process called the method
of successive cultures, which is now generally used in these in
quiries, and may be briefly described as follows : A little drop of
the infectious liquid containing the microbes is introduced on the
point of a glass rod into a clear nutrient fluid, such as meat-juice,
which is kept nearly at blood-heat; the latter fluid having been
previously boiled, and the glass rod heated to redness to deprive
them of all other, organisms, and the neck of the vessel being
plugged with cotton wool so as to exclude any germs from the
atmosphere. In a few hours the nutrient fluid becomes turbid
from the growth of the microbes, which rapidly multiply and fill
the vessel. A little of the fluid from this vessel is then intro
duced in the same manner into another portion of nutrient fluid
in a second vessel, and when this becomes turbid, a drop from it is
transferred to a third vessel, and so on for ten, twenty, or any re
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
41
quired number of times. In this way the little organisms are
freed from all extraneous matter, and obtained as far as possible in
a pure state ; and if at the end of this process they exhibit under
the microscope the same appearance and power of development,
tod are found on inoculation to communicate the disease with the
same intensity as the infectious liquid from which they were
originally derived, it seems evidently to follow that they are the true
cause of the disease. M. Pasteur regards this method of inquiry
as indispensable, and as affording conclusive evidence on the sub
Ject. “ In the present state of science,” he says, “ the proof that
a microscopic organism is by its development a cause of disease
tod death, can only become peremptory on condition that succes
sive cultures of this organism have been obtained, indefinitely
repeated in liquids inert of themselves, and that these liquid.?
always show the same development, the same appearance of life,
associated with the same virulence, the same power of inoculation,
of disease, and of death.” The disease in which the organisms
Kave been most carefully studied and most fully proved to be the
real cause of the symptoms is splenic fever. On this point Dr.
^William Roberts observes, in the address already referred to, “ That
this organism (the bacillus) is the true virus of splenic fever has
long been probable ; and the labours of Bollinger, Davaine, Tiegel,
Klebs, and most of all, of Koch, have removed the last doubts on
the subject. Koch found without exception,” he continues, “that
if the tested material produced threads and spores in the incubator,
it Ao produced splenic fever when inoculated into the mouse ; and
on the contrary, if no such growth and development took place in the
fafittbator, the tested material produced no effect when inoculated
into the mouse. Proof could go no farther ; the infection abso
lutely followed the specific organism ; it came with it, it went
With it.” There are several other infectious diseases in which little
JKrganisms have been discovered of late years, as, for example,
erysipelas, diphtheria, gonorrhoea, and glanders ; while in some
jirtttiers none have yet been found, and we can only infer their presence from the similarity of the phenomena, though they are
probably too minute to be visible even with the highest powers of
the microscope.
fe- These minute parasitic organisms, which “ lie at the root of all
Infectious diseases,” to use Dr. Liebermeister’s words, may be
divided into two classes, between which there is a most important
difference. Some of them are what are called genuine or habitual
parasites, that is to say, they can live only in the animal body, and
in many cases only in the particular species of animal which they
infest; while others are occasional parasites, that is, they live and
htved habitually in the outer world, and only enter from time to
time, and under peculiar circumstances, into the bodies of animals.
This division of the parasites corresponds to the two main groups
of infectious diseases already adverted to, namely, the specific and
the non-specific infectious diseases ; the former being characterised
�42
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by the presence of genuine, and the latter by that of occasional,
parasites. The reason why certain infectious disorders are called
specific is because, like species, they always descend from other
diseases like themselves ; a fact which clearly shows that the little
organisms found in them are always transmitted from one animal
to another, and cannot multiply and develop themselves, though
they may live for a season, outside the animal body. The non
specific disorders, on the other hand, can arise not only from infec
tion, but from other sources, and this proves that the organisms
associated with them are sometimes derived by transmission from
other animals, and sometimes come in from the external world. It
is evidently only the genuine parasites and the specific infectious
diseases that we can hope to exterminate ; whereas the occasional
parasites, being able to live outside, cannot be exterminated, and
r we can only guard ourselves against them, and against the diseases
in which they are found, by attentively studying the circumstances
which permit them to enter the body.
We have already seen how, according to the germ theory, infec
tion is produced, namely, by the microscopic organisms passing
from one animal into another, and we may now briefly advert to
the mode in which the non-specific infectious diseases are generated
in those cases where they arise spontaneously or de novo, that is,
from any other cause than infection. The most important and
fatal disorders of this class are the septic affections, such as septi
caemia, pyaemia, and puerperal fever, and the part which the little
organisms take in producing or complicating them has been investi
gated by numerous observers. In the blood and inflammatory pro
ducts of infectious septicaemia microphytes are constantly found,
which M. Pasteur has carefully studied by the method of succes
sive cultures, and has shown to be the true cause of the disease.
Dr. Chauvel, after giving an account of these researches in his
article on Septicaemia (1880). in the ‘ • Dictionnaire Encyclopedique
des Sciences Medicales.” says : “ It would follow, therefore, from
the experiments of Pasteur, that virulent septicaemia is due to the
introduction and multiplication in the economy of a microbe living
without air and a ferment, the septic vibrio.” This little organism,
according to M. Pasteur, M. Davaine, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and
other authorities, is nothing else than one of the common bacteria,
or living ferments, which produce putrefaction, and which live
habitually in the air and water around us. Mr. John Simon speaks
of it as “the common ferment of putrid infusions,” and says that
“ apparently those ‘ pyaemic ’ and ‘ septicaemic ’ diseases have their
common essential cause in one morbid poison or contagium, which,
so far as can yet be discerned, is a particulate ferment of ordinary
putrefaction.”
I may here mention that the bacteria, the tribe of infinitesimally
minute plants to which all the contagia yet discovered belong, have
been made the subject of a special study by the distinguished
botanist Professor Cohn of Breslau, uid are described in his work
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
43
“ On Bacteria, the Smallest Living Beings ” (1872). The principal
forms of the bacteria are those already adverted to, micrococcus,
bacterium and bacillus, spirillum and vibrio, and they are so ex
cessively minute that the common rod-like bodies are only
of
an inch long, or one-third the width of an ordinary red blood
globule, while the micrococci do not exceed
of an inch in dia
meter. The bacteria live in the outer world, and are universally
diffused throughout the air, and especially in water, as they require
moisture to bring out their active properties. Tbeir part in the
economy of nature is a most important and indispensable one,
namely, to cause putrefaction and to break down and remove all
dead animal and vegetable substances ; and this power of destroy
ing the dead seems nearly related to the disastrous tendency which
they so often manifest to become parasitic and prey upon the living
animal body.
Since, then, the little organisms found in septicaemia have come
in from without, the question to be considered is, What are the cir
cumstances that enable them at first to enter the body, and render
them so virulent ? or, to express this in other words, how is septi
caemia produced when it arises de novo, and not by infection from
one animal to another ? At ordinary times the bacteria are per
fectly harmless, as may be seen from the fact that they are con
tinually entering our bodies by the lungs and alimentary canal, and
may be detected in some of the abdominal organs, such as the liver
and spleen. Into every little cut and wound of the skin also they
must constantly find their way, and yet the great majority of
wounds heal rapidly and without any ill effects. There are some
parts of the body, however, in which bacteria are never found,
namely, in healthy blood and muscle, as they are apparently at once
destroyed whenever they enter the circulating fluid. What is it,
then, that in septicaemia permits them to live and multiply in the
blood, and converts a microphyte, harmless and insignificant at
other times, into the most deadly of all known poisons? The
reason of this, as ascertained by the long-continued labours of in
quirers, is that, in the process of putrefaction, the bacteria produce
a chemical substance called the septic poison (just as, in fermenta
tion, the little yeast plant produces alcohol), and this poison, when
absorbed into the system from the surface of a wound, gives rise to
fever and inflammation, so as gradually to overcome the vital re
sistance of the blood and enable the bacteria to enter and breed in
it. The septic poison was first discovered in 1856 by Dr. Panum,
of Copenhagen, and was shown by him to be the immediate cause
of septicaemia. Like other chemical poisons, it is not multiplied in
the body, and its effects, unlike those of the contagia, are propor
tional to the dose. Hence an important distinction is now drawn
between two forms of septicaemia ; in the one, which is not infec
tious and is probably of common occurrence in ite slighter degrees,
the symptoms are due to the absorption of the septic poison from
a wound, and tie patient recovers, if the dose has not been too
�44
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
large; while the other is an infectious and most deadly disorder,
produced by the entrance and multiplication of the bacteria them
selves in the system. The properties of the bacteria are altered, so
that they become parasites on the living body, and their virulence,
as pointed out by M. Davaine, is enormously increased by trans
mission through the animal economy. Pyaemia also, a disease
closely allied, if not, as some think, identical with virulent septi
caemia in its nature and origin, is, like it, almost invariably fatal.
Dr. Burdon Sanderson has shown that the intensely contagious
products of pus and serum found in these diseases always contain
swarms of bacteria, and may thus be distinguished from ordinary
healthy pus, which is but slightly contagious.
One of the immense practical benefits already derived from the
germ theory is the antiseptic treatment of wounds, which was intro
duced a few years ago by the eminent surgeon Sir Joseph Lister, as
a means of guarding against the septic diseases, and was expressly
stated by him to be founded on M. Pasteur’s doctrine concerning
putrefaction. As Pasteur had shown that putrefaction is caused
by bacteria, the antiseptic treatment aims at preventing the hurtful
influence of these little organisms on a wound. For this purpose,
the wound is covered with several folds of gauze steeped in a solu
tion of carbolic acid, whose fumes either kill the bacteria or at least
prevent them from decomposing the discharges, and thus giving
rise to the septic poison. This method, along with other pre
cautions, has now been introduced in the large hospitals here and
abroad, with such admirable results in preventing pyaemia, hospital
gangrene, and other septic affections, that Dr. Sanderson lately
observed, in alluding to the experience of German surgeons : “We
can no longer wonder that it is common to hear the discovery of
Lister spoken of in Germany as the greatest improvement in the
art of medicine which has taken place in modern times.”
There is still another disease of the utmost gravity, which has
within the last few years apparently been proved to be contagious,
I mean the dreadful malady tuberculosis, called pulmonary con
sumption or phthisis when it occurs, as it usually does, in the
lungs. This is by far the most important and widely destructive
of all diseases, for statistics, it is asserted, show that one-seventh
of the whole population, and as much as one-third of the adult
population who die in the prime of life are carried off by it.
Until recently, tuberculosis was regarded as a disease which arises
chiefly from debility or hereditary predisposition, and as not at all
contagious ; but in 1864, Dr. Villemin, of Paris, published the
extremely important and startling discovery that it can be com
municated to the lower animals by inoculating them with tubercular
products. The truth of his conclusions was in some respects
questioned at the time, but they have since been fully confirmed.
Dr. Koch, of Berlin, the high authority already referred to, observes
that recent researches “ have established the communicability of
tuberculosis beyond all doubt, and in future a place must be assigned
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIONS DISEASES.
45
to it among the infectious diseases.” Mr. John Simon says : “ The
broad results of modern discovery in regard to ordinary tubercular
disease tend to represent it as a chronic locally-originated zymotic
process, which, starting under certain conditions in one first spot
of the (predisposed) animal body, advances by successive steps in
definite anatomical lines to infect the entire system ; a process,
which by means of its characteristic products is inoculable from
piri to pirt, and from subject to subject.” It was presumed that
a microscopic parasite must exist in tuberculosis as in other com
municable diseases, and after a long, fruitless search by various
inquirers, it was at last discovered by Dr. Koch, whose observations
on the subject are contained in a most important paper read before
the Physiological Society at Berlin in 1882. The little parasite as
described by him is of a rod-like shape, and has hence been called
the bacillus tuberculosis. Dr. Koch says that he has found this
parasite to be constantly present in the tubercular products of
men and animals, and that moreover, by obtaining it in a pure
state with the aid of successive cultures, and then testing it by
inoculation, he has proved it to be the true cause of the disease.
(Debility and hereditary tendency have doubtless, he remarks, a most
powerful effect in the production of tuberculosis, but they act only as
predisposing influences, while the real essential cause is the bacillus.
At a meeting of the Pathological Society of London in December
last, Dr. Dawson Williams, who had repeated some experiments
on the subject at the request of Dr. Wilson Fox and of Dr. Burdon
Sanderson, observed that “ the evidence in favour of the specific
nature of tubercle was now, he thought, very strong, and it was
strong also in favour of the view that the bacillus tuberculosis was
a necessary part of the tubercular process ; further, the recently
published experiments of Baumgarten and Arndt seemed to pi-ove
jthat the lesions of tuberculosis depended directly on the growth of
the bacillus, and were in fact produced by it.”
With regard to the question whether the tubercle bacilli belong
to the class of genuine or of occasional parasites, Dr. Koch holds
that they are “ not occasional, but genuine parasites, and can pro
ceed only from the animal organism,” a fact which, he says, would
greatly facilitate their destruction. He grounds his opinion upon
the circumstance that in his cultures the bacilli would only grow
lit a temperature between 30° and 40° centigrade (that is, between
86° and 104° Fahrenheit), and such a temperature cannot be ob
tained continuously in our climates except in the animal body. He
holds, moreover, that they may be introduced into the system by
inhalation as well as by inoculation, and thinks it probable that
they often enter in the former way, judging from the fact that
phthisis usually commences in the lungs. The principal source
from which the bacilli are derived is, in his opinion, the expectora
tions of phthisical patients, which are known to be capable of
transmitting the disease to the lower animals by inoculation, and
whose particles, when dried, may be wafted about by the air.
�46
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
Another source, according to him, is the milk and flesh of cows
and other animals affected with tuberculosis. Dr. Koch believes
that a knowledge of these facts will be of the greatest benefit in
the prevention of consumptive disease. “In future,” he says, “in
the war against this frightful scourge of the human race, we shall
have to do no longer with an undefined something, but with an
intelligible parasite, whose life’s conditions are for the most part
known, and can be yet more fully investigated.” Efforts to destroy
the parasite should, in his view, be combined with the no less im
portant measures needed for enabling the human constitution to
resist its attacks. Strong people, who live a healthy life and are
much in the open air, never, or very rarely, get consumption, but
only the weakly and delicate, who live and work indoors, or those
hereditarily predisposed ; and if a strenuous endeavour were made
to raise greatly tne physical powers and bodily development of
the community, and at the same time, as Dr. Koch recommends,
if the expectorations of the phthisical were disinfected, and the
milk and flesh of tubercular animals forbidden to be sold, this
fearful disease could, he believes, to an immense extent, be pre
vented and rooted out from among us. Many high authorities,
however, differ widely from Dr. Koch in regard to several of these
views, and especially on the question whether or not phthisis is
often due to contagion. Thus Dr. Andrew, in one of his Lumleian
lectures on “ The ^Etiology of Phthisis ” (published in the Lancet
of May 10th, 1884), holds that the disease is undoubtedly trans
missible by inoculation to the lower animals, and also that its true
cause is the bacillus, while the other reputed causes act only as
predisposing influences ; but he infers, from a study of clinical
facts and from common medical experience as to the origin of
consumption, that the bacillus is an occasional, not a genuine
parasite, and in the great majority of cases comes in from the
outer world instead of being derived by transmission from another
person or animal. Hence he believes that contagion, though pos
sible, very rarely occurs in practice, and has very little really to
do with the production of phthisis. He contends that “ although
phthisis may be undoubtedly produced in many ways experi
mentally in animals, and also probably in man, there is not suf
ficient evidence to prove that its prevalence is materially affected
by direct contagion.” After summing up his views on the subject
he says : “ From these I may be allowed to make one short prac
tical deduction—namely, that the prevention of phthisis, like that
of ague, is to be attained by sanitary works, especially by improved
ventilation and drainage, and not by isolation.” How different
would human life be, if so afflicting and widely spread a malady
could be effectually controlled and prevented by a clear knowledge
of its cause 1 *
* Tlie treatment which holds out most hope of a cure in this very fatal disease
would seem to be a residence for a time in certain high or alpine districts, where
there is an immunity from consumption, or, in other words, where tuberculosis
�THE EXTINCTION OK INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
47
The germ theory not only explains, as I have endeavoured above
to describe, the existing facts of infection, but also enables us to
understand how the infectious disorders may probably at first have
arisen in past ages. If infectious diseases are always accompanied
never occurs either among the people who live there or in the lower animals. That
there are such districts appears to be fully established, and is a most remarkable and
important, fact. Sir Thomas Watson, in his “ Lectures on the Principle ■ and Practice
of Medicine ” (5th ed., 1871), quotes a passage from the Westminster Review, m which
it is st ted that Dr. Schleissner, who was sent srnne years ago by the Danish Govern
ment to investigate the sanitary condition of Iceland, ascertained that in Iceland
•‘scrofula and consumption are unknown.” “This statement,” says Sir Thomas
Watson, “ the accuracy of which had been called in question, has very recently been
confirmed by unimpeachable te.-timonv, zealously collected and made public by Dr.
Leared. In a letter written by him upon the subject, Dr. Ilja'teln, a distinguished
physician resi ing at Reykjavik, dec ares that, during a p *riod of fifteen years, he has
had more than thirty thousand patients, and has made nume ous autopsies, yet not a
single case of tubercle of the lungs or of indigenous consumption has he met with.
He adds the corroborative testimony of Dr. Skaptason, the oldest and most expe
rienced physician in Iceland, who says: ‘During my thirty-two years’practice in
this country, I have nor, seen a single case of phthisis tuberculosa. I have seen a great
many cases of other diseases of the lungs, but phthisis tuberculosa never. In all the
autopsies I have made, I have never observed the least trace of tubercle in the
lnogs.’” A similar immunity from consumption, according to several observers, is
found in certain elevated regions anions high mountain ranges, such as the Swiss
Alps; and it is asserted ihat in districts enjoying this immunity, not only are the
inhabitants free from tuberculosis, but the disease is often arrested, and even radi
cally cured in patients who resort thither for treatment. Professor G. See, in his
latel published work on “ Bacillary Ph hisis ” (“ La Phtisie Bacilloire,” Paris, 1884),
ascribes the beneficial effects of the air of lofty moon'ains to the fact that it kills
or checks the increase of the bacillus, which he regards as the true cause of con
sumption. * Like many other plants, the bacillus cannot live in an Alpine climate,
M. See holds ‘ that phthisis is uniform in its > attire, that it is parasitic, and that the
trea'ment by climate should have for its object either to destroy the bacillus oi u,
prevent the parasite from developing itself,” and multiplying in the tissues. He says
that, as sh wn by the researches of M. Pasteur and others, “ at a height above 800
mfetres (about 2,600 feet) micmphytic life is compromised. But the most formal
proofs of the incompatibility of these altitudes with the life of the mi"rone have
been furnished by Miguel and Freudenstein; at 1,800 metres (about. 5,900 feet), no
more pa'asites. How or why the microbe-- disappear matters, little ; it is a fact, and
it is to this incorruptible quality of the atmosphere that high climates owe their
anti-bacillary or prophylactic power.” Whether it be from the cold or the large
quantity of ozone contained in the air, “the tubercular microbe is unable to live
in these conditions,” and hence M. See concludes that “ mountain climates
must now enter into the warfare of man against the microphytes which en
danger our race.” The most surprising statements, on this subject, however,
are those lately made by Dr. Gauster, chief physician to the State Railways
Administration in Vienna, in a series of articles commencing April 8th, 1884, in
the Wiener Medizinische Zeitung, on “the Influence of a High Climate on Tuber
culosis.” Dr. Gauster affirms that among the Alps thereare districts, having a pecu
liar soil and a height not below 730 metres (about 2,40a feet), which confer a com
plete immun'ty from con-umption, the disease never occurring there either in men
or animals ; while in other districts, thoush at a much greater height, there is no
such immunity. “Immunity from tuberculosis” he says, “is only to be found in
regions where, at a height of more than 730 metres, the soil is composed of the oldest
rocks, as granite, gneiss, and crystalline schist formations, and the quantity of ozone
in the air is constantly high.” He says that the existence of immunity districts, and
their wonderfully beneficial effects on imported cases of consumption, especially in
the early stages of th- disease, have for many years been known. An experience of
fifteen years has convinced Dr. Gauster himself that, in patients who reside for some
months in these districts, changes occur in the diseased lungs by which the morbid
products are gradually eliminated from the body. “ The results of these processes,’
he says, “are, in all the slighter cases, and in most ca-es of medium degree, a cure ;
but in the majority of advanced cases, a hasrening of the fatal issue.” He maintains,
therefore, that “tuberculosis in certain stages is curable in the high climate.” Dr.
Gauster’s assertions are so startling, and so opposed to ordinary medical experience
�48
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
by parasitic organisms, which are either their producers or their
carriers, it is evident that the question how the diseases arose
depends mainly on tbe question as to the origin of the little parasites.
Whence are these little organisms derived, and how did they be
come parasitic on the animal body ? Their origin must obviously
have taken place in one of two ways. Either they arose by what
is called “ spontaneous generation ” from lifeless matter, or else
they descended in the usual way from other living organisms.
Now the former mode of origin is entirely denied by M. Pasteur,
Professor Tyndall, Dr. Burdon Sanderson, and others, who con
tend, not that spontaneous generation never occurs in nature, bi.t
that it never occurs in this class of living beings. Thus M. Pasteur
says, in a lecture delivered before the Chemical Society of Paris
in 1861 : “ You will observe I do not pretend to show that spon
taneous generation never exists. In subjects of this kind one
cannot prove a negative. But I do pretend to demonstrate
rigorously that in all the experiments where the existence of
spontaneous generation has been believed to be recognised among
those beings of the lowest class, to which the controversy is now-a*
days confined, the observer has been the victim of illusions or
causes of error which he has not perceived or has not known how
to avoid.” In a report made in 1871 on the origin and distribu
tion of microzymes (bacteria), Dr. Burdon Sanderson observes :
“I shall be able to prove in the most decisive manner that, as
regards the animal tissues and liquids, and the liquids which will
be used as tests for the presence of microzyme germs, no spon
taneous evolution of any organic form ever takes place ; but it
will be quite unnecessary either to deny or assert its possibility
under other and different circumstances.” Dr. William Roberts
regards the doctrine of spontaneous generation or “ abiogenesis ” as
in itself a perfectly legitimate supposition, but holds that the bac
teria, humble though they be, are far too highly organised for such
a mode of origin, which, moreover, could not be expected to occur
among plants subsisting on the products of putrefaction. “ As
suming,” he says, “ that the occurrence of abiogenesis at some
time in the past history of the globe is a necessary postulate in
science, I see nothing unscientific—looking to the law of continuity
in the operations of nature—in the supposition that it may be
occurring at the present day somewhere or other on the earth’s
surface, but certainly not in decomposing liquids.”
So far as we have reason to believe, therefore, the bacteria are
never generated spontaneously or de novo, but always descend,
like the higher plants and animals, from other living beings. _ We
have seen, however, that what is called £l spontaneous generation,”
as to the curability of consump ion, that they would need ample corroborative
evidence for their support; and M. See states that the medical college of Vienna
has appointed a commission to inquire into the subject. In any case, however, it
seems natural to expect that the influences which entirely prevent consumption
among the natives of certain districts must have a powerful effect in checking the
progress of the disease when brought into these localities.
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
49
“a de novo origin,” not unfrequently takes place in some infec
tious diseases, and this shows that these expressions are ambiguous,
and are used in a different sense when applied to a minute living
organism and when applied to an infectious disease. In the former
case they mean that the organism is evolved out of lifeless matter ;
but when an infectious disease is said to be generated spon
taneously, or de novo, the meaning is that it does not arise by in
fection from another disease like itself—that it is due to some other
cause than infection. As regards the little organisms found in
the disease, the phrase means, not that they arose from lifeless
matter, but that they came in from the outer world, and were not
derived by transmission from one animal to another. A spon
taneous origin of this kind is not uncommon at present among
some infectious disorders, and must at one time have occurred in
all, for, as Dr. Murchison observes, “ in the first sufferer from a
contagious disease its origin must have been de novo.” In in
quiring into the origin of the contagia and of contagious diseases,
it is their spontaneous or de novo origin, in this sense of the terms,
that has to be considered. The view now generally entertained
on this subject by high authorities is that all the different contagia
have probably descended, at periods more or less remote, from the
bacteria, and have been gradually brought to their present type,
in the lapse of ages, by means of variation, inheritance, natural
selection, and the other laws of evolution so admirably explained
by Mr. Darwin in his account of the origin of species. The
bacteria are well known to be eminently modifiable, and may
undergo surprising changes in form and properties from their
physical environment, or by passing from one species of animal
into another. “ If contagia are organisms.” says Dr. William
Roberts, “ they must necessarily have the fundamental ten
dencies and attributes of all organised beings. Among the most
important of these attributes is the capacity for ‘ variation ’ or
‘ sporting.’ ” In like manner Dr. Wilks observes, in his Address
as President of the Pathological Section at the International
Medical Congress in 1881, that, if specific diseases be due to a
living contagium, “it must be subject to the same laws as other
organic matter ; and if the doctrine of evolution be true, it
must have numerous relations with families of its own kind, and
perhaps with others which are now obsolete.” Some of the con
tagia, such as those of small-pox and scarlet fever, are probably
derived from variations in the bacteria which took place only in
remote ages, so that now-a-days the diseases are never found to
arise spontaneously or de novo. Others, as those of erys’pelas and
pyaemia, are apparently due to variations occurring more or less
frequently at the present day, and hence a de novo origin is common
in these diseases ; while in some other affections, such as relapsing
fever, diphtheria, and (if Dr. Murchison’s view be correct) even
typhoid fever, the variations may perhaps occur at rare intervals,
and under unknown or obscure conditions, so that, as many believe,
or
�50
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEAS15.
these diseases may now and then arise de novo. It would follow
from this that the first class of little parasites might be totally
extirpated, and the last confined within narrow limits; and we
have seen how greatly Lister’s method has contributed to prevent
the entrance into the body and fatal effects of the minute or
ganisms that give rise to septic diseases.
Having examined the questions whether infectious diseases can
arise spontaneously, and whether the germ theory is the true ex
planation of the facts of infection, we now come to the practical
inquiry as to the means best adapted for preventing and eradi
cating these diseases. The immense importance of this subject
will be seen if we consider the fearful amount of death and
suffering which infectious disorders are causing year after year in
>ur midst. Mr. Simon, whose invaluable Reports as Medical Officer
of the Privy Council and Local Government Board, and therefore
at the head of the sanitary service, have done so much for the pre
vention of disease in England, says : “ Looking at the ravages
which are every day suffered from familiar diseases of the zymotic
class, such as typhoid fever, and typhus, and small-pox, and
scarlatina, and measles, and hooping-cough ; and adding to these
the less constant, but occasionally terrible, destructiveness of
diphtheria and of cholera ; adding further the consequences of
venereal diseases ; adding again those serious traumatic infections
which make the chief common danger of surgical operations and
injuries • everyone can see that the field of zymotic pathology is of
enormous extent and incalculable importance.” The number of
deaths produced by infectious diseases appears from the Reports
of the Registrar-General, which, since 1838, give a tabular state
ment of the causes of all the deaths occurring throughout the
country. Thus if we take the five years from 1876 to 1880 (the
last year for which the annual report has as yet been published) we
find that during the whole period there were in England and Wales
9,726 deaths from small-pox ; 48,294 deaths from measlesj 85,208
from scarlet fever; 66,112 from hooping-cough ; 4,458 from
typhus ; 34,651 from typhoid or enteric fever ; and 15,243 from
diphtheria. This would give as a yearly average of the deaths
from each of these seven diseases, about 2,000 deaths annually
from small-pox ; from measles, 9,500 ; from scarlet fever 17,000 ;
from hooping-cough, 13,000 ; from typhus, 1,000 ; from typhoid
fever, 7,000 ; and from diphtheria, 3,000 annual deaths. In addi
tion to the foregoing there were from the other contagious dis
orders included in the Registrar-General’s reports, 10,268 deaths
from erysipelas ; from puerperal fever, 7,728 ; from syphilis,
10,615 ; from hydrophobia, 246 ; and from glanders, 24 deaths.
That is to say, about 2,000 persons died on an average each year
from erysipelas ; 1,500 from puerperal fever ; 2,000 from syphilis ;
50 from hydrophobia ; and 5 from glanders. Taking the eleven
years from 1870 to 1880, it will be seen that the aggregate number
of deaths from the seven infectious fevers mentioned above,
�TIIE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
51
amounted to 639,289, or about 58,000 annually, which is rather
more than one-ninth of the total number of deaths from all causes
during the same period. Hooping-cough, measles, and scarletiever, though liable to occur at all ages, are mainly diseases of
&i fancy and childhood—hooping-cough, according to the eminent
authority on vital statistics, the late Dr. William Farr, being most
fatal in the first, measles in the second, and. scarlet-fever in the
third and fourth years. Diphtheria also is most common in
children, for one-half of those who die of it are under five years,
while in scarlet-fever two-thirds of the deaths are below that age.
Typhus and typhoid fever, on the other hand, are chiefly destruc
tive to adults. In Ireland, where typhus is far more prevalent
than in this country, no fewer than 222,029 persons, in the period
from 1841 to 1851, died of typhus and typhoid fever.
The number of cases or attacks is not accurately known, for
as yet, unfortunately, no provision has been made for registering
all cases of infectious disease ; but we can form some idea of their
amount by considering the average mortality of each disease, that
is, the proportion of deaths that usually occur in a given number
of cases. Small-pox, that hideous and disfiguring malady, is the
most fatal of the contagious fevers, the deaths being estimated by
Mr. Marson at about one-third, and by Dr. Seaton at rarely less
than 20 per cent., and often 30 and 40 per cent, of the attacks.
When the disease occurs in a person who has been vaccinated, it is
Usually, though not always, of a modified or milder form, a,nd Dr.
Seaton observes that the mortality of small-pox after vaccination
“ is rarely known to exceed 7 per cent., and is more frequently 3,
4 and 5 per cent.” In typhus and typhoid fever, according to Dr.
jBuchanan and Dr. Murchison, about one patient in ten dies, if all
®ges are taken together, but in adults as many as one in five.
Diphtheria (a contagious sore-throat deriving its name from a
whitish sloughing membrane or skin that forms in the throat and
©ften spreads to the windpipe) is fatal to one in seven, or even,
according to Dr. Aitken, to one third of those attacked by it ;
ftvhile the mortality of scarlet fever is the most variable of
all, ranging from ®ne in twenty or thirty in mild epidemics to one
in five or six in severe ones, and on an average it is reckoned at
about one in twelve. If we take these figures, we may perhaps
infer that there occur in England and Wales on an average of years
about 12,000 or 15,000 cases annually of small-pox ; 10,000 of
typhus ; 70,000 of typhoid or enteric fever ; 15,000 of diphtheria ;
tnd 200,000 cases of scarlet fever. Dr. Murchison, judging by the
deaths from scarlet fever, estimates that considerably less than
half the children born contract that disease (in 1880 the total
number of births registered was 881,643). Hooping-cough and
measles, though the rate of mortality in them is comparatively low,
are so extremely contagious that few children escape them, and
Bence more than half-a-million cases of hooping-cough, and as many
of measles, must annually occur on an average in this country.
D 2
�52
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
In spite of the dreadful ravages committed by infectious
diseases, there are no maladies for whose prevention so little has
yet been done. Indeed, till very recently, they were regarded
almost as necessary and unavoidable evils, and except in the case
of vaccination for small-pox and in some other instances, few
energetic steps were taken to combat any of the infections current
among us, or to prevent their diffusion. “ As to contagions already
current in the country,” says Mr. Simon in his Report to the Privy
Council for 1865, “ practically any diseased person scatters his in
fection broadcast almost where he will—typhus or scarlatina,
typhoid or small-pox, or diphtheria.” In another impressive pas
sage in his Report to the Local Government Board for 1874, Mr.
Simon says: “ Among the causes which injuriously affect the
Public Health of England, considered as a total, certain operate
only on particular districts ; while others, though no doubt in
widely different degrees, appear to be of general, perhaps nearly
universal operation. Foremost in the latter class, and constituting
therefore in my opinion objects which claim earliest attention in
the sanitary government of England, two gigantic evils stand con
spicuous first, the omission (whether through neglect or through
want of skill) to make due removal of ref use-matters, solid and liquid,
from inhabited places ; and secondly, the license which is permitted
to cases of dangerous infectious disease to scatter abroad the seeds of
their infection.” Much has been done of late years, especially in large
towns, for the better removal of refuse matters by improvements
in the sewerage and in the water supply, and the next great
sanitary effort will probably be for the prevention and extinction
of infectious diseases. There are many sanitary reforms which
can be carried out by the authorities with little aid, except of a
pecuniary kind, from the public ; but the abolition of infectious
disease can only be accomplished by the cordial and intelligent co
operation of the whole community ; and hence the urgent need for
an open discussion of the subject, so that all may understand it
and agree as to the means that should be adopted for the pur
pose.
As the contagious fevers have no other source than contagion,
the requirements or indications for their prevention can be readily
understood, and the only difficulty is to know by what practical
and feasible measures these requirements can best be fulfilled. We
have already seen that a contagious fever can be communicated in
three ways ; either by the patient himself, both during his illness
and convalescence, or by the persons or objects which have become
contaminated by being in his neighbourhood. The patient com
municates infection by means of little particles, invisible to the
naked eye, which are exhaled in vast quantities from his body, and
which according to the modern view are excessively minute living
organisms, or microbes ; the tainted objects act simply as carriers of
these particles ; while the tainted or suspected persons may either
act as carriers, or may, for aught we know, be really themselves
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
53
patients, and already suffering from the disease in its latent or
incubative stage. For the purpose of prevention, therefore, all
that is needed is that no one who has not previously had the disease
should come near any patient or suspected person till the period of
danger is past, and that all tainted objects should be thoroughly
disinfected ; in other words, isolation and disinfection are the
essential requisites for the prevention of the infectious fevers.
“ The isolation of healthy persons from those affected with the
disease, and from those who have intercourse with such patients,”
says Dr. Aitken, in speaking of scarlet fever, “ is essential, and is
the only rule that promises any good results.” Mr. Simon also,
speaking of scarlet fever, observes that “ at present we have not
any other known power of dealing preventively with the disease
than such as consists in intercepting all contagious communication
between the infected and the non-infected parts of the population.
Thoroughly to isolate the sick from intercourse with susceptible
persons, and thoroughly to trap and exterminate all contagium
which the bodies of the sick evolve, are the preventive feats which
have to be accomplished.” A complete system of prevention for
the infectious fevers would thus include, in the first place, the
isolation of the patients during their illness and convalescence ;
secondly, the isolation (often called quarantine') of suspected
persons till the period of incubation is over, and it can be seen
whether or not they are infected with the disease ; and thirdly,
the disinfection of clothing, bedding, furniture, and other con
taminated articles. A fourth indispensable requisite is the imme
diate notification to the sanitary authorities of every case that
occurs, so that means may be taken as speedily as possible to aid
the sufferers in their difficulties, and to prevent the extension of
the disease.
These requirements for limiting the spread of infection are in
cluded by Sir James Simpson—who was the first, in his “ Proposal
to Stamp out Small-pox and other Contagious Diseases ” (1868), to
urge the adoption of measures, not merely for the partial preven
tion, but for the complete and speedy extinction of the contagious
fevers by a great social effort—in the following rules, which he calls
the “ Regulations for Stamping Out.” His remarks have special
reference to small-pox, but similar measures, as he afterwards
states, are applicable, and will, he believes, sooner or later be
adopted for the prevention and extinction of all the infectious fevers.
The regulations which he proposes are:—“ 1. The earliest pos
sible notification of the disease after it has once broken out upon
any individual or individuals. 2. The seclusion at home or in
hospital of those affected during the whole progress of th$ disease,
as well as during the convalescence from it, or until all power of
infecting others is past. 3. The surrounding of the sick with
nurses and attendants who are themselves non-conductors, or in
capable of being affected, inasmuch as they are known to be pro
tected against the disease by having already passed through cow
�54
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
pox or small-pox. 4. The due purification, during and after the
disease, by water, chlorine, carbolic acid, sulphurous acid, etc., of
the rooms, beds, clothes, etc., used by the sick and their attendants,
and the disinfection of their own persons.”
The late president of the College of Physicians, Sir Thomas
Watson, in his article in the Nineteenth Century on “ The Abolition
of Zymotic Disease” (1877) earnestly urges the same views, and
thus enumerates the measures which he regards as necessary for
prevention : 'l To this end,” He says, “ the requisites are, first, the
unfailing and immediate notification to the proper authorities of
the occurrence of every case. Second, the instant isolation of the
sick person. Third, the thorough disinfection of his body, clothes,
furniture, and place of isolation. Fourth, vigilant and effectual
measures to prevent the importation of his disease from abroad,
and to strangle it should it by mischance return.”
It will be observed that the above proposals omit one of the four
measures which have been already adverted to as needed to consti
tute a complete system of prevention against the infectious fevers,
namely, isolation of the patients, isolation of suspected persons,
disinfection, and notification. The measure omitted is the isolation
of suspected persons, or quarantine, as it is often called, a word
used to signify the seclusion of persons apparently healthy, but
who have had intercourse with patients, till the period of incubation
of the disease is past, and it can be known whether or not they are
infected. This has always been felt to be the most vexatious and
harassing of the preventive regulations, and therefore it may
be dispensed with wherever there is reason to believe, either that
the other means would without it be found sufficient, or that society
would not willingly consent to its adoption. Still, such a measu ’•e
is often of the utmost value, and is, indeed, indispensable to success
when the disease to be combated is of a particularly infectious cf
very fatal nature, so that the strongest means are required to sup
press it. All the fresh cases, we must bear in mind, arise among
the persons who have been exposed to contagion, and in this way,
by isolating the latter for a few days, we obtain an immense puwff
of preventing the disease. If, on the other hand, the suspected
persons are left at large, those of them who are incubating the dis
ease will sicken in the midst of other healthy people, to whom they
may probably communicate infection before there is time to isolate
them. For these reasons the isolation of suspected individuals, or
quarantine, has been very frequently resorted to, though hitherto
almost solely as a means of defence against foreign infectious dis
eases, such as the plague, yellow fever, and cholera. It is by strict
quarantine regulations, as well as improvements in hygiene, that the
plague has been expelled from Europe, and that New York and some
other American seaports have been long preserved from the inroads of
yellow fever ; and our exemption of late years and until recently from
that fearful scourge, Asiatic cholera, is largely owing to the system of
quarantine which has been established against it in the Red Sea and
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
55
on the frontiers of Russia, the routes by which cholera entered in
its former visits. The isolation of persons who have been exposed
to contagion is commonly effected in one of two ways ; either by
their seclusion in separate buildings, for a number of days not
exceeding the usual period of incubation of the disease ; or else by
surrounding the infected places with what is called a sanitary
cordon, or a line which no one is allowed to pass without permission
of the authorities, and by which the sick and those having inter
course with them are kept apart from the rest of the community.
In several towns in the north of England the local authorities have
very recently applied for and received from Parliament powers to
erect shelter-houses, in which the healthy members of infected
families can be received while their homes are being disinfected,
and also to impose certain restrictions on the residents in houses in
which infectious disease has broken out; compensation being given
for any loss that may be sustained by compliance with the sanitary
regulations.
But by far the most important and essential of the preventive
measures is the isolation of the patients themselves, and the main
difficulty in the whole subject is to know in what manner this can
best be effected. Sir James Simpson, as we have seen, proposes
that the patient should be secluded “ at home or in hospital ;” but
he, and all others who have carefully considered the facts, point out
the utter impossibility of effectually isolating a contagious fever in
the homes of the poor, on account of the overcrowding and the
want of a separate room or of any adequate means for preventing
frequent intercourse between the patient and his friends both during
his illness and his convalescence. Mr. Simon says, with reference
to the overcrowding of labourers’ cottages : “ Again and again, in
phrases so uniform that they seem stereotyped, reporters on the
spread of epidemic disease in rural districts have insisted on the
extreme importance of that overcrowding as an influence which
renders it a quite hopeless task to attempt the limiting of any in
fection which is introduced.” Dr. Aitken observes also, in treating
of scailet fever: “When, however, we look abroad at the actual
condition of the people among whom the disease works its ravages,
we see at once that, with regard to very many of them, and espe
cially with regard to the very poor in towns, isolation and disinfec
tion are no more than idle words.” To avoid the risk of transmit
ting the disease, those who have any intercourse with the patient
should as rarely as possible, and only after disinfection, come in
contact with healthy susceptible persons ; but how totally this is
disregarded in numberless instances may be gathered from the fol
lowing account, quoted in Dr. Aitken’s work from a communication
by Professor Bell to the Lancet, of a case of severe scarlet fever
which was seen in a small crowded room. Upon inquiry Dr. Bell
found the following facts : “ The father had charge of an extensive
society’s bread-shop ; the mother was a washerwoman, taking
clothes to her home to wash ; the eldest girl attended, throughout
�56
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIGUS DISEASES.
the day, the children of a lady’s family, and came home to sleep at
night; the other children attended, some an infant-school, some a
large mixed school, where hundreds of other children met. The
youngest played with young children in a house on the other side of
the passage.” How can we hope, in such circumstances, to prevent
the spread of a dangerous infectious disease ?
Even in the houses of the rich, where all the advantages of a
separate room and trained nurse, with disinfectants and other neces
sary appliances, can be had, the isolation of an infectious fever is
by no means easy, and very frequently fails in spite of the most
conscientious efforts. There is a wide difference in the infectious
ness of different diseases, and some of them are much harder to
isolate than others. Thus Dr. J ones Glee observes, in his article on
Scarlet Fever in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ In degree of
contagiousness scarlet fever takes its place between measles and
hooping-cough above, and typhus fever below, diphtheria being
very far below.” Measles and hooping-cough are so extremely con
tagious, and so difficult to isolate, that it seems needless for the
present to think of their extinction, and we should rather at first
confine our efforts to the other infectious diseases. Of these, small
pox and typhus are much less common in the rich than the poor ;
indeed, typhus, though very dangerous, and often fatal, to the
medical men and nurses who attend it, is usually found only among
the poorest classes of society ; while enteric or typhoid fever, as
previously remarked, is propagated mainly by the bowel discharges
of the sick, and needs, as its essential preventive, the thorough dis
infection or destruction of these discharges immediately on their
issue from the body. The diseases which most frequently require
to be isolated in the houses of the rich, therefore, if we omit
measles and hooping-cough, are scarlet fever and the much rarer
affection, diphtheria ; and to show how little reliance can be placed
on the usual preventive measures in so highly infectious a disease as
scarlet fever, I may again quote from Dr. Aitken’s work the fol
lowing remarks by Dr. Davies, the medical officer of health for
Bristol. In writing of an epidemic of scarlet fever at Bristol in
1875, Dr. Davies asks the question : “ Are we doing any good with
our present preventive means ?” and observes : “ I feel certain that
we increase the anxiety of the domestic and social troubles of the
public by our preventive measures ; and I feel doubtful of the
answer to the former question.” “ I have never,” he continues,
“ used disinfectants so extensively as during the present epidemic ;
and yet our failure is complete. The doubts I have expressed do
not in any way extend to typhus and enteric fever, small-pox, and
Asiatic cholera.” From the remarkable tenacity of the virus of
scarlet fever, disinfection is more difficult in this disease than in
measles or typhus, and the power to infect continues longer, lasting
altogether during illness and convalescence for two months or more ;
and it is evident that the long presence of a fever in an ordinary
dwelling-house, full of susceptible persons, not only gives great
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
57
facilities for contagious intercourse, but must so thoroughly load
the bedding, walls, and furniture with virulent particles as to render
much more difficult the process of disinfection.
The above facts show clearly that the real cause of the enormous
prevalence and fatality of the infectious fevers is that they are
treated az home, where they cannot, in the great majority of cases,
be properly isolated; and hence the best authorities have of late
years come more and more decidedly to the conviction that these
diseases ought not to be treated at home, but in hospitals set apart
for the purpose, and so arranged that each different kind of disease
may be isolated in a separate building or a separate ward. The
hospital treatment of the infectious fevers seems to me one of the
most immense improvements ever introduced in medicine, and the
means which, in combination with others, will lead in time to the
complete and final extinction of all these disorders. In an infec
tious disease the objects of medical treatment are not only to cure
the malady, but also to prevent its extension to other persons ; and
the latter aim can only be secured, in the case of the contagious
fevers, by treating them in hospitals where their extension can be
effectually prevented. A large number of infectious hospitals have
lately been provided by the local authorities in the towns and vil
lages throughout the country, partly by erecting new buildings, and
partly by adapting private houses and cottages for the purpose, at
the earnest instigation of the Local Government Board and their
medical staff. “For a long time past,” says the late Dr. Seaton, in
his report for 1876, “the Board have been strenuously urging on
local authorities the provision of such hospitals.” Another indis
pensable means of prevention consists in hospitals or homes in the
country air where convalescents from the contagious fevers can be
isolated till their power of infecting is past; and a few institutions
of the kind have recently been provided, in great part through the
admirable efforts of Miss Mary Wardell and Mrs. Gladstone,
though hitherto chiefly by voluntary contributions, and not by
public funds.
The immense utility of fever hospitals and convalescent homes
as a means for stamping out zymotic disease, will be seen if we
consider for a moment their advantages, not only to the public,
but also to the infected families and to the patients themselves.
To the public the treatment in hospital affords a complete pro
tection by at once removing the patient, the centre and source of
contagion, from the midst of susceptible people, and placing him
in circumstances where his disease cannot extend. In a wellregulated hospital, where the nurses and other attendants are care
fully chosen as having had the disease, and do not come in contact
with the public outside except on rare occasions and after disin
fection, there is little likelihood that any fresh case should arise ;
and even if it did, it would be promptly isolated, so that the
mischief would spread no further. Thus Dr. Broadbent, the senior
physician of the London Fever Hospital, observed lately, at a
�58
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
drawing-room meeting at Mrs. Gladstone’s, that “ from the moment
when a scarlet-fever patient was in an ambulance or in a con
valescent home, all danger to the public ceased.” In like manner
Dr. Buchanan, the present medical officer of the Local Government
Board, says: “In regard to some infections, notably those of
scarlatina and diphtheria, there are no means at all to be compared
with isolation in hospital for preventing the spread of a limited
number of cases into a formidable epidemic.” “ There are,” he
says again, “ four infectious diseases—small-pox, scarlatina, diph
theria, and continued fever—which more particularly require to be
treated in hospital, when they attack persons who cannot be pro
perly isolated in their own houses and he adds that “ small-pox,
as well as other infections, is capable of being wonderfully limited
by isolation in hospital.” Particular care should be taken in any
outbreak of disease to isolate as quickly and effectually as possible
the first cases; for a fever is in some respects like a fire, which at
first can be readily extinguished ; but afterwards, when it has had
time to spread and gather strength, becomes difficult if not im
possible to control. In a Memorandum issued a few years ago by
the Local Government Board, it is pointed out that the separation
of the sick from the healthy “ is comparatively easy, if means to
attain it are taken early, while cases of the disease are very few;
but any interval of delay allows the cases to multiply, and perhaps
at last to become so numerous that endeavours to isolate them
cannot succeed.” If all the existing cases of an infectious fever,
and especially the first cases, were promptly removed to hospital,
and the convalescents afterwards transferred to suitable homes,
epidemics could be arrested at their origin, and the number of
patients needing isolation would soon be surprisingly reduced.
The only other sources of contagion which would then remaiii to
be dealt with are the persons and objects contaminated by the
patients before their removal to hospital ; and if the suspected
persons were secluded for a few days during the term of incubation,
and the tainted objects thoroughly disinfected, it is not too much
to assert that the disease might in a short space of time be radically
and completely extinguished.
To show how rapidly a contagious fever can be extirpated when
adequate means are employed for the purpose, Sir James Simpson
points to the instructive example afforded by the cattle plaque, a
terrible disease of horned cattle, which has its home in Siberia,
and was imported into England from the Continent in 1865. This
is the most fatal and most highly infectious of all the spreading
disorders of the domestic animals, the mortality being estimated by
Professor Fleming at about 90 or 95 per cent, of the attacks, and
during the two years which elapsed before it was subdued in this
country it destroyed nearly half-a-million of cattle. At first the
disease was allowed to gain ground through division of opinions ;
but when a stringent law for its prevention was passed by Par
liament and put in force, it immediately began to decline, and was
�THE EXTIN Clio., OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
59
soon entirely stamped out. The measures adopted were of such
a nature as to deal effectually with all the sources of contagion,
and consisted in the compulsory slaughter, with compensation, of
the sick and also of the suspected animals, the burial of the diseased
bodies, and the disinfection of tainted objects ; due notification of
every case to the authorities being likewise made compulsory. These
are the means which have repeatedly been employed on the Con
tinent against inroads of the cattle plague, and invariably with
success. “ Whatever be the place into which it penetrates,” says
M. Leon Colin, “ the cattle plague can be arrested, for we have
always the same resource, a resource absolute and radical, for sup
pressing the contagion, by causing to disappear the sick, the animals
which they have contaminated, and the objects which they have
Soiled.” Now, Sir James Simpson holds that small-pox and other
infectious fevers in man might be just as successfully eradicated as
Cattle plague, since we possess in isolation strictly carried out, a
means no less powerful for preventing them. “We could, in my
Opinion,” he says, “ as surely and as swiftly stamp out small-pox
as rinderpest (cattle plague) has been stamped out.” After pro
posing his preventive regulations, he says : “ The measures which
I have suggested would probably, in my opinion, stamp out small
pox in Great Britain within six months or a year, provided they
were carried out as faithfully and universally as the Legislature
can command.” It seems to me that these views are in principle
undeniably true, and that if society would only consent to the
effectual isolation, or, in other words, to the isolation in hospital
of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor, these
dreadful disorders, which have lasted from time immemorial and
destroyed millions of human lives, could in a very few years be
coni pie telv rooted out and banished from among us.
The objection which has been so often urged against fever hos
pitals, that they separate a patient from his friends and relatives,
Seems to be really an objection not to hospitals merely, but to
^solation itself in any form. Even when the patient is treated at
home he must, if we would prevent infection, be kept entirely
apart from his friends and relatives. In both cases isolation is
equally essential, and is the real difficulty that has to be met and
surmounted before we can hope for success. Doubtless it is a
most painful necessity to have to separate from a beloved relative
-—from a child, or parent, or husband, or wife when they are
stricken down by an infectious fever ; but if the separation is
indispensably needed for the extinction of these dangerous ma
ladies, and for the good of the whole human race, ought we not
Willingly to consent to it ? It appears to me, moreover, that fever
hospitals are in reality an inestimable boon to the family and to
the patient, no less than to society at large. They prevent, in
numberless instances, the spread of disease to other members of a
household, and they save the family from all the troubles and
difficulties attendant on isolation at home, which are particularly
�60
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
harassing at such a time of anxiety and distress. There is another
danger connected with the home treatment of contagious fevers
which should be mentioned, and of which the public is not suf
ficiently aware ; namely, that if a woman who is pregnant or
recently delivered contracts one of these diseases, and especially
scarlet fever, it is almost sure to prove fatal. “ Fever during the
pregnancy,” says Dr. Aitken, “most certainly ends in abortion and
death. If the woman be recently delivered, the disease will be of
the most malignant type and almost always fatal.” “ If scarlet
fever can be prevented,” he says also, “ the number of puerperal
fever cases would be diminished one-half ; and every possible step
ought to be taken to remove the pregnant female alike from the
influence of scarlet fever and from erysipelas.” Besides these
great advantages of hospitals, they enable the patient in very
many cases to have better food, nursing, and other accommodations
than he could find at home, while the richer classes may, if they
please, be treated in private hospitals or in separate wards or
rooms to which admission is obtained by payment. Conveyance
to hospitals, it may also be remarked, can be readily effected by
means of ambulance carriages, provided with a moveable bed,
which is taken into the sick-room and into the ward, so as to
avoid, as far as possible, any risk or inconvenience to the patient.
The benefits which a patient derives from a convalescent home are
obvious, for unless he has access to an institution of the kind, he
cannot for some time after his recovery go anywhere to seek a
change of air, and to recruit his strength without endangering the
lives of others. Indeed, the Public Health Act of 1875 expressly
forbids any person suffering from a dangerous contagious disease
to expose himself “ without proper precautions against spreading
the disorder, in any street, public place, or conveyance,” so that’ it
is difficult to see how a convalescent patient who is still capable
of infecting others, can travel, change his residence, or even leave
the house without infringing the law and rendering himself liable
to a penalty.
A question of the utmost importance is, whether the isolation of
persons suffering from a contagious fever should be made compul
sory and enforced by the State, and both Sir James Simpson and
Sir Thomas Watson plead earnestly in favour of a measure for this
purpose. “ If,” says the former, “ by a law which no one thinks
harsh or severe, lunatics are prevented from destroying the lives of
their fellow-men, why should it be thought harsh or severe that
people affected with small-pox should be prevented from dealing
out destruction and death to all the susceptible with whom they
happen to come into contact ?” The force of this appeal will not
be disputed, and it seems to me that a law making obligatory the
isolation of all cases of infectious fever, whether in rich or poor,
if it had the cordial approval and co-operation of society, would
be incomparably the most effectual means that could be taken for
the prevention of these diseases. Such a law would be no real in
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
61
fringement of liberty, for the principle of liberty, as Mr. Mill
points out, requires only that acts which do not injure others
should be left free. On the contrary, acts which injure others
may rightly be controlled by the State, and surely there are no acts
more highly inj urious to others or more likely to be followed by
disastrous consequences, than to communicate the seeds of a
dangerous infectious disease. To extirpate these maladies, more
over, a most vigilant and united action on the part of the public
and the local authorities is absolutely necessary, and this cannot be
obtained without the aid of the law ; indeed, without stringent
laws to prevent them, the extinction of infectious fevers either in
man or the domestic animals seems an utterly hopeless task.
Hence a large number of enactments have recently been made
by Parliament for the prevention of infectious disease, and one of
them deals expressly with the subject of isolating the patient. A
clause in the Public Health Act of 1875 directs as follows:
“ Where any suitable hospital or place for the reception of the
Sick is provided within the district of a local authority, or within
a convenient distance of such district, any person who is suffering
from any dangerous infectious disorder, and is without proper
lodging or accommodation, or lodged in a room occupied by more
than one family, or is on board any ship or vessel, may, on a
certificate signed by a legally qualified medical practitioner, and
with the consent of the superintending body of such hospital or
place, be removed, by order of any justice, to such hospital or
place "at the c'ost of the local authority ; and any person so suffer
ing, who is lodged in any common lodging-house, may, with the
like consent, and on a like certificate, be so removed by order of
the local authority.” That is to say, the law permits the com
pulsory removal to hospital of any fever patient whom the medical
practitioner may certify to be without proper lodging and accom
modation. But the radical defect and injustice of this enactment
seem to be, that it is a law for the poor only, and not for the rich ;
it permits the removal to hospital, and compulsory isolation, of the
poor, but lays no similar obligation on the rich, although the com
plete isolation of a fever patient is quite as necessary among the
latter, and is in very many cases inadequately carried out. To be
just, the law should enforce isolation equally in all classes • and if
this cannot practically be done in any other way than by treatment
in hospital, it seems in fairness to follow that such treatment
should be impartially enjoined in all. Another defect in the enact
ment, which, as pointed out by Mr. Murdoch in his “ Remarks on
the Necessity for further Suppression of Infectious Disorders,”
has greatly diminished its efficacy, is that it imposes on the medical
practitioner the difficult and unpleasant task of interpreting the
phrase “without proper lodging and accommodation,” and thus
makes him the agent in compuisorily sending patients to hospital.
The only law which, I venture to think, would be both just and
effectual, is one making obligatory the isolation in hospital of all
�62
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
cases of certain specified diseases, whether in ri fh or poor. The
diseases which should be included in the measure, and should
always, unless for some special and urgent reason, be treated in
hospital, are, I think, small-pox, typhus, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
and perhaps also, under certain circumstances, typhoid or enteric
fever ; although the prevention of the last-named disorder requires
rather that the discharges should be thoroughly disinfected, and
that complete security should be given for this being done, than
that the patient himself should be isolated. All cases of the
foreign infectious diseases, such as yellow fever or the dreaded
pestilence, Asiatic cholera, should also, as it seems to me, for the
public safety, be treated in hospital. With regard to measles and
hooping-cough, they are affections of a less dangerous nature, and
moreover they are so extremely prevalent, so highly contagious,
and so difficult to isolate, that it seems better to defer for a time
any attempt to extinguish them by means of legal enactments,
and they might continue, as at present, to be usually treated at
home.
But, besides the isolation of the patients, the other leading
measures of prevention should also, in the opinion of the highest
medical authorities, be made compulsory : namely, the disinfection
of tainted articles of clothing or furniture, the notification of all
cases of infectious disease, and, in certain instances, the isolation of
persons who have been exposed to contagion—or quarantine, as it
is commonly called. It is often thought that quarantine is chiefly
applicable to infected ships, or to a line of frontier between
neighbouring countries ; but one of its most important and
valuable forms is the quarantine of infected houses; for the house
on land is in many respects analogous to the ship at sea. Infection
spreads most readily to persons who are in the same house, and
especially in the same room, with the patient, and seems very
seldom to be propagated directly from one house to another, since
the virulent particles are quickly dispersed and rendered harmless
by mixing with the outer air. Thus Dr. Buchanan says, in speak
ing of infectious hospitals: “ As regards the distance which, on
medical grounds, it is right to secure between adjacent inhabited
houses and an infectious hospital, I know of no evidence as to
what proximity, if any, can be a danger to persons not actually
under the same roof ; but there is abundant evidence to show that
very short distances suffice to prevent direct infection.” This fact
shows the great benefits which may be derived from a quarantine
of infected houses ; for when a case of fever occurs in a dwelling
house, if the patient is removed to hospital, and if the other
members of the household are isolated for a few days either at
home or elsewhere, during the term of incubation and while the
premises are being disinfected, the disorder may very often be pre
vented from spreading any further. These means would, I think,
be specially valuable if applied to the first cases of disease appear
ing in a locality, when every possible care should be taken to
�THE EXTINCTION QF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
63
guard against the sources of contagion, and at once to stamp out the
malady at its commencement. As previously remarked, compul
sory powers have lately been granted by Parliament to the local
authorities in several towns in the north of England enabling them
to order the quarantine of infected houses, which if combined
with the removal of the patient to hospital, seems to me the most
complete and effectual system that could be adopted for rapidly
stamping out zymotic disease.
With regard to the disinfection of houses, furniture, or other
articles, this should always, according to Mr. Simon, be done under
the direction of the sanitary authority, who would ensure its
proper performance, and at the same time relieve the public from
a troublesome and expensive task. It should, he says, “ be made a
legal obligation, that every health authority of the country should
have all disinfectant processes necessary for the protection of the
public health done under direction of a skilled officer, and, as far
as necessary, at a public establishment, and at the public cost.”
The means commonly employed for disinfecting purposes, it may
perhaps here be remarked, are heat, free ventilation, and also
certain chemical substances, such as carbolic acid or chloride of
lime. Of these the surest disinfectant is great heat, whether by
fire or boiling water, or by the hot air of an oven, as it at once kills
the virulent germs. The most generally useful agent, however, is
free ventilation and a copious supply of fresh air, which dilutes
and disperses the poisonous exhalations, so that they have no
longer the power to infect. As observed in a memorandum issued
by the Privy Council: “ The great natural disinfectant is fresh
air abundantly and uninterruptedly supplied.” In disinfecting a
room which has been occupied by a fever patient, the usual plan is
to fill it, all apertures being closed, with chlorine gas, or with the
fumes of burning sulphur, and after it has been thoroughly
fumigated, to throw open doors and windows, and allow the freest
ventilation for several days; then to whitewash the walls and
ceiling, and, at the end of a week, the room may again be safely
inhabited. In Asiatic cholera and typhoid fever the virus is con
tained chiefly in the bowel discharges of the sick, and these should
always be thoroughly disinfected immediately on their issue from
the body. Another precaution, which was introduced by Dr. Budd,
and has lately been recommended by Dr. Cameron as in his opinion
the best of all preventives against cholera, is to flood the drains
and closets frequently with disinfectants during the presence of
the disease in the country, so as to prevent the little germs, c r
microbes, from living and multiplying in the sewage. By careful
disinfection and isolation, we may hope that cholera, like plague
and other scourges, will be effectually combated, and may, in the
end, be entirely overcome.
To enable the sanitary authorities to ensure due isolation and
disinfection in cases of infectious disease, it is evidently necessary
that every such case should be notified or reported to them, and
�64
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
that this should be done as speedily as possible ; for the sooner
preventive means are taken the less time is allowed for the spread
of contagion, and the more easily can the outbreak be arrested.
The prevention of these disorders, it may be observed, has been
immensely facilitated by the new sanitary organization introduced
by the Act of .1872, according to which the whole country has been
divided into districts, governed in matters relating to public health
by sanitary authorities ; each of these bodies having its medical
officer of health, while all of them are under the superintendence
of the Local.Government Board, aided by its medical officer. Mr.
Simon describes “the new sanitary organization of the country”
as consisting of “ the Local Government Board, viewed as a Central
Board. of Health, and the more than fifteen hundred district
authorities which, each with its medical officer of health, locally
administer the health laws.” In the notification of infectious dis
eases, every case should at once be reported to the medical officer
of health for the district. This system of notifying disease has
lately been adopted with excellent results in upwards of thirty
towns, some of them among the largest of the United Kingdom,
and has there been made compulsory by special Acts of Parliament
obtained on the application of the local authorities themselves ;
and Mr. Hastings has more than once introduced into the House of
Commons a Bill for extending the same principle of compulsory
notification to the whole country.
Although the highest authorities agree in thinking that the
notification of infectious diseases is indispensably needed for their
prevention by the State, and should be made compulsory, there is
much difference of opinion in regard to the question, Who is to
notify ? In the infectious fevers, the duty of giving intimation
must be performed either by the occupier of the house where the
disease has broken out or by the medical attendant; and a strong
feeling exists among large numbers of the medical profession that
the legal obligation to notify, and the penalties for neglecting it,
ought not to be laid on them, but on the householder. Thus, in
an important debate on the subject which took place at the annual
meeting of the British Medical Association in 1882, a resolution
was carried to the effect, “ That this meeting earnestly desires
compulsory notification of infectious disease, but it wishes to
express its opinion that the compulsion to notify should be placed
upon the householder as bis duty as a citizen, and not upon the
doctor.” In the course of the discussion, the President, Dr. Alfred
Carpenter, observed that “ There could be no doubt that it was
the duty of the patient, or his legal guardian, to notify the exist
ence of any infectious disease to the local authority.” This seems
to me a truth of the utmost importance, which should be carefully
considered by the public. The real person on whom the duty of
notifying infectious disease naturally rests is, I think, the patieDt
himself, and in some diseases, which do not impair the faculties,
he may be legally called upon to fulfil it. But in the contagious
�The extinction
of infectious diseases.
65
fevers the proper person on whom the obligation should be laid
seems to be the householder, as he is the patient’s natural guardian,
and, moreover, it is he, and not the doctor, who has an early know
ledge of the existence of the disease. The assistance of the medical
taan will doubtless be needed in most cases to diagnose the affection, and he will also usually be the one to fill up the certificate,
■though the householder may afterwards forward it to the sanitary
eathority. But supposing that the householder, after being in
formed of the infectious nature of the disease, refuses to notify it,
from a fear of injuring his business, or other reasons, I cannot but
think that it would then become'the duty of the medical man, and
that he should be legally required, to make the notification himself ;
for he could not justifiably refrain from interfering, and see a
breach of law committed, which might lead to the most deplorable
and even fatal consequences to many persons. The Bill of Mr.
Hastings proposes, I believe, to make the obligation to notify
bhwling on both the householder and the doctor conjointly ; and
this, as it seems to me, would be the true principle, if it were made
clear that the duty really and in the first instance rests on the
householder, and only when he refuses to discharge it, is incumbent
on the medical practitioner.
* There is one of the contagious fevers in which, besides isolation
and disinfection, a third preventive measure of a totally different
nature, and which appears to me of immense value, has been very
extensively used ; I mean vaccination in small-pox. In disinfection
the object is to destroy the germs of a disease after they have left
the. body, while isolation deals with them at their source in the
patient himself ; but vaccination may be described as consisting in
.this, that after the virulence of the germs has been weakened by
pertain processes, such as their passage through a different species
IOf animal, inoculations are made with the weakened or attenuated
Virus, in order to protect the system against the action of the same
virus in its stronger form. It was shown by Dr. Edward Jenner,
in 1798, that inoculations with cow-pox matter have the power of
protecting the constitution against the virus of small-pox—a fact
which the late Mr. Marson, who for forty years had charge of the
■Dondon Small-pox Hospital, regards as “the greatest discovery in
relation to disease ever made by man for the preservation of human
life.” It was also thought probable by Jenner that cow-pox is
nothing else than small-pox modified or mitigated by passing
through the cow ; and Mr. Ceely, and Mr. Badcock afterwards,
Succeeded in producing cow-pox by inoculating heifers wita
matter taken from a small-pox pustule; but as this is an experiment which very frequently fails, doubts still continued to exist,
till in 1881 the truth of their opinion was completely established
by Dr. Voigt, the superintendent of the Vaccine Institute at
Hamburg. By inoculating a calf with small-pox matter he pro
duced cow-pox, the lymph from which, after being further*
weakened by transmission through several calves, has been habiE
�66
THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
tually used at Hamburg in vaccination, for the last two years, with
the most satisfactory results. “Vaccinia and variola (cow-pox and
small-pox) are derived originally from the same contagium,” says
Dr. Voigt, “and give to those affected by them an immunity one
against the other.” Again, the eminent discoverer, M. Pasteur, by
a.n in.vabiable series of researches, has lately shown that vaccina
tion in small-pox is by no means a solitary fact, and that the virus
of many other infectious diseases can be weakened or mitigated
in a similar manner, so as to furnish a protective material, or
vaccine, as he terms it, against the diseases. The two methods by
which he has succeeded in diminishing the power of an infectious
virus and converting it into a vaccine are, either by transmitting
it through an animal of a different species, or by allowing an
interval of several weeks to elapse between two successive culture®
of the little organisms or germs that produce the disease, during
which period they are acted on by the oxygen of the air and
gradually lose their virulence. By these means M. Pasteur has
already obtained the vaccines of several infectious disorders, the
most important of which are rabies (hydrophobia) in the dog, and
anthrax, or the splenic fever of cattle. Of the second method for
weakening the power of a virus he says especially,' We may hope
to discover in this way the vaccine of all virulent diseases,” and
he holds that “ we have here a proof that we are in possession of
a general method for preparing virus vaccine based upon the action
of oxygen and the air.”
The close affinity between cow-pox and small-pox, which are
really the same disease in different species, explains why the one
protects from the other, and according to the best authorities the
power of vaccination during childhood, especially when followed
by re-vaccination later in life, to prevent small-pox, or render it
milder if it does occur, is most remarkable. “ One thoroughly
good primary vaccination to start with,” says Dr. Seaton, in his
article on Vaccination in “ Reynolds’ System of Medicine,” “ and
one careful revaccination at puberty, so conducted as to give
evidence that the lymph was absorbed, are all that is necessary for
the complete protection of the population against small-pox.”
The facts which seem to prove most clearly the great efficacy of
vaccination are that, as shown by Jenner, inoculations with small
pox matter (which used formerly to be practised, but were made
illegal in 1840) produce no effect on a person who has had cow
pox ■ that the nurses who attend upon small-pox patients, and are
constantly exposed to the effluvia, very seldom contract the disease
if they have been previously revaccinated, not one of the nurses in
the London Small-pox Hospital having become infected during Mr.
Marson’s long experience ; and that the death-rate from small-pox
has been enormously diminished in every country where vaccina
tion is in general use. “ The present average death-rate from
small-pox,” says Dr. Seaton, “is scarcely, in any European country,
one-tenth part, and in those countries in which vaccination has
�THE EXTINCTION OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
67
been most carefully carried out it is much less than one-tenth part
•what it -was at the end of last century.” In England and Wales
the total number of deaths from small-pox in 1879 and 1880 were
536 and 648 deaths respectively, which, according to the RegistrarGeneral, are the lowest rates yet recorded. These figures show
how vast has been the reduction in a disease formerly more dreaded
in Europe than even the plague itself. They show, too, the
immense assistance which may be derived from a vaccine in the
final extinction of an infectious disease ; and they inspire the hope
that by careful isolation and disinfection, aided by vaccination,
we may succeed before long in completely stamping out and
abolishing small-pox, which Sir Thomas Watson describes as “ the
most hideous, loathsome, disfiguring, and, hydrophobia excepted,
probably the most fatal also of the various diseases to which the
human body is liable.”
There still remain two classes of infectious disease, on whose
extinction I would like, before concluding, to say a very few words,
namely, first, those derived from the lower animals, the most im
portant of which is hydrophobia ; and secondly, the venereal
affections, and especially syphilis. With regard to the terrible
malady hydrophobia, besides the vaccine lately discovered against
it by M. Pasteur, it has been earnestly urged by Sir Thomas
Watson, in the Nineteenth Century Review, that a means for its
complete extinction could be found in subjecting all dogs to a
quarantine of six or seven months (which might perhaps be done
by muzzling them), as recommended by Mr. Youatt and Sir
James Bardsley, for in this period every case of the disease which
was in process of incubation would show itself, and the animal
might be destroyed. “ By destroying every dog in which the
disease should break out during strict quarantine,” says Sir James
Bardsley, “ not only would the propagation of the malady be
prevented, but the absolute source of the poison would be entirely
Suppressed.”
As regards the venereal affections, their extinction is a subject of
enormous importance, for there are very few diseases which give
rise to such a fearful amount of human misery. The Acts for
their suppression, commonly known as the Contagious Diseases
Acts, which were so deeply unjust to women, have been virtually
annulled by the resolution of the House of Commons, in 1883,
mndemning compulsory examinations, and a better system of preTOntion is most urgently needed. The high authority, M. Mauriac,
holds that of the three venereal affections, gonorrhoea, syphilis,
and simple contagious sore, the first cannot be extinguished, but
that the two others admit of complete extinction, though the last
of them, being a slighter and merely local affection, could be far
more easily eradicated than the formidable malady, syphilis. It
Seems to me that the true object to be aimed at in the prevention
of syphilis by the State, is to deter individuals from spreading the
disease by the fear of being detected and punished. This object
�68
THE EXTINCTION OB’ INFECTIOUS DISEASES.
could, I venture to think, be best attained, in the first place, by
making the communication of syphilis a punishable offence in both
sexes, as. is strongly recommended by Mr. Berkeley Hill, and other
distinguished writers ; and in the second place, by making com
pulsory the notification of every case of syphilis and of simple
contagious sore to the sanitary authority, or in other words to the
medical officer of health for the district; and also, in addition to
these two enactments, by instituting a most careful and searching
inquiry into the origin of every case of syphilis, so as to discover
who has been guilty of spreading it. Syphilis differs from the
contagious fevers m this most important point, that the patient in
a multitude of cases knows perfectly well by whom he or she has
been infected, and therefore the origin of the disease can very
often be traced. All these inquiries, as well as the notifications of
disease to the authorities, should be kept strictly private, so that
no names would ever be divulged except those of individuals who,
knowing themselves to be diseased, assist in the spread of infection.
Whether an individual had acted in ignorance or from culpable
negligence would often appear from the circumstance that his
disease had been notified and he had been warned of its con
tagious nature. With regard to notification, which seems to me in
syphilis, as in all other dangerous infectious disorders, of immense
importance for its prevention, the legal obligation to notify
should, I think, be laid upon the patient himself, and not upon
the medical attendant ; although the latter could voluntarily give
intimation in cases where he desired to do so, and would doubtless
very often perform the duty at the patient’s request. By notifica
tion the amount and distribution of syphilis in the country would
become known, its increase or diminution could be tested, and
the disease would be rescued from the fatal secrecy which, more
than any other cause, promotes its ravages. It appears to me that
these measures would be just to both sexes, and, though some
times attended with very painful disclosures, would be no real
burden on any but those who wilfully or recklessly communicated
disease to other persons ; and they would also, I venture to think,
be found in the end more effectual than the previous Acts in
stamping out syphilis, which has so long been the scourge and
terror of mankind in all parts of the globe.
�ELEMENTS OF SOCIAL SCIENCE; or, Physical,
r
Sexual, and Natural Religion. An Exposition of the
True Cause and only Cure of the Three Primary Social Evils—
Poverty, Prostitution, and Celibacy. By a Doctor of. Medi
cine. London : E. Truelove, 256, High Holborn. Upwards
of 600 pages. Twenty.fifth Edition.
Sixty-first Thousand.
Price 2s. 6d. Stiff Boards; 3s. Cloth Boards—either post free.
Post Office Orders payable at High Holborn.
J
Translations of this Work have been published in the following
languages, and may be had of E. Truelove :—
In French.—Elements de Science Sociale. Paris: Germer BailliEre,
Boulevard St. Germain, 108. Third Edition, 1879.
In German. — Die Grundzuge der Gesellschaftswissenschaft. Berlin :
Elwin Staude.
Sixth Edition, 1880.
In Dutch.—De Elementen der Sociale Wetenschap. Rotterdam: Nijgh
& Van Ditmar. Second Edition, 1877In Italian.—Elementi di Scienza Sociale. Milan: Gaetano Brigola,
Fourth Edition, 1881.
In Portuguese. — Elementos de Sciencia Social. Lisbon: Silva
Junior. 1876.
In Russian.—Haia-ia Copia.ibHon Hayim. Geneva—Bale—Lyons: H.
Georg. 1877.
In Swedish.—Samhallsldrans Grunddrag. Stockholm: AssociationsBoktryckeriet. Second Edition, 1880.
In Hungarian.— A Tarsadalom-Tudomdny Elemei.
Buda-Posth:
S. Zilahy. 1879.
In Danish.—Grundtrcek af Samfundsvldenskaben. Copenhagen. Th.
E. Thomsen, 1879.
In Polish.—Zasady Nauki Spolecznej Geneva. Imprimerie Polonaise,
1880.
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.
* This is the only book, so far as we know, in which at a cheap price and with
honest and pure intent and purpose, all the questions affecting the sexes, and the
influence of their relations on society, are plainly dealt with. It has now been
issued in French as well as in English, and we bring the French edition to the
notice of our friends of the International Working Men’s Association, and of our
subscribers in France and Belgium, as essentially a poor man’s book.”—Aarfionai
Reformer, edited by Mr. Charles Bradlaugh.
“ The Elements of Social Science is a most remarkable work, written by a man
evidently with great knowledge of pathology and political economy. It will be
greatly liked or disliked, according to the ‘school’ of the reader; but no one can
fail to consider it as one of the most remarkable works of the day, on the subjects
of which it treats. We are told that it has been largely read in London by medical
men.”—Medicat Press and Ciicular, February 23rd, 1870.
“ A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book . . . This is, we believe,
the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific spirit recognised all the
elements m the problem—How are mankind to triumph over poverty, with its
train of attendant evils ?—and fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical
Solution.”—T/te Pxaminer, January 4th, 1»73.
“In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be weakness
and criminal prudery—a prudery as criminal as vice itself—not to say that such a
�book as the one Id question is not only a far lesser evil than the one that ft
combats, but in one sense a book which it is a mercy to issue and courage t®
Dublish.”—Reasoner, edited by Mr. G. J. Holyoake.
“We have never risen from the perusal of any work with a greater satisfaction
than this."—Investigator.
“That book must be read, that subject must be understood, before the
population can be raised from its present degraded, diseased, unnatural, and
immoral state. Wo really know not how to speak sufficiently highly of this
extraordinary work; we can only say, conscientiously and emphatically, it is a
blessing to the human race."—Peoples Paper. By Ernest Jones.
“Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain from
stating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one, in many
respects, we have ever met with. Thougn we differ toto ccelo from the author in
his views of religion and morality, and hold some of his remedies to tend rather
to a dissolution than a reconstruction of society, yet we are bound to admit the
benevolence and philanthropy of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing
less than the whole field of political economy.”—The British Journal of Homoeopathy,
January, 1860.
“ It is because, after an impartial consideration of this book, we feel satisfied
that the author has no meretricious professional object to subserve, that we are
induced to use its publication as a text for the discussion of a vital and pressing
subject; and because it bears evidences of research, thorough although misapplied,
professional education, some pretensions to philosophy, and a certain earnestness
of misguided conviction of the truth of peculiar prevalent economical theories,
Which seems to have led him off his feet, and to have induced him to venture
upon any extravagance in their support. It is in vain to attempt to hide these
subjects out of sight. This one book of 600 closely printed pages is in its third large
edition, It is of no use to ignore the topic as either delicate or disgusting. It is
of universal interest. It concerns intimately every human being.”—From an
adverse review, occupying six columns in The Weekly Dispatch, January and
February, 1860.
,
Extract from an Article by Professor Mantegazza, of Florence, in the Journal
Medico di Casa, of \6th January, 1874.
“This work has had eleven English editions, two French, a German and a
Dutch one; and is about to be published in Italian and in Portuguese; and we who
have read and meditated on it, rejoice with the author at this success, auguring
for it new and increasing good fortune.
“He is convinced that in this lower world too many people are born, and hence
very many of them are condemned either to a premature death, or, what is worse,
to a wretched life, oppressed by hunger and suffering. He comes forward there
fore to propose what we ourselves have modestly urged in our ‘Elements of
Hygiene ’ since 1864, when we said * Love, but do not have offspring.’ A disciple
of Malthus and of Stuart Mill, he is well versed in modern philosophy and in
political economy, and studies the abstruse problem in all its aspects, setting out
from the most elementary domestic hygiene to raise himself gradually to the
lofty regions of human dignity and civil progress. A foe to all hypocrisy and
prejudice, the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ calls things by their
real names, and shrinks only from the excessive sufferings and privations to
which the poor children of Adam are condemned. He is firmly convinced that
to measure human fecundity in accordance with the economical production of
families and of nations is the most certain means of destroying pauperism and
all the forms of want; and in this perhaps he is in error, for the evils of modern
society have many sources, and with the drying up of one (perhaps even the most
fruitful), another and another would present themselves, which only the eombined
and constant labours of future generations will perhaps be able to overcome.
However this may be, the courage with which the author faces one of the most
formidable problems of human society is most praiseworthy.
“ Human morality is gradually changing its centre of gravity to rest upon a more
■olid and durable basis. In this new morality the doctrines of Malthus and those
of the author of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ must also have a large share.
�In the place of alma-giving which humiliates, in the place of charity which
caresses an evil that it does not know how to cure, there will be substituted^
preventive philanthropy, which by studying want and suffering in their most
hidden and deep-seated springs, will be able radically to remove them. Juris*
prudence, medicine, and morality follow the same movement, are aiming at tho
same end—to prevent rather than to cure.”
**
motto of the work: * The diseases of society can, no more than corporeal
maladies, be prevented or cured, without being spoken about in plain language99
(John Stuart Mill), and its dedication to the poor and suffering, are sufficient to
show the tendency of the author. He uses, indeed, a directness of expression, an
outspokenness, which is seldom met with in our times, and will probably in most
circles of so-called refined society be styled very shocking if not cynical, though in
reality it is not so. The author only calls by their names things which we medical
men also have to discuss openly among ourselves and with patients, but which
are treated by polite society according to the Parisian proverb, ‘cela se fait, maia
cela ne se dit pas.’ The author, as appears from the title and from his profes
sional knowledge, is a medical practitioner. He merits, therefore, the attention of
his colleagues, the more so because, in the first place, they would scarcely guess
from the title that this is a book for medical men-—and secondly, because his
medical colleagues alone possess the education which permits them to estimate
without prejudice the aims and efforts of the author, to try the truth of the facts
which he lays down as premises, and, after due consideration, either to accept or
reject, or to limit and amend, his conclusions and proposals. . . . The author’s
remarks on the social questions in general are among the best and most deeplyfelt we have ever read.”—Schmidt's Jahrbiicher der gesammten Medinin. Band 152,
This is one of those books of which little is spoken, but which nevertheless
are wont to produce a quiet lasting effect, while finding their readers at length in
this way that under the influence of peculiar circumstances one person confiden
tially tells another that in such and such a work there is something to be found,
• • •
au^*hor is, as a natural inquirer, what one must perhaps still call a
materialist and a Darwinian; as a political economist—and he is by no means an
insignificant political economist—he belongs to the left wing of the free trade
school, to which, in spite of some differences of opinion, he lends on the whole a
great impulse, anticipating with confidence its ultimate and complete ■victory
throughout the whole cultured world.”— Vierteljahrsschrift fur Volkswirthschaft
wid Culturgeschichte, edited by J. Fancher. XII. Jahrg.
*
must
accustom himself to the openness with which the author treat!
his themes; but the work is unquestionably most instructive and interesting, and
to written with great knowledge of the subject.”—Hessische Morgenzeitung, Dec.
24th, 18 71.
No one, who has turned his thoughts to the solution of the most burning of
tai questions of the day, the social question, and who wishes to devote to it his
mental and practical energies, will be able to leave unread this book, whose
anonymous author, basing himself on the Malthusian essay ‘ On the Principle of
Population,’ deduces from it with keen logic a peculiar and most striking theory
On the cure of the three primary social evils—poverty, prostitution, and celibacy
; • •, Whatever may be said against this fearless laying bare of the most
Intimate relations of social life and agaiust his whole theory, purely and
undisguisedly materalistic as it is—even the opponent of the daring socialist will
be unable to deny him the merit of scientific closeness of reasoning, and what is
quite as important, of warm and zealous philanthropy; he will rather honour the
moral courage and mental energy which the author must have had to work his
way out of the bewildering maze of hitherto unsolved problems and conflicts, to a
conviction so logically consistent, so luminous, and yet so opposed to established
institutions and to the moral sentiments in which men have been brought up.”—•
KOnigtbtrger Hartungsche Zeitung. December 4th, 1871.
‘ The author treats, in an open and unreserved manner, the diseases of the human
frame, as well as those of society, because he is convinced, with Stuart Mill, that'
. they can only in this way be prevented and cured. In truth we have learned]
�from many years* experience that such Is the ease. We bring therefore to the
notice of our readers, and recommend them to procure, this excellent book."
Sonntags-Blatt, Organ fiir die Freidenker Deutschland*, edited by Dr. Auer. SDech't
January 26th, 1873.
8 P
“Many of the author’s views are diametrically opposed to oar own, but we
cannot refrain from describing the book as in very truth an epoch-making one
whose perusal must interest in the highest degree, both thx professional man and
the educated general reader. Nothing is gained by a prudish avoidance of the
subjects treated in the work; they nvxst be discussed, and mankind might con
gratulate themselves if this were always done in so candid and disinterested a
manner as by the author of ‘The Elements of Social Science.’”—Jfanoversch*
Anzeigen und Morgenuiiung. November 14th, 1871.
“A very remarkable book. ... A regard to the nature of the subject*
treated of forbids us to enter further into its contents—an exposition of the inner
conditions of social life which, for obvious reasons, lie outside the sphere of the
daily press. Suffice it to say that we have here to do with a work which differs
widely from the common-place productions of the book market, and which will
very probably go through no fewer editions in philosophic Germany than in
England.”—Reform, Hamburg, 28th October ,1875.
“ There must come an end to the ignorance of the laws of physiology. Every
ene ought to know; and it must be left to his own requirements and his own
judgment what use he will make of his knowledge. We must cease to regard as
God’s will, as destiny, as the inevitable, what is not so. We must cease to look
upon that as a duty, which can be defended on no single ground of humanity or
social interest Herein lies the great merit of Owen, when he already, in 1830,
published in America his ‘ Moral Physiology; ’ of the anonymous author and the
translator of the ‘ Elements of Social Science,’ and I may add of the publishers,
Truelove, in London, and Nijgh & Van Ditmar, in Rotterdam.”—From an article
by Mr. Van Houten (member of the Dutch Parliament) in the Dutch Monthly
Review, Vragtn des IKjds, October, 1876.
“ This large book is written by a man of science and of feeling ; it is pervaded
with the life, strength, and earnestness of a deep conviction. Politico-economical
ind medical theories are set forth so popularly that a child could understand
them. The author lays down as the foundation of his work the doctrines of
Malthus and Ricardo. . . . The injunction to abstain from marriage roused
(gainst them all humane and liberal people, while the momentous truth at the
root of their teachings lay buried as it were, and was long trodden under foot
and covered with bitter ridicule; but scientific truth never dies, it rises again
unexpectedly arrayed in all its armour, and often at the very time when
whole councils of physicians are predicting its inevitable decease. The author
of the ‘ Elements of Social Science ’ examines Malthus’s work, rigorously verifies
its propositions, and comes to the conclusion that Malthus was unquestionably in
the right; he does not, however, rest satisfied with Malthus’s remedy, but pro
poses his own universal means of relief. . . . We have here, doubtless, merely
glanced at the views expressed by the author; this is a large work, requiring
attentive perusal, and we confidently recommend it to the enlightened Russian
public, since only through them can the ideas therein contained find their way to
the world of labourers; the book is a great intellectual acquisition ; it is admirable
not only for its strictly scientific, logical, comprehensive and liberal views, but for
its deep humanity and warmth of heart. The author stands on practical ground,
he advocates things possible and capable of introduction in every country at a
given moment; his ideas, without doubt, do not exclude a social revolution, but
in their clearness and definiteness they lie nearer to actual life.”—OOinee jlUO
(Russian Monthly Journal), September, 1877.
3
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence
Creator
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Drysdale, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 68, [4] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: By 'A doctor of medicine'. Author's name handwritten in pencil on title page. Publisher's advertisement for Drysdale's Elements of social science, and reviews, on unnumbered pages at the end. Three articles, the last two reprinted from the National Reformer. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Contents: State remedies for poverty -- Can war be suppressed? -- The extinction of infectious diseases.
Publisher
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E. Truelove
Date
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1886
Identifier
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N195
Subject
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Social problems
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (State measures for the abolition of poverty, war, and pestilence), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Communicable Diseases
NSS
Poverty
War
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The extinction of war, poverty, and infectious diseases: containing essays on Home rule and federation; Can war be suppressed?; State remedies for poverty; and The extinction of infectious diseases by a Doctor of Medicine [George R. Drysdale].
Creator
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Drysdale, George
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 157 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Printed by A. Bonner, Chancery Lane, E.C. Sold by R. Forder, Stonecutter St. E.C.
Publisher
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Geo. Standring
Date
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1904
Identifier
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G4999
Subject
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Social problems
Health
Poverty
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Home Rule
Home Rule-Ireland
Infectious Diseases
Malthusianism
Poverty
War
War;Poverty
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The first edition of this pamphlet was published less than two years
ago. It consisted of three thousand copies, most of which were sold
in the first two or three months. For some time the pamphlet has
been out of print, and the present moment seems opportune for
issuing a second edition.
I have retained the major portion of the first edition, only excluding
a few paragraphs of temporary value. For these I have substituted
remarks on the current aspects of the question; and by broadening
the printed page I have found room for other additions which are
chiefly statistical, and I hope always practical.
Europe is at this moment in a feverish condition. Rumors of im
pending war startle us day by day, and those who are supposed to
know (whether they do or not) foretell a terrific struggle in the
immediate future between all the leading powers. This much, at least,
is certain; the prodigal preparations that are being made everywhere
for war must sooner or later precipitate a terrible crisis. “ How oft,”
as Shakespeare says, “the means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done.”
Bismarck and Moltke demand an increase of forty thousand men in
the effective German army, and General Boulanger demands a fresh
vote of an indeterminate number of millions to strengthen the French
military machine. Already the armies of these two countries amount
to nearly a million and a half each, with further available forces of
nearly another million in case of necessity. It is. in fact, stated on
good authority that France has cavalry and artillery ready for two
million infantry, all of whom would be armed with new repeating
rifles. The tension is too great to last. Without mutual disarmament,
France and Germany will certainly come into collision. Yet their
dread of fighting each other singly is so great, that they will strive to
embroil the whole continent before they take the field. Such an enter
prise is unfortunately too easy, for there is no love lost between Italy
and France, the Turkish empire only awaits its final dismemberment,
Austria cannot well stand alone, and England and Russia are almost
hereditary enemies.
Turning our attention homewards, we find a growing clamor for
further expenditure on our Army and Navy, and a constant pressure
.on Ministers by the Court party in the interest of anything but peace.
Lord Salisbury has been offering our alliance to Austria, which is an
implied menace to Russia; and his diplomacy has been carried on with
the same sublime contempt of Parliament and the People which is
evinced by all our Governments alike. We have been threatened
with a Salisbury-Victoria war of inconceivable dimensions, for the sake
of replacing the brother of the Queen’s latest son-in-law on the
Bulgarian throne.
In these circumstances I feel that the time is indeed opportune for a
new edition of my pamphlet, whose influence, however slight, will I
am confident be in favor of peace and progress.
�( 2 )
THE SHADOW OF THE SWOBD.
■------ *------The man-eating monster of fiction is terrible enough to romantic
young minds under the spell of the story-teller, but he is almost genial
and harmless in comparison with the real Ogre of war. Generation
after generation this frightful monster gorges himself on human flesh
and blood, solacing his intervals of satiety with the wine of human
tears. And every tune he prepares for a fresh repast, he demands a
larger provision for his ravenous appetite. What struggles in previous
history equalled in slaughter the contest between North and South in
America, or the later death-wrestle between France and Germany?
Or how could the fiercest combats between ancient empires, even that
of Rome and Carthage, rival the fight between England and Russia
which so many of our journalists have encouraged us to begin with
a liofit heart ? Such a struggle would have kindled the flames of war
from India to the Baltic, and probably set all Europe in an unparalled blaze. Surely the Devil’s cauldron was never heated and
stirred with such levity as now. A crowd of grinning apes playing
with fire in a powder factory were not more grotesquely terrible.
Awful as the Ogre’s blood-tax is, his impositions between meals are
even worse. In the palmy days of the Roman Empire, less than four
hundred thousand troops sufficed to preserve the peace of the world ;
and, if we except petty frontier tussels with barbarians, they often did
so for thirty or forty years together. But Europe has now its.standing
armies, whose total is reckoned in millions, and the peace is broken
three or four times in a generation. Let it also be remembered that
the Roman soldier was a worker as well as a fighter, helping to carry the
practical civilisation of Rome wherever her eagles floated. Our high
roads, the arteries of pedestrian and vehicular circulation through
England, were first made by the imperial legions, who used the pick
and the spade more frequently than the sword. But the armies of
modern Europe are all idlers. Their sole business is destruction. In
peace they consume without producing, and in war they devour like
the locust and the caterpillar. They are not the lame, the blind, the
maimed, and the imbecile, but the young flower of the male population,
withdrawn from productive industry, and supported by the labor of
others while they “ learn the art of killing men.” We shall consider
this economical aspect of the subject more fully presently; meanwhile
let us deal with the causes of war.
_
“ A background of wrath,” says Carlyle, “ which can be stirred up to
the murderous infernal pitch, does lie in every man, in every creature.
True, and this fierce instinct may be held to account directly for the
combats of animals, for primitive human fighting, for duels among
“ civilised ” peoples, and for street fights and all personal brawls. But
it accounts only indirectly for modern warfare. “ Civilised wager of
�( 3 )
battle ” is the game, not of peoples, but, to use Earl Beaconsfield’s
phrase, of “sovereigns and statesmen.” Cowper long ago remarked
that war is a game which kings would not play at were their peoples
wise. The fact is, our brute instincts, racial prejudices and national
vanities are systematically traded on by our rulers. Nothing is so
cheap and easy as a “foreign policy,” as nothing is so hard as a
domestic one ; and nothing so diverts attention from difficult home
affairs as the simple expedient of a foreign broil. If declaring war
lay with Parliament, the juggle would be more arduous. But it does
not. The Government hurries us into war before we can discuss its
policy, and when the matter comes up for debate, not only have things
gone too far for interference, but the question resolves itself into one
of confidence in the ministry, instead of approval of the particular
measure. By that time also the beast in us has tasted blood. The savage
thirst for more is upon us. Illustrated papers and daily war corres
pondence familiarise us with slaughter, and the sane voice of the
keepers of reason is drowned in the clamor of the wild beasts of passion,
scenting carnage and carrion.
Society is now too complex for the simple rules of interpretation
which apply to primitive quarrels. The Crimean war, for instance,
was not fought because Englishmen and Russians were animated by
mutual hatred. Dynastic and political reasons, as usual, played the
chief part in the prelude to that bloody drama. Had Louis Napoleon,
after usurping the French throne, not required an alliance with some
old European monarchy to rehabilitate his name and veil the fact of
his being & parvenu emperor, the struggle of thirty years ago might
never have commenced. As for Italy’s share in the war, it is notorious
that Cavour urged the King of Sardinia into action simply to gain a
military reputation for the kingdom, as a first step to the unification of
the peninsula under a native sovereign; and the Austro-Italian war
naturally followed the success of these tactics. Even before the
Franco-German war, notwithstanding the cry of a Berlin raised by
hired mouchards in the streets of Paris, it is not true that every French
man was yearning to grasp a German throat. The mass of the peasantry
were criminally hoodwinked. They voted “Yes” for the Empire,
thinking it meant Peace, and fancying, as they were told, that the
Republican opposition wished to drive the country into costly and
perilous foreign adventures.
Let us go back still further, and we shall see evidences of the same
truth. Eighty years ago Nelson told his seamen that they had but
one duty—to love old England and hate every Frenchman like the
Devil. Such a sentiment was of course loudly acclaimed, but it was
after all a cultivated sentiment. When Pitt began operations against
France, he found it necessary to tune the pulpit, and bribe and intimi
date the press in England. In due time his policy was successful.
The people were grossly abused, and after a few years’ fighting, when
their blood was up, they were ready for anything in the shape of war.
France merely stood to them as a synonym for enemy. They cursed
and hated Frenchmen with the spirit of a bull rushing at a red cloak ;
�( 4 )
the cunning matador who flourished the scarlet having his own ends to
serve through the creature’s madness.
We may consider it a fact that war is the game of “ sovereigns and
statesmen.” Grimly and strongly, as is his wont, Carlyle has expounded
the modern meaning of war in a famous passage in Sartor Resartus.
Let us hear him :—
“ What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net-purport and up
shot of war ? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in
the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From
these, by certain ‘ Natural Enemies ’ of the French there are successively
selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dumdrudge,
at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them ; she has, not without
difficulty aud sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to
crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the
weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much
weeping and swearing, they are selected: all dressed in red; and shipped
away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the
South of Spain ; and fed there till wanted. And now to that same spot in
the south of Spain are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dum
drudge, in like manner wending; till at length, after infinite effort,
the two parties come into actual juxtaposition ; and Thirty stands fronting
Thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word ‘Fire!'is
given; and they blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty
brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty d®ad carcases, which it must
bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the
Devil is, not the smallest; .nay, in so wide a Universe, there was even, uncon
sciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then?
Simpleton! their Governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one
another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot.”
Carlyle is right. That is the truth about modern war. Democracy
has appeared on the scene of politics, but it has not fully assumed its
role. The drama is still played by the old actors of the upper classes,
and will be so, until the new company is properly formed and cast for
the various parts. Even in France, although the empire is gone, the
old ruling classes are still in power. They defer somewhat to the
Democracy in home affairs, but in foreign matters they treat it
with contemptuous disregard. They carry France into all sorts of
adventures for their own benefit. The Empire went to Algeria, and
the Republic goes to Tunis. Louis Napoleon sent armies to Mexico,
and Jules Ferry sends them to China. The motive is the same in both
cases; the French deputies are cajoled and manoeuvred in the same
way; and the French people are fooled and plundered with the same
easy impudence. It requires a Hercules to clean out an Augean stable.
When a leader of Gambetta’s greatness and force arises again, there
may be some hope, if he turns his back on the selfish exploiters of
society, sets his face resolutely to the people, and stretches out his
hands to them for salvation.
The world’s peace will never be secure until the Democracy takes
the reins of power into its own hands. Parliaments will be less ready
to declare war than Governments. Men will vote against war when
�the decision lies with them, who would not vote against their party
when hostilities have begun, and it is too late to undo the mischief
without overturning the ministry. The formalities of public debate
would also allow a pause for reason to assert itself. The first passionate
impulse of revenge would have time to subside, and wisdom,
justice and humanity would gain a hearing.
At present we are “ rushed ” into war. The Sovereign has the power
of declaring war, and in many cases it is beyond doubt that royalty is
largely responsible for the inception and development of international
quarrels. Was it not Lord Palmerston who had to threaten the late
Prince Consort for intermeddling with the négociations between
England and Russia ? And was it not the Court party, as well as the
bondholders, that incited Mr. Gladstone to begin military operations
in Egypt, in order that the Duke of Connaught, safely sheltered under
Lord Wolseley’s wing, might earn a little cheap glory and win a few
bastard laurels ? This is the kind of backstairs influence which our
effete monarchy now wields, to our perpetual loss and disgrace. The
constitutional power of the Soverign to declare war is, of course, never
exercised without the advice and consent of her responsible ministers ;
in other words, the Queen no more actually declares war than she
actually appoints bishops. The Cabinet is really supreme, and these
officials take advantage of a constitutional fiction to carry matters with
a high hand. In domestic business they are obliged to consult Parlia
ment before they can move a step ; in foreign affairs they act first and
consult it afterwards. Even then it is only because they need its
endorsement for their acceptances. A vote of censure may be moved
and «my be passed upon them, as we all know ; but what Ministry fears
such a contingency ? Earl Beaconsfield did as he pleased until the
country flung him from office, and he smiled at Parliamentary votes of
censure. Mr. Gladstone was just as little terrified by them. He knew
that “ the party ” would stick to him through thick and thin. They do
not like the expense of an election ; they trust to the chapter of acci
dents to pull the Government through its troubles before the fateful
day of reckoning ; and meanwhile they pacify their consciences by a
few timid, ambiguous speeches, and a trimming side-vote of entirely
harmless protest.
All that remains to Parliament is the “ power of the purse-strings,”
which is a ghastly sham, for what Government that can defy votes of
censure need fear a stoppage of supplies? A few Radicals might
challenge a division, and their action might produce a considerable
moral effect on the country, but there it would end. They could no
more check the Government than a road-stone checks the cart-wheel.
There is a jolt, but down comes the wheel again, and steadily revolves
its course. The fact is, the “ power of the purse-strings ” is one of
the worst of the many shams of our boasted constitution. It meant
something when the Sovereign really did declare war, and solicited
money from the people’s representatives to carry it on ; but it is
absolutely meaningless now that the leaders of those very repre
sentatives perform that function under a thin disguise.
�( 6 )
Before long this question will emerge into the field of practical poli
tics, and become a burning one indeed. It may be true, as Burke
said, that “ Statesmen are placed on an eminence that they may have
a larger horizon than we can possibly command.” But the extraordin
ary growth of the modern press, and the spread of education and
intelligence, since Burke’s time, have greatly diminished that advantage.
The time has gone by for the “ confidence trick ” in politics. Secret
service money and diplomacy will soon have to go together. Demo
cracy will demand that all its business be transacted in public. It will
not permit a handful of politicians at discretion
“To open
The pui’ple testament of bleeding war.”
It will insist on that power being vested in the whole nation, through
its elected representatives. And such a wise and just change will be
one of the best guarantees of peace.
Following Carlyle, Mr. Ruskin has impeached the governing classes
in respect to war. In the second letter of Fors Clavigera, he styled
the upper classes the great Picnic Party, and inquired what they had
done for the “ lower orders ” they lord it over with such serene
audacity. “They have,” he said, “spent four hundred millions of
pounds here in England within the last twenty years—how much in
France and Germany I will take some pains to ascertain—and with
this initial outlay of capital they have taught the peasants of Europe —
to pull each other’s hair.”
No doubt the upper classes furnish good fighting men, just like the
lower classes, for brute courage is common enough, and, as John Bright
says, any quantity of it can be gotfora shilling a day. YetTommy Atkins
dies as well as his officer, only he has nothing to do with the war
except risking his life, all the direction and all the glory and profit
resting with his superiors.
Go through the Peerage and see what an enormous number of
military and naval posts are held by its scions. They command our
forces, they get the lion’s share of pay, they shine in the Gazettes, and
they receive all the honors and rewards worth having. Poor Tommy
Atkins dies unannaled and unknown, or if he survives, has to content
himself with the reflection that virtue is its own reward. His wife and
children (if the celibate rule of the army for privates allows him those
luxuries) are left to semi-starvation or vice or crime, unless they gravi
tate to the workhouse. Tommy had much better be at home earning
an honest living, as he himself generally knows ; but he goes abroad
to fight the battles of the upper classes because their villainous laws
have starved him into the able-bodied citizen’s last resource.
Those upper classes, from the Queen to the humblest member of
Society (with a capital SQ, being divorced from honest industry, are
naturally predatory and nomadic in character, and they are ever seek
ing to gratify their tastes in person or by proxy. They inherit from
Feudal times the prejudice in favor of fighting men. They love Mili
�( 7 )
tarism and hate Industrialism, which has been supplanting it for cen
turies and will finally extinguish it. A salient, and in some respects a
superior type of them, was the late Colonel Burnaby. This “ dashing
fellow slipped off to the Soudan without leave and fought there with
out a commission. He had no more business with our troops than he
most perfect stranger. He was driven there solely by his love of
fighting. His motives were no more respectable than a tiger s, and he
died at last appropriately stuck like a pig. One of his ambitions was
to enter Parliament, where the Fighting Interest is already represented
by a hundred and sixty-eight members. Add to this that two hundred
and seventy-two members are connected with the Peerage by birth or
marriage, and you will easily understand how England is so frequently
pushed into war. Remember too that Her Majesty has a passion for
soldiers, and that when she breaks the monotony of her seclusion, it is
usually to review her troops or decorate a few “ heroes ” who have
distinguished themselves on the battle-field.
Mr. Bright once said that without declaring all wars unjustifiable,
he would like to see a single war justified. It was a request very diffi
cult to comply with. Every war we enter upon is perfectly righteous,
but somehow the historian afterwards writes them all down as crimes
or mistakes. Self-defence is a natural instinct; it never can be eradi
cated, and it never should. But it implies an aggressor; and conse
quently all justification of war on the one side only serves to heighten
its guiltiness on the other. A great conqueror is only another name
for a great criminal. Nature quietly buries and conceals every trace
of his ravages. Would that the world could as soon forget him, or
remember him only to condemn.
Priests may consecrate our banners, without regard to the merits of
the side on which they are ranged, or the awful scenes over which
they float; every regiment may carry its chaplain for ghostly succor ;
and the Church may solicit God’s blessing on every bloody enterprise
we engage in. But the teachers of religion cannot decree right and
wrong, nor have they any magic to transform crime into virtue. “ The
primal duties shine aloft like stars ” beyond the reach of chance and
change, however momentarily obscured by clouds of incense from a
thousand altars. And if the ministers of the Prince of Peace cannot
see the monstrous wickedness of war, there happily remains enough
instinctive justice and mercy in the breasts of heretics to brand it as a
capital crime against humanity.
Alas! how few realise the horror of war. The Romance of War is
more easily imagined—the glowing uniforms, the shining arms, the
prancing steeds, the martial music, and heroes contending for glory!
And pulses thrill on reading feats of arms, and blood glows at the
record of a “ splendid charge.” But, as Dickens wrote—
‘ 1 When the ‘splendid charge’ has done its work, and passed by, there
will be found a sight very much like the scene of a frightful railway accident.
There will be the full complement of backs broken in two ; of arms twisted
wholly off ; of men impaled upon their own bayonets ; of legs smashed up
�( 8 )
like bits of firewood; of heads sliced open like apples; of other heads
crunched into soft jelly by the iron hoofs of horses ; of faces trampled out
of all likeness to anything human. That is what skulks behind a ‘ splendid
charge.’ ”
Now let us turn from the graphic novelist to the experienced
journalist. This is what Dr. Russell, the famous Times war correspon
dent, wrote from the battlefield of Sedan : —
“ Let your readers fancy masses of colored rags glued together with blood
and brains, and pinned into strange shapes by fragments of bones. Let them
conceive men's bodies without heads, legs without bodies, heaps of human
entrails attached to red and blue cloth, and disembowelled corpses in
uniform,' bodies lying about in all attitudes with skulls shattered, faces
blown off, hips smashed, bones, flesh and gay clothing all pounded together
as if brayed in a mortar, extending for miles . . . and then they cannot, with
the most vivid imagination, come up to the sickening reality of that butchery.”
O the glorious Romance of War! Listen. Thirty thousand skeletons
of Russian and Turkish soldiers were shipped to England in 1881
as ma mire!
Well does Byron sing of war:
“ Lo! where the giant on the mountain stands,
His blood-red tresses deep'ning in the sun,
With death-shot glowing in his fiery hands,
And eye that scorcheth all it glares upon;
Restless it rolls, now fixed, and now anon
Flashing afar,—and at his iron feet
Destruction cowers, to mark what deeds are done.”
The poet’s image is daring, yet how true ! Let our own brutalities in
the Soudan witness. The adult male population of whole tribes slaugh
tered ; women amongst the dead, and boys grasping a spear; wives
and maidens ravished by our Turkish auxiliaries ; peaceful villages
burnt to the ground because the inhabitants did not wait to welcome
us ; miles of desert sand cemented with blood and strewn with corpses,
and thousands of desert vultures screaming joyously at their unwonted
feast.
War is just in self-defence, or in defence of a neighbor unjustly
attacked. We are not of those who believe in the refusal of aid
between nations in all circumstances. The sword may be, for some
time yet, as necessary as the lancet, but it should never be drawn
except against the enemies of mankind. “ The blood of man,” said
Burke, “ should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is
well shed for our friends, for our country, for our kind. The rest is
vanity ; the rest is crime.”
When any of these great duties call us we should be ready to defend
them ; and if ever England were menaced by a brutal invader, the most
peaceful citizen might well wish her to be animated by the same brave
spirit that whipped the pride of the Armada and drove the hectoring
Dutch fleets from the English seas. Nay, to defend the nation’s liberties
�( 9 )
in the dark hour of extreme peril, one might hope that her sons would
make ramparts of their bodies, and if they could not make a pact with
victory, make a pact with death; that her daughters would gladly
resign their dearest in the spirit of the Spartan mothers of old ; and
that the very children might, like Hannibal, be dedicated to a righteous
revenge.
We are then far from loving peace at any price. But there is little
need to denounce such an impossible doctrine. It is not that way our
danger lies. Our fighting instincts, inherited from savage ancestors,
are too strong for us to submit tamely to aggression, even if the law
of self-preservation did not prompt us to defend our own.
National defence was not the origin of our modern standing armies.
They are legacies from Feudalism. The retainers of feudal nobles
became the king’s soldiers as the power of the crown strengthened over
its vassals. Disguise it how you will, the institution of standing armies
still savors of its origin. The military forces of Europe are the instru
ments of tyranny and the support of privilege. During the last fifty
years they have been as often employed in suppressing liberty at home
as in fighting the foreigner abroad. Perhaps England and Switzerland
are the only exceptions to this rule. The notion that armies are the
servants of the people is extremely recent. Fighting for his king was
the soldier’s recognised vocation. That spirit still half animates our
British troops, as it wholly animates the troops of Russia. In Germany
the idea of the fatherland may have overshadowed that of the emperor;
but little more than a century ago Frederick the Great’s armies fought
at his absolute command ; and Prussia, like every other German state,
was ruled on the same patriarchal principle. Democracy is very recent,
and has had no time to mould its own institutions. Those who are not
conversant with history do not understand that the institutions which
exist are relics of monarchy. And of these the worst is a standing army.
This fact has some bearing on the morality of a soldier's profession.
A French Radical said the other day, in the epigrammatic way of his
nation, that the business of an army is to defend the frontier. An ad
mirable sentiment! But that is not the soldier’s view. He goes with
cheerful alacrity wherever he is sent, and if he is ordered to the other
side of the globe he feels that brisk stirring of the blood which accom
panies novel adventures. French soldiers, drafted from the citizen
army of a Republic where the conscription is universal, set sail without
misgivings for Algeria, Tunis, Madagascar or China. “ Theirs not to
reason why,” as our Poet Laureate sings ; “theirs but to do or die.”
Does not all this show that Democracy has had but little if any effect
upon the army ? When men enter it they become possessed by its
spirit. And that spirit is military, authoritative, monarchical.
The English army is composed of volunteers, and is in a sense mer
cenary. And what are the motives that impel men to join it?
“ Generally,” says Bacon, “ all warlike people are a little idle, and love
danger better than travail.” The description applies admirably to our
upper classes who supply the army with officers, and no doubt it fits some
of the lower classes who supply it with privates. For the rest, men enter
�(. 10 )
the army as they engage in other professions, for a living ; and after a cer
tain allowance for ties of blood, they care as little on which side they fight
as a lawyer cares on which side he pleads. It is hardly fair to define
a soldier as a man who engages to kill anybody for a shilling a day, for
this loses sight of the fact that he undertakes to be killed as
well as to kill for that sum. But the definition, although not
accurate, contains a dreadful element of truth. It would be
unfair to visit on the individual soldier the whole odium of the
institution to which he belongs. True, and the hangman. is
scarcely responsible for capital punishment; yet we should shrink
from his company at our tables. Perhaps the wisest plan is to hate
the institution and pity its members.
Mr. Ruskin many years ago justified the soldier’s trade, or at least
exalted it:—
“ Philosophically, it does not, at first sight, appear reasonable (many
writers have endeavored to prove it unreasonable) that a peaceable and
rational person, whose trade is buying and selling, should be held in less
honor than an unpeaceable and often irrational person, whose traders slaying.
Nevertheless, the consent of mankind has always, in spite of the philosophers,
given precedence to the soldier. And this is right. For the soldier’s trade
verily and essentially, is not slaying, but being slain. This without well
knowing its own meaning, the world honors it for. A bravo’s trade is
slaying; but the world has never respected bravos more than merchants:
the reason it honors the soldier is, because he holds his life at the service of
the State. Reckless he may be—fond of pleasure or of adventure—all kinds
of bye-motives and mean impulses may have determined the choice of his
profession, and may affect (to all appearance exclusively) his daily conduct
in it; but our estimate of him is based on this ultimate fact—of which we
are well assured—that put him in a fortress breach, with all the pleasures
of the world behind him, and only death and his duty in front of him,
he will keep his face to the front; and he knows that . this choice
may be put to him at any moment, and has beforehand taken his pait vir
tually takes such part continually—does, in reality die daily.”
The element of truth in Ruskin’s eloquent defence of the soldier we
have already acknowledged ; the rest we deem fanciful and mistaken.
Miners and colliers risk their lives daily, but who calls them heroes ?
Policemen often carry their fives in their hands, but who worships
them ? Sailors incur on the average greater danger than soldiers, but
who chants their praises ? The fact is, they have no share in the pride,
pomp and circumstance of glorious war. It is our fighting instincts
that throw a glamor round the soldier. Our intellects approve indus
try, but our inherited feelings consecrate militarism. . In the same
wav, long after the Jews had settled down to agriculture, they
instinctively adored the nomadic character, and all their legendary
heroes came from the pastoral state.
_
.
A soldier holds not only his life, but his conscience, at the. service
of the State. Ruskin does not notice that. But, as civilisation
advances and morality refines, the fact will become more obvious.
Hosea Biglow is not so eloquent as the author of “ Unto this Last, yet
he utters many a sound truth in quaint language.
�(11)
“ Ef you take a sword and dror it,
An’ go stick a feller thru,
Guv’ment ain’t to answer for it,
God’ll send the bill to you.”
What does Ruskin say to that ? We fancy it would grate harsh truth
through his most melodious eloquence.
Our inherited fighting instincts account also for the applause with
which we greet the upper classes when they reward successful generals
at our expense. Sir Beauchamp Seymour was made a lord for bom
barding Alexandria, and received a present of £25,000. Lord Wol
seley had a grant of £25,000 for the Ashantee war, the only remaining
trophy of which is King Coffee’s umbrella; and another £30,000
for his Egyptian victories. Oh for another Swift to satirise this mon
strous absurdity! In the sixteenth number of his Examiner, that
splendid wit compared the rewards, amounting to over half a million,
heaped on Marlborough, with the reward given to “ a victorious
general of Rome, in the height of that Empire.” Nearly a thousand
pounds might have been spent on a triumphal arch, a sacrificial bull,
and other features of public celebration in honor of the general; but
the only thing he actually received was a crown of laurel worth two
pence, and perhaps an embroidered robe. The laurels of a modern
general are more costly. He fights for solid pudding, not for empty
praise.
Before we leave the morality of war let us print the last century’s
butcher’s bill. It is an edifying document:
LOSS OE MEN.
YEARS
1793 to 1815 ... England and France...........
Russia and Turkey ...........
■ 1828
1830 to 1840 ... Spain and Portugal...........
1830 to 1847 ... France and Algeria . .........
Civil Strife in Europe
1848
1854 to 1856 ... Crimean War ..................
Franco-Austrian War
1859
1863 to 1865 ... American Civil War...........
Austro-Prussian War
1866
France and Mexico ..........
1864 to 1870 ... Brazil and Paraguay...........
1870 to 1871 ... Franco-German War...........
1876 to 1877 ... Russo-Turkish War...........
Total
...
1,900,000
120,000
160,000
110,000
60,000
784,000
63,000
800.0G0
51,000
65,000
330,000
290,000
180,000
...
4,913,000
This prodigious slaughter-bill does not include those killed in the
various English and French expeditions. M. Beaulieu estimates the
French losses alone in these at 65,000. Overfire millions of men sacri
ficed to the,Moloch of War in less than a century ! Imagination shrinks
appalled. What a hecatomb of victims to “low ambition and the
pride of kings.”
�( 12 )
The wickedness of war is only exceeded by its folly. Of the Crimean
War, Mr. Kinglake says that “ it brought to the grave a million of
workmen and soldiers, and consumed a pitiless share of the wealth
which man’s labor had stored up as the means of life.” Yet what
advantage did it bring anyone ? The treaty of peace which closed
it has been torn to shreds; every provision in it is a dead letter.
What a glorious result after sacrificing a million lives and wasting
three hundred and forty millions of money! The myriad graves in
the Crimea are tenanted by murdered victims of la haute politique, and
the churchyard of Sebastopol is as great a monument of criminal folly
as the pyramid of skulls erected by a Tamerlane or an Attila.
What should we think of a man in private life who whipped out a
sword every time he quarreled, and tried to cut his opponent’s throat?
He would soon be relegated to the prison or the asylum. What, also,
do we think of a man who sticks to his opinion, however rash it may
be, and refuses to abandon it because he has once taken it up—as
though his infallibility were the chief thing in the universe, to which
all else must be subordinated; and who would sooner be ruined than
confess to a mistake? We consider him a dolt, a mule, a vain idiot.
And if he refuses to submit his differences with others to friendly or
legal adjudication, we regard him as still worse ; for we naturally think
with Grotius that “ the party who refuses to accept arbitration may
justly be suspected of bad faith.”
Now, what peculiar logic is there that can render the folly of an
individual wisdom in a nation, or transform private wickedness into a
national virtue ? We have not the slightest doubt that quarrels
between nations will eventually be settled as quarrels between indi
viduals are settled now, by appeal to an acknowledged tribunal. That
is the certain tendency of our age. Even Prince Bismarck, the man
of blood and iron, assists it by playing the part of “the honest broker.”
The Geneva Arbitration of 1872 on the “ Alabama ” dispute was the
inauguration of a new era. The arbitrators’ award mulcted England
in £3,000,000, but that sum is trivial to what the dispute might have
cost us had it rankled into a war. Since then no less than sixteen
international disputes have been settled in the same way.
Napoleon himself, in the solitude of St. Helena, dreamed of “ the
application to the great European family of an institution like the
American Congress, or that of the Amphictyon in Greece ”; and he
asserted that “this agglomeration of European peoples must arrive,
sooner or later, by the mere force of events.” How many eminent men
have since expressed the same view. Victor Hugo has uttered the right
great word “ The United States of Europe.” A recognised international
tribunal, a high court of nations, would allow of a great reduction in
the armies of Europe. Public opinion would restrain the fractious ; or as
Tennyson says, “then the common sense of most would hold a fretful
realm in awe.” Even the most selfish State, in its moment of intensest
excitement, would shrink from violating international law if the out
rage brought upon it swift punishment by the armed comity of Europe.
Gradually, with the cessation of war and the growth of peaceful senti
�( 13 )
ments, Europe would become ashamed of its barbarous past; and we
might reasonably hope that the benign process would continue,
“ Till the war-drums throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled
Tn the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.”
We promised to say more on the economical aspects of war. Take
the following (1885) list of European States, with the cost of their
armies and navies, and the interest on their national debts:—
Country.
Austria..........
Belgium..........
Denmark
France ..........
Germany
Great Britain
Greece ..........
Holland..........
Italy
..........
Norway...........
Portugal
Roumania
Russia ..........
Servia ...........
Spain ..........
Sweden..........
Switzerland ...
Turkey..........
Army and Navy.
... £13,400,000 ...
...
1.900,000 ...
...
1.000.000 ...
... 35.500,000
... 18.200,000 . .
... 28.900.000 ...
...
1.000,000 ...
... 2,700.000
...
... 19.000,000 ...
450.000 ...
...
1,400.000 ...
...
1,100.000 ...
... 33,000,000 ...
350,000
7.500,000 ...
...
1.200,000 ...
700.000 ...
...
4,500,000 ...
£171,800,000
Interest on National Debt.
............ £21,400,000
...........
4,100,000
...........
500,000
........... 47,000.000
........... 13,400,000
........... 30,000,000
...........
875,000
...........
2,700,000
........... 20,000.000
...........
270.000
...........
2,900,000
.........
2,000,000
........... 28.500.000
...........
310.000
........... 10,750,000
...........
600.000
...........
78.000
........... 12,330,000
£197,713,000
Here is a grand total of three hundred and seventy millions spent every
year on war preparations and on account of past wars.
Let it also be noted that the annual war-bill of nearly every country
goes on increasing. England is no exception. Mr. Gladstone started
well when he took the reins from Earl Beaconsfield, but his military
and naval expenditure went up year by year, until his twenty-six
millions grew to thirty, to say nothing of the £9,451,000 vote of credit
he obtained to put him in a position to play the game of brag with his
old friend the Czar of Russia.
Now take the cost of a few great wars during the last thirty years :
Crimean War ...
Italian War (1859)
American Civil War
*
Austro-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
Russo-Turkish War
Zulu and Afghan Wars
£340,000,000
60,000,000
1,400,000,000
66,000,000
500,000,000
210,000,000
30,000,000
£2,606,000,000
* This was the cost to the Northern States alone. The cost to the Southern States
would probably bring the total bill up to £2,000,000,000.
�( 14 )
This would allow £2 for every man, woman and child on the globe. It
would make two railways round the earth at the rate of £50,000 a
mile. It would provide every adult male in Europe with a freehold
farm of 100 acres in the United States.
During the present century England alone has spent on her army
and. navy, and. the interest of her national debt, nearly six thousand
millions. A third of that sum would b uy up her whole soil from the
landlords, restore it to the people, an d settle the Land Question for
ever. Out of every pound of taxes we now pay, 16s. l|d. goes for
War, War Debt, or preparation for War, and only 3s. lOjd. for all
other purposes. And as the chief part of our national income is raised
by indirect taxation, it follows that the main burden of war falls upon
the shoulders of the People.
Compare with the colossal sum we spend on War the paltry amount
we spend on Education, and then ask whether we are not afflicted with
insanity. Ruskin once inquired what was the proper view of a rich
householder who expended ten pounds a year on his library and five
hundred on policemen to guard his shutters. Such a householder is
Christian Europe.
England’s National Debt is over seven hundred millions, and nearly
every penny of it has been contracted by our class-government since
the “ glorious revolution ” of 1688, solely for the purpose of main
taining “ the balance of power ” in Europe, which simply meant inter
fering with other people’s business, or sharing in their quarrels. We
began, at the accession of William III., with a paltry debt of £664,264;
but small as the sum was, it acted like a vital germ, from which was
developed a huge system of financial corruption. When the taxes
of the country were once pledged, it was easy to draw further
drafts on posterity for the conduct of enterprises that would
never have been undertaken if their expenses had to be borne
at the time. Accordingly, we find that, at the accession of
Queen Anne, the Debt amounted to £12,767,225. Marlborough’s
campaigns nearly trebled it, for at the accession of George I.
it had increased to £36,175,460. Under that imported monarch it
rose to £52,523,023 ; and under his successor to £102,014,018. Then
came George III., who was for a long while mad and always blind;
and under his perverse and foolish rule, the Tory government involved
us in a wanton war with our brethren in America, and afterwards in
a^ mad war with the French Republic. The result was that when
George III. departed to whatever place is reserved for his like, the
Debt amounted to the prodigious sum of £834,900,960.
if- At this moment the male population of England, that is, every actual or
potential head of a family, is indebted £85 4s. 8d. to the national bond
holders, because preceding governments, without obtaining or soliciting
the people’s consent, went fighting at large in Europe and America,
wherever an opportunity for a scrimmage presented itself.
This National Debt handicaps us with an initial burden of over
twenty-two millions a year in the shape of interest. Our fathers danced
to a sorry tune, and we have to pay the exorbitant piper. And as
�()
most of our taxation is raised indirectly, it follows that this yearly
interest is a perennial burden on our national industry. During the
present century, to go back no farther, we have paid in interest alone
the terrific sum of £2,310,735,582. Surely a visitor from a distant
planet (say Voltaire’s Saturnian) on learning these facts, would suppose
that he had lighted on a race of madmen.
Who can point to a single particle of good which our lavish expen
diture on war and warlike preparations has conferred on any human
being, except generals, army contractors, and bondholders? When
the little boy, in Southey’s poem, wants to know what the battle of
Blenheim was all about, and what benefit resulted from the rival
armies leaving their empty skulls as memorials to future ages, old
Kaspar is nonplussed.
“ I really cannot tell,” said he,
“ But ’twas a glorious victory.”
A glorious victory ! Yes, the adjective is thrown over it to hide the
misery and folly. “ Glory ” is the bait on the despot’s hook; the gilded
fetter on a strutting slave ; the plume in the helm of a mailed free
booter. True and lasting glory is only won by the victories of peace.
“ These are matters so arduous,” as Milton told Cromwell, “ that in
comparison of them the perils of war are but the sports of children.”
People still talk of “ glory,” but wherein consists the true greatness
of England ? In the noble language of Landor—
“ The strength of England lies not in armaments and invasions ; it lies in
the omnipresence of her industry, and in the vivifying energies of her high
civilisation. There are provinces she cannot grasp; there are islands she
cannot hold fast; but there is neither island nor province, there is neither
kingdom nor continent, which she could not draw to her side and fix there
everlastingly, by saying the magic words Be Free. Every land wherein she
favors the sentiments of freedom, every land wherein she forbids them to be
stifled, is her own; a true ally, a willing tributary, an inseparable friend.
Principles hold those together whom power would only alienate.”
Would that the Jingoes, the halting Liberals, and the half-hearted
Radicals meditated this profound scripture. We should then be
spared such irredeemable crimes as our invasion of the Soudan by a
professedly Liberal government, and the wholesale butchery of men
who, in the Premier’s own language, were “ rightly struggling to be
free.” There are at present only two countries in Europe that cherish
a constant friendship for England. One is Greece, whom we aided in
her gallant struggle for emancipation; the other is Italy, who remem
bers our sympathy when she revolted against the Austrian yoke.
Meanwhile, let it be noticed that our governing classes always keep
a bogey to frighten us with. Long ago it was France ; now it is Russia.
Earl Beaconsfield traded on that bogey, and Mr. Gladstone followed
suit; in fact, he nearly involved us in a war with Russia through a
squabble over an Afghan outpost. England is perpetually warned
against the stealthy advances of “ Russian aggrandisement.” But are
not our shocked feelings a little amusing? Russian conquests during
�( 16 )
the last hundred and thirty years amount to 1,642,000 square miles
with a meagre population of 17,135,000 ; while England’s conquests in
the same period amount to 2,650,000 square miles, with 250 000 000
people. Our Jingoes appear to think that England may steal sheep,
but .Russia must not catch a rabbit.
All oyer Europe the same game is played. Peoples are filled by
tneir rulers with a blind and passionate hatred of each other. Austria
glares at Russia, and Russia at Austria. France and Germany vie
with each other in military organisation, waiting with feverish blood
and panting breath for the next death-wrestle. Italy prepares herself
to strike in the combat as it suits her interest. And the smaller States,
like Switzerland and Belgium, tremble lest their neutrality should
be violated in the bloody strife. Christendom is armed to the
teeth; and as Sir Henry Maine too truthfully observes, “During
the last quarter of a century, a great part, perhaps the greatest
part, of the inventive faculties of mankind has been given to the
arts of destruction.” The workman in the factory and the peasant
in the field know that they may at any moment be summoned from
their peaceful avocations by the trumpet of battle. They know also
that war has become more and more scientific, that horrid explosives
have made it more ghastly, and that they would be marshalled for
hideous slaughter, where each man sees the comrade fall at his side
but not the enemy who strikes him dead. Some of them who sicken
at the prospect, not with coward fears but with manly disgust, mio-ht
almost cry with Shakespeare’s Northumberland:
°
Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand
Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die!
And let this world no longer be a stage
To feed Contention in a lingering act;
But let one spirit of the first-born Cain
Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set
On bloody courses, the rude scene may end,
And darkness be the bui-ier of the dead !
Europe is the modern Damocles. The ancient bearer of that name
envied the wealth of Dionysius of Sicily, who jestingly gave him a taste
of royal pleasures. Damocles ascended the throne and gazed admi
ringly on the wealth and splendor around him. But looking up, he
perceived a sword hanging over his head by a single hair. The sight
so terrified him that he begged to be removed from his position.
Europe likewise sits at its feast of life, but the fatal weapon suspended
overhead mars its felicity. Serpents twine in the dance, arms clash in
the song, the meats have a strange savor, there is a demoniac sparkle in
the wine, and a poisonous bitterness in the dregs of the cup. All is
darkened by the Shadow of the Sword.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote at 28 Stonecutter Street, London.
�
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The shadow of the sword
Description
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Edition: 2nd ed.
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
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Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
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[1887]
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Pacifism
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English
NSS
Peace
War
World Politics-19th Century
-
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PDF Text
Text
y
The Voice of a Peacemaker (MaftAew v. 9.)
ON
WAR:
SHEWING IN AN IDEAL PICTURE, OR MENTAL
VISION,
HOW MEN, BY THEIR RELIGIOUS SACRIFICES AND PROFESSIONS
OF DUTY TO GOD, ARE BOUND TO MAKE PEACE,
AND BE
AT ONE
WITH ONE ANOTHER.
Christianity is the ideal kingdom (image or vision) of goodness,
which it was the Mission of Jesus to make real; and when we
establish it in our hearts, the ideal is real, and the kingdom of God
then reigns.
Price Sixpence.
FOR DISTRIBUTION, TEN SHILLINGS PER HUNDRED.
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
�i
�THE WAR.
The Rev. T. G. HEADLEY,
OF PETERSHAM, S.W.,
(Lately Ourate of St Peter's, Great Windmill Street, Haymarket'),
ENTREATS
THE QUEEN,
\
THE EMPEROR, Ì
ENGLAND,
FRANCE,
\
THE KING,
V
AND
THE PEOPLE,
AND
y
GERMANY,
AND ALSO ALL WHO LOVE AND USE THE NAME OF
JESUS,
TO READ THIS VISION,
AND TO GIVE HEED TO THE SPIRIT THEREOF, AND THE
WAR WILL. CEASE.
c3
co
CD
>
O
o
Ö
of the Cross».
At the price
cô
co
s
Q.
�In answer to the letter and prayer of the Archbishop of CanterBishop of Loudon, and the letter of the Bishop of
Oxford (urging that for the spread of righteousness, enlightenment, and
true liberty, it is the duty of the Clergy to make Christian men feel
that Wars are contrary to the teaching of their Master), I have
advertised in the Daily News and Telegraph of the 11th, and the Times
of the 12th of August for a pulpit from which to preach the following
Vision; but not having received even one offer, I publish it for the
sake of the millions suffering in France and Germany; and may the
ministering Angels of Goodness pass it on from house to house.
For woe is it to the world, when, through strifes and Wars without,
the Church can not hear the Witness of God and Minister of Peace;
and through fears within she will not.
�For the purpose of a Sermon, I have made four divisions:
First.—A Text and
a few
Observations
thereon.
Second.—“ The Vision.”
Third.—A few Observations
on the
“Vision.”
Fourth.—The Conclusion.
Fifth.—In a Postscript,
People of England.
a
Word of Warning
to the
��A VISION ON WAR,
AND
HOW CHRISTIANS MAY HAVE PEACE.
---------♦--------
N the Gospel of St Matthew it is said that if ye
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall
say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place,
and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible
to you, ch. xvii. v. 20. And again, if ye shall say
unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou
cast into the sea, it shall be done, ch. xxi. v. 21.
Now, a mountain is an obstacle separating cities
and citizens from one another, preventing their social
communion. And since Wars separate nations and
individuals from one another, therefore War is a
mountain. And a mountain of that particular kind,
which seems referred to in the text, as one which it
would be desirable to get rid of as effectually as
though it were literally cast into the sea. And in my
belief, War may be as effectually prevented, as
«
though it were a monster we hated and had the power
to cast into the sea, if we only had the will to do so.
But we must have the will as well as the power.
For though a man had the power of a giant, or
a King, he might not have the will to exercise it
in our favour. And therefore, even had we an
almighty power, it is still necessary that our
heart or will should be moved to exercise it. And
I
�8
as we have the power to eschew evil and do good,
we have only to use this power for evil to ceases
And it is the object of my paper to show this,
and to bring it home to every one as a fact, that we
have the power within ourselves to remove War when
we have the will. I do not say that it is within the
power of any one particular person to effect this fronj
the beginning to the end. But I feel assured, when
it is known and felt by all that they individually
and collectively possess this power, they will then be
ready to give heed to the voice and will of any out
who commands their respect and sympathy, and who
rises (on behalf of the millions of helpless worn®»
and children in France and Prussia) in the name of
Jesus, to advocate peace on earth and good-will
towards men. And in the hopes that such an on«
will rise, and to prepare the way, in order that men
may give heed to him, I have drawn the following
picture. But I had this Vision on the 4th of July,
and therefore did not draw it for this War, of
which I had then no idea. And the immediate cause
of my writing it was the sound of a Military Bugle in
Richmond Park, which seemed to awake within me a
memory of all the horrors of the Crimean War, and
of War generally. And I yearned for the guidance
of the Holy Spirit to assist me in divining how to
prevent it, and the following Vision is the result
thereof; and I wish I could be brought before the
Queen to preach it (as Joseph, though a felon in the
sight of the Egyptians, was brought to the notice of
Pharaoh,and as David, though a shepherd only, was
brought before Saul the King), in order that, through
her influence, it might be noticed and published
throughout France and Prussia as well as England.
And although this seems improbable, if not impossible,
yet we are told that “ the wise and prudent conquer
difficulties by daring to attempt them, whilst sloth
and folly verily create the impossibility they fear.”
�9
And we are also assured that all things are possible
to them that believe. And since the Spirit of Good
is infinite, universal, and all-mighty, and will surely
fill the whole earth, though small as a grain of mus
tard seed at first, let us one and all (who believe
the blessed Scriptures are written for our learning)
endeavour to sow this spiritual seed of goodness and
love, looking to God to give it a hundred-fold in
crease. And if men can so wonderfully combine to
cause evil, as they seem to do in those unions we
have read and heard of in India, they who are as
earnest and zealous for good, ought to succeed in
spreading the Spirit of Good so as to leaven the masses
in Europe. For, by means of the Telegraph over the
earth, through the earth, and under the sea, we
can commune with men as swiftly as an angel on the
wings of the wind, and well nigh with the speed of
lightning itself. And no one can say he is with
out power; for even a Jewish maid-servant was able
to influence Naaman, the Syrian general; even
Pharaoh gave heed to a butler, and sent for the
prisoner Joseph; even King Agrippa was very deeply
affected by Paul, whom Festus stigmatized as mad.
And thus history tells us that the humblest, the
lowliest, and even the most despised of men, may
influence the highest, even some King, who may
again influence his Nation. And such a Nation will
then influence other Nations. Therefore let us one
and all do our part, individually and collectively, to
kindle in our Nation the spirit of goodness and
love, in the hope that we may become the instru
ments of an infinite, universal, and all-mighty Spirit
of Goodness, to leaven our neighbours in France and
Prussia therewith. And with the view of urging all
men, both at home and abroad, to follow in the foot
steps of Jesus in order to effect the glory of God
by bringing Peace on earth and good-will towards
men, I have imagined the following Vision :
�IO
“THE VISION.”
The Armies of two powerful Nations have met to
fight, and stand arrayed in all the panoply of War
face to face, as the North is to the South. The Priest
of the Northern Army, a holy man of God, and
beloved by the whole of his Nation, grieves for the
blood about to be shed (as a Father would grieve at
the slaughter of his children), and goes therefore, as
an Ambassador of his people and King, to the King
of the Southern Army, and thus addresses him : “ Sire,
you have arrayed your army against ours to destroy
it, and having conquered it you will agree to terms
of Peace, but the Soldiers love me as their Father,,
yea even as the Vicar of God upon earth, and to a
man would therefore die for me. Then accept me as
their substitute, and by the shedding of my blood
be appeased as much as though you had sacrificed
our Northern Army, and, being thus satisfied, let
there be peace.”
“ Well! well! ” says the Southern King, “ if your
Army is agreeable to it, so am I.”
“ Nay! nay ! ” say the soldiers of the Northern
Army, “ we are not. Our beloved and sacred Priest
shall not be sacrificed; but we all are willing to die
rather than that a hair of his head should be touched,
or a drop of his blood spilt.”
“ Well! well! ” says the Southern King, “thenlet
it be so.”
“ Nay! nay ! ” says the King of the North, “ it shall
not indeed be so. For this Priest is my servant, and
the Soldiers are my children, and therefore I should
be their substitute, to be sacrificed that thev mav
live.”
“ Great God,” says the King of the South, “ what
�II
amazing thing is this which I do hear and see ? A
holy Priest, ready to die as a substitute for the
people; the people ready to be slain as sheep for
the saving of their Priest and Shepherd ; and their
King ready to be offered as a substitute for the saving
of both.
“ 0 God, what am I that I should do evil to such
a nobly united family as this ? And what am I that
I should require the blood of such a noble brother, of
Sttefe a devoted people, of such a good Priest ? 0 God,
gave me from this sin ! 0 All-mighty, Eternal, and
Infinite Spirit of Goodness, aid me to induce my
Southern Army to make peace without shedding
one drop of blood of this noble Northern Nation.
0 God, would that Thou hadst made me to be King
Over such a noble people as these Northerners ? Oh !
would that ray Priest were inspired with a divine
and holy Spirit! Would that my Priest were like
to this holy Priest of the Northern Army!”
“ Sire,” says the Priest of the Southern Army, “ thy
prayer is granted. Lead me to the altar to be slain
as a substitute for yonder Northern King. For it
becomes my office well thus to die, not only for my
King, not only for my people, but even for our
enemy also. Therefore sacrifice me as a substitute.
I am a willing victim, and wait to be offered up.”
“Nay! nay!” say the soldiers of the Southern
Army,“ but neither shall our Priest be thus slain, for
we are equally ready to die as a substitute for our
beloved and holy Priest as the Northerners are
ready to devote their lives for each other.” “ Then,
says the Southern King, if all are thus ready to be
sacrificed to save each other, what am I—who am I—
that I should be less ready to be sacrificed as a
substitute for not only my people and my Priest,
but also the people, the Priest, and the King my
enemy. But if I thus suffer to save all, then hearken,
0 King of the North, give ear, 0 ye priests and
�12
people, both of the North and South. When I with
my blood have thus bought you, ye are then no
longer your own but mine, and therefore it becomes
from henceforth your duty (as much as though you
were new-born creatures) to know no will ana do
no will but mine. This ye have one and all confessed
to be your Duty in your readiness to sacrifice and to
be sacrificed yourselves as substitutes for the saving
of each other. And if I become the substitute for
all, I become the Saviour of all. For unless I become
the substitute for all, ye are all under a bond, a vow
to suffer for one another; and by that vow thus self
imposed, ye must suffer, if ye would not be thought
cowards, hypocrites, and liars. If, therefore, I thus
suffer as a substitute for you, I not only save your
blood, which is the life, but I save your honour,
without which life is worthless. But since without
me you are devoted to die, and cannot be saved, and
with me as a substitute your blood and honour would
be saved, it is evident that I am made an instrument
of The Almighty to save or to destroy, so that,
humanly speaking, I am made to be a Vicar of The
Almighty to save these people, if I am willing to do
so by the sacrifice of myself as a substitute.
“ But hearken, 0 King of the North ; give ear, 0 ye
Priests and people, both of the North and South,
there is ‘ One ’ greater than myself, One who loveth
mercy better than sacrifice, One whose Spirit is allmighty, eternal, and infinite in Goodness. And in
answer to the prayer of the Northern King to this
infinite and all-mighty Spirit of God, I give heed and
therefore neither sacrifice myself nor ask you to
sacrifice me ; and in exercise of the power you have
entrusted to me to kill or to make alive, I say live,
and follow my example in also giving heed to this
all-mighty, loving, and merciful Spirit of God, by
loving one another as I now agree to love this
Northern King as a brother ; and instead of fighting,
�13
turn your swords into reaping-hooks, and strive to
emulate one another in deeds of love alone. For
when we act thus, there is no necessity for either my
blood or your blood to be shed, because God loves
all, and is best pleased when wejlove one another. ”
“OBSERVATIONS.”
And what is more welcome to the soldier than
peace, with its innumerable comforts, blessings, and
joy to his father, mother, wife, child, and friend ?
For the soldier has little or nothing to do with the
making of wars—and he has little or nothing to do
with the cessation thereof. He is simply a machine,
to be taken up or laid aside at the will of others, as
to them seems most expedient to gratify their ambition
or covetousness; for he has neither a voice nor a will of
Bis own in the matter ; he neither marches, nor fires,
nor halts of his own will—but lives or dies wholly as a
bond-slave at the will of another ; so that when it is the
will of his Commander to rest, it is also the soldier’s
duty. f or the will of the Commander is the law of
the soldier, whether to slay or be slain, or to rest in
peace. And when an army is thus ready to shed
the last drop of its blood for the safety and glory
of its country, surely the King and Priests thereof
are unworthy of such an army, if they are not as
true to the army as the army is true to them. But
if the King and the Priests are as true to the army
as such an army would be to them, then they would
leave nothing undone to save it from losing one drop
of blood; because such an army would be offering
to shed its own blood to save their blood, on the
assumption that nought else than such a sacrifice
could avail. But if aught else could be done, then
Kings and Priests should value the blood of that
�U
army as they value their own, and be exceeding
jealous that not one drop should be shed need
lessly, or they would be wholly unworthy of
it. And since Kings and Governors both commence
and terminate Wars—it is evident that they are re
sponsible for them, and should therefore be as jealous
for the blood of the soldier as for their own ; and
were it so, Wars would cease. For, if the Kings and
Priests on either side had to fight without aid from
their respective armies, they would be jealous for
their own lives, and would, from fear of evil, make
peace, and with their peace, their country would
likewise have it. Then let Kings, Governors, and
Priests preach peace, and also ensue it themselves
in the spirit of this Vision, and Wars and the
sacrifices of blood therewith will vanish from the
face of the earth.
CONCLUSION.
In this Vision the Priest is made to set the first
example. In the world the Priest professes to be a
Minister of Peace—but the Priest at Rome, though
claiming to be Infallible and Vicar of the Almighty,
is only seeking to establish self. Now, it may be
admitted that War is only right when waged with the
assent of the country, and the approval of its repre
sentatives. And since Priests claim to be those
representatives, therefore, when the Priest is good,
having the Spirit of Jesus, and a Christian in heart,
it would be impossible for him to approve of War.
But the Priest already professes to be a Christian,
and therefore if he is not one, whilst he professes to
be one, he is a hypocrite. And if he justifies War to
establish his religion, then his religion cannot be
Christ’s, and must be evil, or he could not justify
and approve of evil.
�i5
But when the Priest justifies the doing of evil in
the name of Christ, he is a liar and murderer; for no
one but a liar could justify the shedding of blood in
the name of Christ. For evil deeds of themselves
prove the doers thereof, and the instigators thereof most
especially, to be evil; and he that justifies evil as
necessary to establish his religion, is of all men the
very Prince of Evil (2 Cor. xi. 14 ; Rom. iii. 4). And
when Priests seek to establish themselves by enlisting
the zeal of one nation to destroy another for the sake
of enforcing its own creed, what are such Priests but
a curse to humanity ? for, instead of allaying strife,
as in this Vision, such Priests, as spirits of evil, fan
it, and stir up religious zeal to shed the blood of those
who refuse to accept a blind Faith as their religion;
since Faith, without either knowledge, reason, or
wisdom, is either folly, idolatry, or superstition. And
can this be for Christ’s glory? Jesus murdered no
one; but blind Priests and Pharisees in envy incited
the people to murder Jesus, and then others, to excul
pate themselves, at one time accused their neigh
bours of it exclusively, and so made the Crucifixion
a stumbling-block to them; and at another time, in
order to justify them, they imputed it to “ The
Law, Destiny, and God,” and, by thus justifying evil
in the name of God, made it foolishness to the Gen
tile. They justified the Crucifixion in order to
escape falling like lightning from the heights to
which they had exalted themselves, because they
Would not confess in sackcloth and ashes, with St
Paul, that they also were chief of sinners for having
betrayed, denied, doubted, and deserted Jesus. And
although St Paul was especially converted to open
them eyes to this truth, they denounced Paul’s teach
ing as nought—nothing, false (Acts xxi. 24) ; and to
prevent their own teaching being exposed their fol
lowers have ever continued to denounce, murder, and
persecute those who dare to doubt, to examine, and
�16
require a proof of the truth of their teaching. And
thus men are used as swords and tools to establish
the reign of this Spirit of Evil; whilst others again
delude the people to look on, as though an Almighty
Being in Heaven wished it should be so, and would
miraculously interfere if He did not; but people here,
there, and everywhere, as servants, are all-mighty for
good or evil upon earth—and when they cease to do
evil, evil will cease. Then let the people refuse to be
the bond servants of an Evil Spirit at Rome or else
where, using the name of Religion, and even of Paul,
Jesus, and God, to hound men on to murder one
another in order to establish his own supremacy on
Earth and in Heaven. He that exalteth himself shall
be abased (Luke xiv. 11; xviii. 14). But let us seize
this blessed moment of liberty and of peace vouch
safed so mercifully to ourselves to commune with one
another, and take the beam out of our own eye, and
so contribute finally to overthrow the Spirit of Evil,
and establish in the place thereof a spirit of pure
religion, which shall influence one and all, from the
highest tothelowest, throughout all Nations,to rise as
one man, or as one family, to allay strife, as the Priests,
the people, and the Kings rose in the Vision which
I have pictured ; and although this Vision is only an
ideal, yet the ideal is only reality in the distance.
Then let each one, from the highest to the lowest,
among Priests, Kings, and people, give heed them
selves to the spirit of love in the Priests, people, and
Kings of this Vision, and, so far as in their power
lies, assist the preacher to publish it throughout this
Nation, and all other Nations, if their spirit assures
them that the spirit of it is the Spirit of God.
�POSTSCRIPT.
Christia/ns of England—In Revelations we read that
O,n Angel said to the Christians of Ephesus,
“1 have somewhat against thee.”—Rev. ii. 4.
Then,
Has the Lord somewhat against the English Church also ?
For if England, whilst so mercifully blessed with
peace, liberty, and knowledge (as a talent to be em
ployed to alleviate the sufferings and increase the
happiness of mankind), leaves anything undone which
would hold out any possible chance of enabling her,
as a good Samaritan, to heal the wounds and mitigate
the sufferings of her neighbours in this hour of their
agony, can she, any more than the Priest and Levite in
the parable, have credit for being the friend of either
God or Man ? But if she were to act as the
Priest and Levite, why should she have this blessed
talent ? Why should it not be taken from her ? And
why should not her temples be wiped away as useless
(2 Kings xxi. 13), and a clean fallow made thereof,
such as was made of the Temple at Jerusalem of
such Priests and Levites ? And as the Temple
of their successors, at Rome, is being disestablished,
not, however, for looking on only at human suf
fering, but for inciting the Catholics, through the
Press (‘ The Monde,’ &c.), to destroy, in the
name of God, a Protestant Nation as infidels,
who, nevertheless, do not reject God as their King,
but only reject the doctrines of those who imagine
the nature of a Good Being to be evil, in order to
exalt themselves as God (Isaiah v. 20).
And can we assert that the Catholics and Pro
testants in England do not each, in their hearts, wish
for the military and political supremacy either of
France over Germany, or of Germany over France,
�i8
for the purpose of more effectually establishing the
religious supremacy of their own faiths ? If it be
so, each man will be responsible to God; and if it
is so, we are participators in our hearts, at least,
in the guilt of Rome—and are not Christians,
Because it is not the spirit of Christianity to destroy,
but to go between sinners, in order to save the one
from being murdered, and the other from committing
murder—as Jesus went between the blind Priests and
the poor sinful woman, for Jesus sought not to establish
the supremacy of either—but only to bring those who
were at War, to be at one with one another, and so
bring them to God, who loved them both; and, there
fore, would have them also love one another (1 Peter
iii. 18 ; John xvii. 11, 22; xiii. 85).
But whilst France and Germany are at deadly strife
with one another, appealing to God for the success of
their own arms, and for the supremacy of their own
rival religions of Protestantism and Catholicism,
what is England doing ? For England is equally
divided within herself upon these two religions, that
this war is their war ; and this agony their warning to
take the beam out of their own eye. Whether then is
England looking well nigh idly on, or opening her
Temples freely, that they who have aught to say, as
Ministers of God, may say it, in order to obtain the
voice of the people, as the voice of God, upon their
rival religions, whilst momentarily favoured with
peace and liberty, in order that they may become
the instruments of God to heal the strifes of others,
after having healed their own. And if England is
not using this power to enable the Ministers of the
God of Peace to commune freely, whilst Germany
and France are shedding their blood like water,
and unable to commune freely, is she doing her duty
either to God, to France, or to Germany? For if
England, when educated and at peace, will not use
her liberty, peace, and knowledge to effect unity at
�T9
home, how can she expect God to hearken to her
prayers and give peace to others ? Bnt if France
and Germany are expected by ns to hearken to the
voice of any one coming to them in the footsteps of
Peace—then let the people of England give heed to
the voice of snch an one, who is knocking at the door
of their Temple and crying through the Press, for a
hearing, yet cannot obtain it. For if they will not
secure a hearing to such a messenger, how can they
expect that a Witness of God and Minister of Peace
should be heard in either France or Germany ? But
we profess to pray that such an one may rise there ;
and hope that he may be listened to. Then, let the
people, of England set the example, and stand by any
who rise on their behalf at home. For we not only
mock God in offering prayers to him, but provoke
him to withdraw the talent of peace and liberty from
ourselves, if we refuse to practise what we preach to
others. Then, let us all rise in the spirit of th is
Vision to work out our own salvation (Phip. ii.
12). Rise, to follow, and look not back, like Lot’s
wife, lest evil take the hindermost (Luke ix. 62).
For our God, our religion, our country, our neighbour
and our adversary require us to act in the spirit of
this Vision, even for the salvation of ourselves. Then
let us, in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount,
strive, whilst it is day, to be reconciled to our brother
and to our adversary, both at home and abroad,
before we enter the Temple of Peace to offer our
worship. This is the command of Jesus; and if we
ourselves give not heed to him, why should God give
heed to us ? (Matt. v. 23 ; John ix. 4.)
August 20, 1870.
IS THERE NOT A CAUSE?—1 Samuel xvii. 29;
Job xix. 25.
�LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. W. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET
HAYMARKET, W.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The voice of a peacemaker on war; shewing in an ideal picture, or mental vision, how men, by their religious sacrifices and professions of duty to God, are bound to make peace and be at one with one another
Creator
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Headley, T.G.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [London]
Collation: 19 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by C.W. Reynell.
Publisher
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The Author
Date
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[1870]
Identifier
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G5294
Subject
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War
Pacifism
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The voice of a peacemaker on war; shewing in an ideal picture, or mental vision, how men, by their religious sacrifices and professions of duty to God, are bound to make peace and be at one with one another), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Conway Tracts
Peace
War