130 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



XXVI. A recent French cartoon pictures the peasant of a hun- 

 dred years ago plowing in a field, a gilded marquis on his back, tapping 

 his gilded snuff-box. Another cartoon shows the French peasant of 

 to-day, still at the plow. On his back is an armed soldier who should 

 be at another plow, while on the back of the soldier rides the second 

 burden of Shylock the money-lender, more cruel and more heavy even 

 than the dainty marquis of the old regime. So long as war remains, 

 the burden of France cannot be shifted. 



XXVII. In the loss of war we count not alone the man who 

 falls or wdiose life is tainted with disease. There is more than one 

 in the man's life. The bullet that pierces his heart goes to the heart 

 of at least one other. For each soldier has a sweetheart, and the beat 

 of these die, too — so far as the race is concerned — if they remain single 

 for his sake. 



In the old Scottish ballad of the Tlower of the Forest' this thought 

 is set forth: 



"I've heard the lilting at each ewe-milking 

 Lassies a-lilting before the dawn of day. 

 But now they are moaning, on ilka green loaning, 

 For the 'Flower of the Forest' is a' wed away." 



Euskin once said that 'War is the foundation of all high virtues 

 and faculties of men.' As well might the maker of phrases say that 

 fire is the builder of the forest, for only in the flame of destruction do 

 we realize the warmth and strength that lie in the heart of oak. An- 

 other writer, Ilardwick, declares that 'War is essential to the life of a 

 nation; war strengthens a nation morally, mentally and physically.' 

 Such statements as these set all history at defiance. War can only 

 waste and corrupt. 'All war is bad,' says Benjamin Franklin, 'some 

 only worse than others.' 'War has its origin in the evil passions of 

 men,' and even when unavoidable or righteous, its effects are most 

 forlorn. The final effect of each strife for empire has been the degrada- 

 tion or extinction of the nation which led in the struggle. 



XXIX. Greece died because the men who made her glory had 

 all passed away and left none of their kin, and therefore none of their 

 kind. ' 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more,' for the Greek of to- 

 day, for the most part, never came from the loins of Leonidas or Mil- 

 tiades. He is the son of the stable-boys and scullions and slaves of the 

 day of her glory, those of whom imperial Greece could make no use 

 in her conquest of Asia. "Most of the old Greek race," says Mr. W. H. 

 Ireland, has been swept away, and the country is now inhabited by 

 persons of Slavonic descent. Indeed, there is strong ground for tbe 

 statement that tliere was nu^re of the old heroic blood of Hellas in the 

 Turkish army of Fdhcm Pasha than in the soldiers of King George, 

 who fled before them three years ago." King George himself is only 



