Tradition : Principally with Reference to Mythology and the

THE DECLARATION OF WAR. 405
which we have fallen, appears perhaps as strikingly as
in any anything else in the frequency of the complaints
of the little regard paid to " parlementaires " and officers
bearing fla0 s of truce. But what startles us more than
all is the light manner in which this transgression of
the law of nations is referred to even by the parties
asrerieved.
I will here place two extracts which I have made in
juxtaposition:
Carver (" Travels in North dv. in hi
America," p. 358) says, that when | to Count Bismarck dated Bor-
a deputation sets out together for Jan. 25, 1871, says
their enemy's country with pro- C
positions of peace, "They bear French
^H
li having fired
before them the pipe of peace, on parlementaires^ An accusawhich,
I need not inform my | tion of this nature had already
readers, is of the same nature as ght to T the kn >wledge
a flag of truce among the Euro- V I of the Paris Go\ , and we
peans, and is treated with the may quote the following words
greatest respect and veneration of M. Jules Favre in his circi
even by the most barbarous nations. of 12th January-"I have the
/ never heard an instance satisfaction to acquaint your exwherein
the bearers of this sacred cellency that the Governor of
badge of friendship were ever Paris has hastened to order an
treated disrespectfully, or its inquiry into the facts alleged by
right s violated. The Indians | Count Bismarck, and in an-
believe that the Great Spirit nouncing this te him he has
never suffers an infraction of this brought much more numerous
kind to go unpunished." facts of the same nature to his
own cognizance which are imputed
to Prussian sentinels, but
which he never would have allowed
to interrupt ordinary relations"
I do not know whether this cont - tbet "barbarism
h as it ted in the last century, and mod
1 ition will tonish the part f 5 whom
trutl tiling in all t multiform atrocit of this
dreadful war ins to have astonished or ked. so