THE EXPERIENCES OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8270, 31 May 1890, Page 5

THE EXPERIENCES OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.

The last of Mr. Christie Murray's lectures in Auckland was given yesterday evening at tire City Hall, on the subject " Looking at War." There was a moderate attendance. The lecture was a chatty description of some of the sights seen byMr. Murray during the Russo-Turkish campaign, at which he was present as the special correspondent of the Times. He spoke of his departure for Constantinople, which was then in a state of siegea city which outside was glorious to behold and beautiful as a poet's dream, but which within was abominable. Instances were given of lawlessness prevailing in Constantinople, and a story told of a fight in a cafe between him and some friends and a party of Greeks, who were at length routed. From Constantinople he went to Adrianople in a train which travelled at a speed averaging twelve miles an hour, a little more rapid than that of the trains in New Zealand. The lecturer gave the ghastly details of the unskilful manner in which 2000 wounded men were brought from the battle-field by rail, huddled into the carriages of one train, and in each carriage thrown by the jolting into one jumbled heap of human suffering. At the hospitals, the English doctors worked (as they did throughout the campaign) like heroes, but they were outnumbered, and some of the work had to be done by Turkish doctors. To show the incredible ignorance of the latter, Mr. Murray told of one them who, after a man's broken leg had been set, actually re-set ib heel foremost, and applied to it undiluted carbolic acid, tho unfortunate victim of this brutal treatment dying shortly afterwards. Mr. Murray having been appointed to distribute the relief sent by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, he was enabled to pass in safety through the district famous as the scene of the Roumelian atrocities, and he described some of the horrors he had witnessed, though, he pointed out, it would be absolutely out of the reach of the eloquence of any man, or the skill of any writer or painter, to present the merest conception of what the horrors of that time really were. He defended the Eastern Turk as of good morals, honest, truthful, generous, hospitable, and as courageous as the English soldier; whilst ho as strongly condemned the Eastern Christian, who had none of these virtues. The lecturer spoke of the celebrated " Shipka " Campbell, characteristic for his coolness and nonchalant valour, but who was at length betrayed by Sulieman Pasha. The latter officer was unsparingly denounced as an infamous scoundrel, who had betrayed Mehemet Ali, Osman, and others, and had in fact done nothing bub betray his comrades during the campaign. Mr. Murray enlogised Dr. Charles Ryan, a young Irishman now engaged in prosperous practice in Melbourne, who deserved the title which had been given him, " the hero of Plevna." He had had a hospital of 2000 wounded men under his charge for two or three months, without lint, bandage, chloroform, or any proper appliances, and without any assistance, and during that time he had witnessed fearful Buffering, helpless to alleviate it. On the very night before the arrival of the reinforcements, Dr. Ryan had sat on the doorsteps of that home of desolation, and, looking at his revolver, had wondered whether he should put a bullet through his brains, and get out of the insufferable horror and misery. Bub he did not do ib; he was too good a man and too brave a man to do it. Mr. Murray excused himself for having detailed so many gruesome scenes of this campaign on the ground that he wished to give some idea of the intolerable horror and devastation of war, and to remove any lingering belief in its romance. He spoke warmly of the heroism of Dr. Bond-Moore, Dr. Mackellar, and others, and also of Baroness Von Rosen, whose life was devoted to the service of the poor. Mr. Murray concluded with a mention of the subject of federation. In the various Australian colonies federation was in the air." Australia was going to federate, and by-and-bye the Australians would have a nationality of their own, a new AngloSaxon English-speaking race ; and in New Zealand, when there was a population strong enough, we would also have a nationality of our own. When the colonies met on equal terms with England and the United States, and the Canadas, they could form into one gigantic federation, one Anglo-Saxon, -speaking federation, and then there would be an end of war, for the one right-thinking people in the world would police the world. He prayed that God would hasten the hour when war would-cease. (Applause.)