BOMBARDMENTS NOT SO DEADLY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue XXIV, 10 December 1898, Page 746

BOMBARDMENTS NOT SO DEADLY.

According to ‘Le Journal des Debats’ of Paris a bombardment is not such a terrible thing after all. The editor of the ‘Debats’ has collected some official statistics to prove this. In 1870-71 the bombardment of Belfort lasted seventy-three days, during which 99,453 projectiles fell within the city, and there were only sixty victims killed or fatally wounded. At Strasburg, during the siege of thirty-eight days, the Germans fired upon the city mostly at. close range, 193,722 shells, which accounted for 300 victims. Finally, at Paris, the bombardment did not last longer than twenty-three days, and only 10,000 siege shells were thrown, killing or wounding 107 persons. And the French editor adds: ‘The few dozens of cannon shots fired on the Cuban eoast or at Porto Rico have assuredly made more noise than harm.