Türr was once talking with a Chinaman about civilization. “Do you know,” remarked the man from the Middle Kingdom, “that your _liberté_, _fraternité_, _égalité_, are very fine, but a fourth thing is necessary.” “And that is—?” _Un harmonisateur._ “What is that?” The Chinaman, making a gesture suggestive of whipping, said, _Le bambou_. Türr is also somewhat of the opinion that it would be a good thing if men could have some of their bad qualities whipped out of them, especially some of their stupidity. _La bêtise humaine est in-com-men-su-ra-ble_ ... and _that_ word is still too short! Ach Götter, Schneidt’s Bretter! With this sigh of resignation he used to conclude his observations over this or that piece of immeasurable stupidity among men. He told us ever so much about his life as a soldier. He had already passed his fiftieth year in military service, for he had entered the army in 1842. During this half century he had seen so much that was horrible on the various battlefields, that he had consequently become an enemy of war: It was in May, 1860. We were marching with Garibaldi’s thousand heroes against Palermo. In the neighborhood of the market place of Partenio we had a glimpse of something that filled the hardest-hearted of us with horror. Beside the road a dozen Bourbon soldiers lay dead, and a pack of dogs were gnawing at their bodies.... We approached and saw that the soldiers had been burned. Garibaldi expressed his indignation at this in a terrible outbreak of rage. He could hardly hold in till he entered the little town. The inhabitants received him with joy, but he shouted to the exulting people in a voice trembling with wrath: “I have seen here a barbarous deed—the partisans of freedom have no right to give way to such inhumane cruelty....” The people listened in deep silence to the general’s outburst of passion. Finally some one came forward and said: “We must acknowledge that we have done wrong, but before you condemn us, listen to what happened here; perhaps you will find our action comprehensible....” And the people conducted the general to a group of houses. He was taken into four or five of these houses and shown a heap of women and children, all scorched and burned to cinders. “This is what the Bourbon soldiers have done,” they cried; “they drove the women and children into these houses, set the houses on fire, and would not let one escape. They guarded the doors until the wretched creatures struggled with death in the flames. We heard their screams of agony and hurried to help them; but it was too late.... In our bitter indignation we could only wreak our vengeance for the innocent victims by hurling the monsters into the fire in turn, and then we brought them out into the road.”