OUR PARIS LETTER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 287, 18 April 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(from our own correspondent.)

Pabis, February 27. The position of some of the transported lady Communists (now pardoned) is peculiar ; regarding their residence at New Caledonia as a fixture, many have married with convicts condemned for other crimes to transportation for life ; some of the married fair sex contracted a liaison, and cannot count upon being received by anxious husbands with open arms. Perhaps this explains why Messes Naquet and Dumas fils are holding public meetings to repeal the laws against divorce. It is an assistance nearly as urgent as the muuicipality's voting IOO,OOOfr. of the taxes to succor the absentees on their return to the common fire-side. The Home Minister, M. de Marcere, is not in an enviable position ; he had cast in his lot to nphold the patent abuses at the Prefecture de Police. Morning after morning a journal charges him with having broken bis parole d'honneur, of having burked documents from a commission of enquiry constituted by himself, and in being defied by the biggest subordinate at the Prefecture, a Bonapartist, to dismiss him. M. de Marcere pledged his word of honor that police agents who gave their evidence freely would be protected by him ; the agents on the contrary have been dismissed—their sin, telling too much. Public opinion insists on these ugly matters being laid bare ; it also desires to know from official documents if a poor devil named Vilain, who was in the secrets of the Prefecture, was really tried by a Drum-head Court Martial before, or after, his execution in May, 1871. It is calculated that by Easter all the thorny matters that act like issues in the body politic will have come to an end; then the Chambers will be installed in Paris. The new Budget Commission is more advanced republican than the last; its President and Secretary are Gambetta's right and left hand men ? thus no extravagance will be tolerated and .abuses mercilessly abolished. The Commission is animated with the resolution to cast away the drones in the Civil Service, and with their emoluments raise the salaries of the working bees. Dimanche-Grras, as the Sunday before Lent is called, had the signal honor to be dry, but as cold as Siberia. The Boulevards were black with people to see the masquerades—mostly juveniles, dressed as dairymaids, Watteau shepherdesses, Marquisses of the time of Louis XV., Little Bed Biding Hoods, Jack Puddings, and soldiers. Occasionally young men in female attire cut amusing antics. Parents seemed charmed at their children being disguiaed, and the public paid the expected tribute of being pleased, but the little folks themselves looked as severe as Spartans. Vanity—human rather than French, was shown by all the youthful militaires being in the uniforms of superior officers—none as sergeants or privates ; they apparently have been born with the Marshal's baton in their cradle. The three Bc&ufs gras procession was rather a contribution to the pleasures of hope than the pleasures of memory. It created more stir, however, than the visit of the Spanish students last year, and;', unlike them, "had no political signification. Butchers' boys and laundry maids, even when representing all the great ones of Mount Olympus, belong to no political party ; good beef steaks and cleanliness are the aim of all. We have no carnival since an aga at Paris. What nation has one ? The Barberi race down the Corso is a fiasco, and English and Americans cease to . throw confetti at tall hats and black coats; life is so dear in Borne that a basket of plaster bon-bons, if nbt a luxury, is an extravagance. We have plenty of concerts, many balls, and numerous dinner parties ; despite these we are not postively gay. For the moment we are as serious as notaries and as wearisome as lawyers; it is in the air, in the ultra-parliamentary influences, perhaps in the penny-awful romance feuilletons, in the preaching of Pere Loyson, in the sermons of Pere Monsabre, in the prospect likely of the black plague. Another event in keeping with the times : the embalmed head of A-Taiti, the terrible Canaque chief, a Cettewayoof New Caledonia, is daily expected, with several subordinate skulls. It is the oddest of all manners to initiate A-Tai'ti to European civilization—to place his head in a bottle in the museum of Natural History. He could say—"we eat our conquered, Europeans dissect theirs." For the vanquished, the result is about the same. Leo XHlth's allocution to the pilgrim editors is not favorably welcomed in France. His Holiness recommends the founding of daily papers to fight the good fight, but he forgets that such an enterprise

means a heavy outlay of money, and even then it will be necessary to secures readers. There is not an nltra-inontaue journal in France that is a paying goncern.; even when fused, they are sliott-iived ; those existing are upheld by. friends, not purchasers ; the only successful newspapers in France are-the liberal organs, they are making money and are driving opponents out of the field. France is daily covered broadcast with republican papers, especially those of one the most profitable/Further, when the Pope urges editors to advocate the supremacy of the Church in civil matters, discussion becomes useless. A trustworthy letter from Odessa states that the reason why the Cossacks catch disease and the Kalmucks escapes is owing to the habit of the former embracing their dead—a practice never indulged in by the latter. Also, there is an island in the Volga where the Kalmucks convey their sick ; the latter are siire to die, as, if they recover by a miracle from,a malady they must inevitably succumb by famine. The plan saves doctors and nurses. An atrocious odor surrounds the isle, and in summer the atmosphere is dark with swarms of peculiar black flies and birds of prey. The International Medical Commission ought to note this pest manufactory. • The 24th February is remembered, not as the fall of Louis Philippe, in 1848, but as the advent of Universal Suffrage. People ask, why the clergy are so bitter against the present Republic, when 31 years ago they voluntarily came .forward to bless Trees of Liberty—all: since, by-the-by, dead? Ledm Rollin's widow, a rich English lady, has just published a collection of her husband's eloquent speeches and writings. It was in 1841 that Rollin commenced his agitation for Universal Suffrage, as proclaimed in 1870; he laid down that every one who paye taxes, who, supports the nation by his work, and isbound to defend, the country by his life, had the right to participate in the government of the realm, ?by voting for a representative : " you can corrupt" he said, " an agglomeration, a category of men, but you can never purchase a nation." Yet Rollin's scheme was deemed Utopian: even the King and Guizot laughed at it; but the day after both fell like Lucifer, never to rise Again, it was the law of the land ; it has even superseded barricades ; men fight now with voting tickets, not ball cartridge. The government not having interfered with the banquets, these passed off quietly, and there were no wild speeches delivered, the Ministry of of Police having abstained, it was observed, from supplying orators on the detective list. A. M. Luguet called to pay his modest rent, 12fr. per quarter, to his landlord, M. Boulogne ; the latter gave the tenant for receipt a pair of black eyes; the sum, though correct, was too small to ask to be accepted. The Magre affair is becoming sensational: M. Magre was a wealthy excavalry captain ; he fell in love with the daughter, aged 17, of a baronesa at Toulouse, and after ten days'acquaintance, was married ; the bride had been seduced by a married gentleman, and at the time of the wedding she was three months enciente ; the bridegroom returned to her mother; the bride avowing in writing, her husband was not the father of the child. Magre went to Madrid to drown his grief, settled all his. wealth on his mother and sistere, and disowned the paternity of the child born sis months after his marriage. At Madrid he was mysteriously stabbed to death ; hia wife's maid is suspected. She followed him. The law is called upon to declare the union null on account of an " error in the person of the spouse." A great scandal is on the tapis. Some aristocratic families have been raising the wind on the sly, by placing as security family title deeds and other property. The lenders move in high society also, and not only charged cent "per cent, but declined to return securities when a settlement of accounts was demanded. The Assizes of Bordeaux have acquitted a young girl aged 16£ years, for killing her lover, who, under promise of marriage, had seduced her. She had been confined in prison, and as she insisted on being tried at the present term, was placed in the dock, supported on pillows, in an arm chair, by a doctor and midwife. Very dramatic. She stated one evening she made a final appeal to her seducer ; he laughed at her; to frighten him she drew forth a pistol; she knew afterwards that he fell dead, and ehe was picked up in a swoon. A demimondian d'Egbord, gave an order for a silver toilette se-ivice, to cost 21.000fr.; each of the 24 pieces bore her motto " d'Egbord first." No. lis generally the ruling principle with soiled doves. Objecting to pay, she was made to settle. A basin and two vases de nuit — Oh! Xanthrippe, what an hour lost for Socrates—were in solid silver. A pet cavalry horse " Gallant," that was riddled by balls at the battle of Worth, and carried one in his neck for visitors to feel, was kept as a curiosity in the city barracks. He has been ordered to the Knacker's yard, the expense of his support being disallowed. There was a time when France was rich enough to pay for her glories. An attorney won 2000fr. damages for his client. He informed the latter: I hare handed £1000fr. to counsel, and thanking you in advance, have kept the second for myself—not even a shell left. Friend, to Adele, a dairymaid: " Are you making your butter ?" " No, lam making my margarine." Judge, to prisoner : " What motive led you to quit your honest trade of builder, to found a bank ?" A delegate confessed that he had been kept so long in the anta-chamber of a minister, that he had time to study the business for which he sought an interview. Motherly advice to her son : " When you go to Paris, never forget to wash your feet—when they will be dirty."