Our Contributors

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 508, 27 May 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors

OUR PARIS LETTER

[from ourt ovrs correspondent.]

Paris, February 24. France may now be considered as definitely clear of the Greeks, she will not send them an officer, nor lend them a gras musket. Tho debate on ths 30,000 rifles was a triumphant success for Gambetta ; he victoriously put in deooute Rochefort and his band of calumniators, who had been laboring to make the nation believe—for electoral purposes, he desired to plunge France into war, and was the voice behind the Throne greater than tho Throne itself. He defied Clemenceau to adduce evidence to support his calumny, and challenged past and present Ministers to state if he ever interfered with their action, still less weighed on their decisions. Ho is still pausing for a, reply. It was a short and timely speech, full of passionate earnestness and patriotism, and makes him virtually master of the coming general elections. People are alternately astonished and amused at the Senators ; one day they out-herod Herod m liberalism, and the next they vote a prohibitive tariff that ought to make tho hair stand on end of a protectionist, or rap up the spirit of Cobden without the aid of a medium. The abominable trial at Bordeaux, for the perversion and debauchery of the little brother and sister Delmont causes profound horror ; the accused, though belonging to the most respectable and the most degraded ranks of society, are equal in point of depravity, though not steeped to the same degree. Attention is most concentrated on Colonel Chatel, the once commanding officer of Bordeaux, pending the perpetration of the outrages. His constant cry is, that were he guilty he would ere this have committed suicid*?. That has not much importance in the mouth of an officer whose honor is already compromised, and criminals are cowards. Suicide may often be the supreme revolt of honor, or the expiation of a fault. It occasionally becomes ths heroism of despair. Men of reputed honor can survive their slnvmc, and when culpable, one can easily understand why thoy abstain from suicide. A wellknown Marquis who has gambled away his o,vn nnd several other people's fortunes, has been arrested for shop-lifting, along with his mistress, a- circus rider. He confessed he had lived by theft for months, and found the profession as easy as ifc was highly lucrative. The Jackdaw of Hheims never created a greater sensation in theological difficulties raised by his thieving, than has the nephew of the present Bishop of that diocese, who has thrown divinity studies to tho dogs, and become a " bold soger boy." The educational estimates this year indicate an increase of 6,000,000fr., or 50 per cent, as compared with the last six years ; the city of Paris since the war, has augmented its educational grants to the extent of 150 per cent.