THE RE-VICTUALLING OF PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 334, 3 February 1871, Page 2

THE RE-VICTUALLING OF PARIS.

Should Sir Henry Storks be called upon to re victual Paris at twenty-four hours notice, will he be able to accomplish the taski* Readers of chess literature may recall to mind an occasion at the Court of Spain in its palmier days, when a difficult problem was worked out by living pawns and pieces "attired proper" as the hcrulds say. Something similar, but on a grander scale, and for a humane purpose, if rumour is to be credited, is to be worked out experimentally with the _taff of the Control Department. Count Bismarck's warning of the frightful calamity that may be expected when Paris is starved into submission has suggested a plan for revictualling the capital by means of our control, which we shall be only too happy to find the department is capable of accomplishing. The problem is not quite the simple matter it may appear. Given a beleaguered city of two millions of inhabitants, which at an uncertain date must fall to the enemy, how are the provisions that may be necessary to prevent the surviving inhabitants from perishing to be ready near the spot for distribution at a few hours' notice, that spot being in the meantime inaccessible to the friendly power, and at a considerable distance from the base of operations ? If our information is oorrect, a committee has actually been formed, with Sir Henry Stoiks as president, to work out this humane problem. All honor to Sir Henry if he succeed in surmounting all the difficulties oi the case. He will not only have performed a part as worthy of historical remembrance as that of any general or strategist in the war, but ho will have given his staff a lesson not inferior in practical importance to the field exercises of the Prussian army.