PARIS AFTER THE CAPITULATION.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 396, 18 April 1871, Page 2

PARIS AFTER THE CAPITULATION.

MEETING OE THE PEOPLE. —EAMINE AND

SICKNESS.

The London Daily News has the following letter from a correspondent who made his way into Paris immediately after the declaration of the armistice. He writes, on the Ist inst.: —

Paris, February I.—Leaving St. Denis yestorday afternoon, I rode through the Prussian foreposts to the neutral ground without interruption, and so on to the Port La Chapelle. Here the gates were closed, but a great crowd had collected in expectation of their presently opening. Everybody on the German side laughed at the Quixotry of my n'tempt to enter. The crowd was orderly, ci A and very patient, too. Many people had loaves and cabbages. After waiting half an hour, an officer appeared on the wall and exclaimed, " A la porte de Santois." We all, therefore, made to the right, I being mounted, beating tho others. This gate was open, and an officer examining passes. I rode on slowly, looking straight between my horse's ears, and somehow nobody stopped me. Once inside, I came upon sundry mobs of semi-drunk National Guards, and the cry was, "Down with the Prussians." Matters got serious. Tho clamor spread, aud men tried to clutch at my bridle, I thought it wiser to be bold, and turned on the first man who had shouted, and proclaimed that I was an Englishman, come if possible to do good, not harm, and thus succeeded in diverting the attention of my assailant. Then I rode on unmolested through tho Boulevard Arnaud (?) where were massed several battalions of the National Guard, apparently to receive their pay ; then through the Boulevard Magenta; and so straight on to the American Legation in the Champs Elysees.

" Paris is utterly cowed ; fairly beaten"—so said the first Englishman I met; and his opinion is mine. Yet Paris is orderly and decent, and with a certain solemn, morose self restraint mastering the tendency to demonstrate. The streets were crowded almost wholly with men in uniform. Civilians were few and far between. Many shops were open, but many also wero closed. There is no lack of hardware in Paris. You may buy enough and to spare of anything but edibles. Drink is plentiful enough, but except near the gate, I saw not a soul drunk. The food shops had nothing to show. There were comfitures and preserves, jellies, etc.; but solid comestibles were conspicuous by their absence.. In one shop I saw several large shapes of stuff that looked like lard. When I asked what it was, I found it was horse fat. The baker's shops were closed; the grating down before the butchers'. And oh, the number of funerals! One, two, three ; I met six altogether in the course of my ride. Sad with an exceeding great sadness ; such was. what I found as regards Paris loHg before I reached the American Legation; self-respecting too, in her misery";J not blatant; not disposed to collect in jabbering crowds. Each man went his way with chastened face and listless gate. I spoke with a soldier of the line. Yes, he had had enough of it. Sacrt. They had

- ii 11 ~_Aaa nearly killed him. these terrible Prussian^ and he was very hungry. When will the/gates open for food ? Food began to be with me a personal question. I had nearly filled mv wallet with newspapers, and only stowed away for an exigency, a few slices of ham. Did ever rarest geological or mineralogical' specimen make such a sensation as these slices of ham ? When I at length reached my quarters the servant -woman asked permission to take the meagre plateful outand show it as acuriositv to their companions; and after the ham was eaten, stray visitors came in, attracted by the tidings, and begged for a look at the unwonted viands. The whole city is haunted with the chaste odors which horseflesh gives out in cooking ; odors which I learned te appreciate in Metz. They permeate the British Embassy, where, asserting my privileges as a Briton, I stabled my horse ; they linger in the corridors of the Grand Hotel, aud fi-ht with the taint from wounds in evil cases. ■

The Grand Hotel is one huge hospital. Half Paris seems to be converted into hospitals' if one may judge by the flags. There were' more than were needed until the southern bombardment began ; and then when the hospitals, ambulances, orphanages, and madhouses on the south side had to be evacuated there was a squeeze on this side of the water. Very touching is the ignorance as to the outside world. "I have sren three English papers since September," said Dr. Gordon our Medical Commissioner. "Is Ireland quiet?" "Is Mr. Gladstone still Prime Minister?" "Is the Princess Louisa married P" Such are the samples of the questions I havo had to answer. The ignorance as to the condition of the Prussians outside is equally dense.

The day after negotiations began, Paris wa* assured that the investing army had hot eaten for three days ; and that it was Paris which was granting terms rather than the other way. I am continually asked if the Prussians have not been half-starved all through? What have they for quarters ? Whether they do not tremble in their boots at the name Francstireurs ? Whether they are not half-devoured by vermin ? Whether the King still resides in Versailles ? and so on. The pinch for food is worse than ever, pending the result of the negotiations for its supply. The day before yesterday the hungry broke into the reserved store of potted provisions in the Halle, smashed all obstacles and looted the place. From one who has paid the prices himself, and has the figures down in black and white without exaggeration, I have the following list .—2 francs for a small shrivelled cabbage ; 1 franc for a leek; 45 francs for a fowl; 45 francs for a rabbit (which may be taken for granted as cat); 25 francs for a pigeon ; 22 francs for a twopound chub ; 14 francs per pound for stickleback ; 2 francs per pound for potatoes; 40 francs per pound for butter ; cheese, 25 francs a pound when procurable. Meat, other "than horse-flesh, is absolutely not to; be procured. I was assured that if I offered £50 down in bright shining gold for a veritable beef-steak, I should have no claimant for the money! The last cow that changed hands "for an"ambulance" fetched £80. Those left cannot now be had for money. The bread is not bad, the difficulty is to get it. Only people say there is nothing else to do but wait outside the bakers' and the buchers'. I saw huge throngs at both as I rode through Paris, and chiefly women, waiting silently in the cold. What it must have come to when the Parisians are so utterly crushed down!

Last evening there looked in a party that had been experimenting in dining. They had eaten ostrich, cat, dog, rat, and mice. This seems to mea hard-hearted mode of extract' ing a new sensation out of the pinch of the tiinas. Far better to dine on horse, and give the price ©f dainty viands to put bread into the mouths of the poor suffering women and children. Yesterday, neither bread nor meat was distributed in this arrondissement. Those who had no money have simply had to hunger. The sins for which Paris used to be famous, all belong to the past. She has been halt starved, half-beaten into morality,, or it may be that other than physical ' .influeiicw have led her to wash and be clean. You see some drunkenness, but far le_» than I had looked for, . among men whose clock, so 'to speak, has run down. A decent gloom is everywhere apparent, Som. assert that the gloom is as much theatrical and assumed as had been the previous valorous i seeming. • I don't think so—l thinl'you can j see the iron eating and burning into the hearts of these men—silent with unwoated silence, J moody as they never knew how to be before) and as the downcast faces pass, I draw a gOOa j augury from them for France and Paris. ( .-., The great and. beautiful feature of the siege has been the absence of crime. Wo murder-, no robberies, but a virtue in which, toffi'i there is something pathetic. The halM streets are empty by half-past nine o'clock The midnight air is not tortured by thesouri of revellers, although there are nopoli"6'' I keep order. I woke up between twelve m J one in the night, and the silence made me'« i the moment think myself back at Margenty i The trees on the Boulevards have suffered W J than I expected. In the Champs Elysees thej I were utterly ruined, and the others elseffw" I have, I am told, shared the same fate, m I scarcity of wood was terrible in tbesel' Wtl days. People caunot get their washing iW&m for want of wood to heat the copper. Sowm as I can learn, the moral effect of the oofl'ft bardment on the population was .W,ffl| After the first day of defiance the Go^rrime»« felt the pressure. M. Jules Simon toBM friend of mine that the bombardment ot^B Denis had shortened the siege by *'?Jkß Competent authorities estimate that ffSM had she been obstinate, might h_Wgo«?*;jl for another month, had the pickles»n°.rc:-ll serves, and all the odds and ends now^1 % M exorbitant prices, been taken and ratio_y« But, to what purpose ? |