THE COMMUNE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 1018, 31 October 1871, Page 2

THE COMMUNE.

[leader.] A strong reaction has succeeded in the English mind to the violent and unreasoning dislike which was at the beginning of the second siege of Paris manifested towards the proceedings of the Commune, and to the natural feeling of horror which was excited by the murder of the hostages, and by the burning of the Hotel de Ville and the other public buildings. An impression now prevails that many of the details were purposely much exaggerated in order to palliate and excuse the atrocities which are known to have been committed by the Versailles troops upon their first entrance. The three articles relating to the Commune which appear in the August magazines all show, this altered tone of feeling. Mr Frederick Harrison, in the Fortnightly, writes on the fall of the Commune, and Fraser's contains an article purporting to be from the pen of an Anglican vicar in Paris just before the end. Mr Harrison appears to imagine that any one who attempts to discuss recent events in Paris does so to an audience not at all prepared to listen. He believes Communism in all its forms to be a dangerous dream, and repudiates all its acts of violence, since social problems can never be settled by violent means. But he justifies the Commune as a defence of the legally established Republic of France against a conspiracy of deputies. The object of the article in the Fortnightly is principally a defeuce of the last acts of the Commune, and a withering denunciation of the butcheries of the Versailles Government, which were, it maintains, the result of a regularly organised plan. | Long before the city had fallen into the hands of the troops, the cry at Versailles .was, "Wait till we take Paris, and La Vendee shall be amply avenged." The delay with which the Versailles troops conducted the ultimate attack was inexplicable to those who were looking on and were not aware that M. Theirs was relying upon the work of treachery, and had a very sinister understanding with the German army, The Vendetta was preached by the clergy, urged from the tribune, and gloated over by the press; | its aim was not so much to crush the insurrection as to catch the whole body of insurgenta in a single net. Upon the authority of an English witness, Mr Harrison asserts that quarter was refused to prisoners taken with arms in their hands during one whole week. The no-quarter began on Monday morning, the burning did not commence till Tuesday afternoon, and it was not till Wednesday that the Archbishop of Paris and his companions suffered- Petroleum has been another justification, but there is clear evidence that the petrohuses never existed, and that they never burned anything. A reference to English newspapers will show that English correspondents saw the execution of prisoners taken in arms before a ! single buildinar was fired in Paris, and heard from Versailles officers the parts

that they had taken in the butchery. Mr Harrison says that some of the stories told in extenuation of the conduct of the troops are simply ridiculous. Scores of men were shot for being disguised as firemen and pumping petroleum on public buildings. "From a mere mechanical point of view such an act is ridiculous, ■and a moment's thought might convince any one that men whose object was to spread fire through a city ,as widely as possible would occupy themselves with setting fire to untouched buildings, and not with pouring petroleum upon those already in full blaze. This grotesque invention will take the place of the Christian baby who was believed to have been crucified by the Jews in the middle ages. The statement about women setting fire to houses by petroleum is just as unfounded." Upon the authority of Englishmen who were in Paris at' the time, Mr Harrison asserts that not a single authentic case was established. The j hundreds of wretched creatures who in the madness of the hour were shot or torn to pieces were just as much victims as the Christians who were put to death because the Romans imagined that they had burned Rome. The burning of the Tuilleries, if not caused by the shells of the Versailles troops, was the act of some few persons, and was not authorised by the Commune ; nor had that body anything to do with the murder of the Archbishop. Both those wild acts of fury were the acts of persons burning with rage at the wholesale murder of captured federals, at a time when those members of the Commune who survived were either engaged in directing isolated street fights, or escaping the fury of their pursuers. The butcheries of the Versaillists were, on the other hand, maintains Mr Harrison, part of a deliberate policy, which had for its object " the organised attempt of one political party in a civil war to exterminate the rival political party." The means taken were certainly most efficacious. The Government of Versailles commenced with a fusillade of prisoners upon a scale which surpasses Fonche, Carrier, or Tallien. Equal ferocity was shown to the captives, the maimed, and the dying; men and women were smashed to death with muskets or ripped up with bayonets ; the hospitals were ransacked for the wounded to be added to the heaps of slain ; slaughterhouses were set up in which the captives were butchered in heaps ; officers mangled their prisoners, and left them writhing in agony ; young girls were hacked to death at the fallen column in the Place Vendome, "after first being publicly disgraced." Men and women have been chained together, and shot by mitrailleuses. " The imagination faints as it tries to recall the scene. How into this mass of intense human life the leaden hail was driven, crushing the bone and flesh of hundreds into one horrible pulp, until it grew into one shapeless mass of splinter, blood, and quivering muscle, writhing and slowly stiffening into such a gigantic pile of human agony as Dante may have seen in hell, but as surely this earth never saw before." Twenty thousand persons, at the very lowest estimate, have been butchered. Mr Harrison sums up the case of the two sides as follows: — "Against the Commune the execution in retaliation of sixty-four hostages, and the alleged burning of certain public buildings, the circumstances of both being still doubtful. Against Versailles, the waging of war without quarter, prisoners shot in cold blood, an organised massacre, dungeons, hulks, and Oayenue, a population of 50,000 souls swept away." In conclusion he asserts that " there are but two possible alternatives for Europe — Positivism or Communism. The status quo is impossible.