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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 856, 2 November 1870, Page 3

The Lyttelton Times states that among the prisoners taken at Sedan was Mr .Robert Mitchell, a near relation of Mr Dillon Bell. Mr Mitchell has been connected with the Parisian pre*s for a number of years past, and followed the French army in the capacity of special correspondent. M. Paul de Cassagnao, the notorious duellist and well-known journaiist, was also taken prisoner.

THE CONSCRIPTION IN tfRANCE. A Fbench the Times writes as follows :—The French are often called " a warlike race,",," a nation of soldiers." These are stereotyped phrases, and are, in a certain sense, quite true. Our young' peasants are quickly and easily transformed into soldiers, and even in these days, of blustering and bravado, when any boasting would be particularly repugnant to delicate minds, the least self-asserting Frenchman is justified in saying that our army is unsurpassed. Nevertheless, those who maintain that France, as a nation, does not wish for war, are, I think, quite right. There are, in fact, here, as in all other countries, war-lovers and war-haters, but to distinguish between them one must not draw a vertical line cutting through the different social strata ; a horizontal section would mark the separation better. All the upper classes are not bellicose, certainly ; but, as a rule, all peasants are pacific. The line should be drawn just where the conscription begins to bear with direct force, at that point where money fails wherewith to purchase a substitute for the lad who draws a " bad number." There is, there can be, it stands to reason, no enthusiasm for war among a nation of peasant landowners whose sons are taken forcibly from their fields for soldiering. In all my dealing with our peasants I have never seen even a pretence for liking war. They do not affect to disguise their horror of fighting. " A bad number" is the one great dread of our village lads when that fatal twentieth year approaches. It underlies the fate of every rustic. Until the conscription is past, no plan of life can be formed, no hope can be indulged. Those who see our conscripts, with their tri-color ribands streaming from their hats, parading arm in arm through the streets, and singing patriotic songs, see them when they are more than half drunk. But they can have no idea of the undis guised grief with which the poor boys have learnt their fate a few hours before, or the desolated homes they left behind. When the discharged soldier comes back, if he does come back, his military service is like a piece of his life cut out —so many j years to which he scarcely ever alludes, i which have altered and, it may be, in j some respects, improved him, but quite unconsciously. I must, in fairness, ;,dd i that he never complains of them. The patience with which the French peasant bears the conscription is a daily recurring miracle with which I have never got familiarised. He seems to consider it as a heavenly dispensation against which — and here he is probably right —no change of Government can exonerate him. His resignation in this respect explains the national surname of Jacques Bonhomrne. The peasant alone with ua is entitled to it. But he hates war. j