WAR ITEMS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume V, Issue 268, 15 November 1870, Page 4

WAR ITEMS.

PARIS BELEAGUERED. The edict has come at last, writes a Paris correspondent of the Telegraph. At five o'clock this (Monday) afternoon v?e read our fate. Huudreds now are standing befoie kiosk, and pillar, and blank wall, reading the clear clean print which pronounces Paris a beleagurered city. They cannot believe it. They read aad turn, and turn and come back again to look. There is, indeed, matter for reSection in these few simple words which I quote : — " Seeing that the enemy may be momentarily expected under the walls of Paris, the Committee of Defence give notice that in the morning of the 15th inst." — Thursday next, mind you — "at sis. o'clock, the gates will be closed, and neither ingress nor egress permitted to any person without the written authority of the Home Office." What will they do, the thousands and thousands of helpless women and innocent children shut up within these deadly walls, and without means to live outside, even if they escaped in the brief time of grace ? What will the Siusbands and parents do when workshops close, wheu households are broken up, aud tradesmen shut their doors, and eveiy citizen strives to reduce bis expenditure to the uttermost? There is uo talk and mo thought of gratuitously filling the! ''useless mouths." Even the Gardes Sedentaires will bave only a siugie ration each. The days have come when he -who is without wife and child, solitary on the earth, may thank heaven for his loneliness. I