THE STATE OF PARIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 92, 20 April 1871, Page 2

THE STATE OF PARIS.

[From the cort eqpoijdent of the Daily News.'] J \i Paris, Feb. 18. Tbe majority of the newspapers issued in Paris continue to be antedated one day. The custom is as absurd^as jit is perplexing, especially in casfW reference. | The Official, the Siecle, aflJ the Debals \ are the only journals bearing the correct date. On the 2nd of January, the Figaro, repenting of its sins, turned from its evil way of antedating, and entered upon a new course. But here is the Verite — " The Truth " — telling a falsehood to begin with ; and so of all its competitors. The collector of newspaper files is sadly puzzled by this incomprehensible, and absolutely foolish practice. It is defended upon the ground that it flatters the provincial subscribers, who, receiving to-morrow the paper of to-day, but bearing to-morrow's date, lay to their souls the flattering unction that yesterday is absolutely to-day. The idea does not appear to occur to our friends the editors that the device is hollow; for the readers are not so asinine as to believe to-day is to-morrow, and this evening to-morrow night ; so that no advantage whatever is gained by the ridiculous attempt to cheat them into the belief that Monday can by any possibility be Tuesday. There is, moreover, actual and extreme inconvenience in the custom. A correspondent, to wit, packs his files, classifying them according to the dates they bear. Now, he wants to verify a For remainder of news see fourth page.

fact. He comes across it, and reads ; ■ ; " Yesterday M. Jules Favre entertained a dinner party, and wept over the tablecloth on being reminded that, as a member .of Government of the Broken Hearts^ he was expected to give proof of the fact whenever called upon to do so. " Your collector interrogates his journal for the ■. date: of this remarkable illustration of M. 1 Jules Favre's adaptability to the circumstances of the hour, and finds it is Tuesday, ; %he 22nd, of never mind what month. He ,jots it down. Presently, while seeking •for/some other fact, he comes across the •"same one in another paper, but on referring f ,to the date, discovers, that.journal number ' one has copied from journal number twos and that what was yesterday for it, means the day before yesterday for the other. Another illustration. Balloons during the siege were our only hope and resource in< respect of correspondence. We kept a, look-out for the announcement of their departure, and for a report of the ceremony, always more or less interesting. We read : " This morning the General Uhrich left the Gare dv Nord with a fair wind." A .reference to your paper informs, you that it is Friday ; never mind what date. Now, you have actually sent off your despatch by that self-same balloon. You were yourself on the spot to see it start, ■ and to deposit your precious packet in the hands of the aeronaut, but it left on the Wednesday morning. The fact appeared .in art evening paper antedated Thursday, and the paper 'published on Friday, and bearing' the real date, copies textually the announcement, without making the necessary correction, thus misleading its readers, and mis-recording a fact: These instances are quoted merely to /illustrate some of the inconveniences of tliis absurd j system. They become of serious importance when the question is one of j recording the events of the siege. " Yesterday the Prussians attacked a post at Le Bourget, and were brilliantly defeated by our brave Francs-tireurs,whomust have inflicted serious losses upon the enemy. But the Prussians, having received reinforcements, resumed the attack,. and "our brave Francstireurs found it necessary to withdraw, which they did in excellent order." But this yesterday, even in the official report, means the day before yesterday. In the other papers it may mean any day. A few days ago a "yesterday" of this eccentric character meant four days before. We know electricity beats time hollow, but the French system of dating papers beats electricity, and can afford to give it good odds in a race round the world. The proclamation of the ex- Emperor has excited no feeling but one of disdain. Its presumptuous effrontery is beyoud criticism ; its mendacity calculated only to sink its author lower in the estimation of the nation he has ruined than he has hitherto fallen. This was already low ;enough. The contempt he inspired has .found ''in lowest depths a deeper still." It is felt that Louis Napoleon's only becoming course was to observe silence. His manifesto has been passed over by the -press, almost in silence ; but it would not be surprising if those journals which benefitted by his bounty act the part of the ass towards the sick lion. It is so easy to 'be ungrateful. In accusing the Government for the National Defence of having brought about the ruin of France, he constitutes himself the echo of Felix Pyat and crew. ; On reading such a phrase as this : "It is time to demand at the hands bf those wlio have usurped power on account of blood shed without necessity, of the. ruins heaped up without cause, of the resources of the country dissipated without control ;" one is tempted seriously to call' hip sanity in question. He did more than usurp power. Like a burglar, foe broke into France in the dead of the nighty when she was asleep, peacefully, full of; confidence in him into whose hands she had entrusted, the keys of her house. 111, indeed, does it become him to prate about a waste of the resources of the, country in presence of those terrible witnesses, his war-budgets, which in twenty years sank •£100,000,000 sterling ; paid, nevertheless, as a sort of premium of insurance against the risks of war, yet which at the end of , that, period' was , represented by an army of, only 2^0,000 men, not even well equipped^ having scarcely any artillery, and, above r all . being badly provisioned. Yet less becoming is it in Kirn to! speak of ( blood; unnecessaTJly spilt, in the' awful presence of the hecatombs of dead, stark : and stiff under : the sod at Reischoffeh, Woerth ? all over the hillocks and plains and valleys; of the Vosges and the Ardennes, and who^ will one day rise up in solemn judgment against him, and cry, " Thou art the man ! " Did he not feel, know,, that with the disappearance of the' smoke from the very first ;g;un,. ; fired ta Saarbriick ail* hope of. victory had also Yani^he^r? JTet- after this he continued the war. ' "He ,, rSnive]^ ( p ver, the " unheard-of reverses \ M .France." '„ He it., was r who paved 'the way for tiiem. He vomits his bile, uppa,., " the. ",'. Government which,

installed itself by surprise at the Hotel de Ville on the 4th of September." He forgets the burglarious surprise of the 2nd December. He points to the plebiscites which four times in twenty years confirmed him in authority. The fascicules now publishing reveal the hollowness of those votes ;. yet knowing their real value he appeals to them to sustain his mandacious theory that he alone was, and remains the sole, true elect of the nation. He " put up prayers for the success of the national defence, for if the country was saved, what mattered the : dynasty ? " The prayers did not prevent him from plotting with Bazaine for the . surrender of Metz, as a means of gaining grace in the eyes of Prussia in order to bring about the restoration of " the dynasty ." He asserts that the destinies of France cannot be confided to an unauthorised Government, which, by disorganising the administration, has not left stauding one single authority emanating from universal suffrage. The administration was found already disorganised, and the Government for the National Defence is bitterly reproached for not having made a clean sweep of all the "authorities" belonging to' it. To wind vp — and the suggestion is indeed a capping of the climax — the, ex-Emperor submits that so long as the nation has not manifested its will, his duty is to protest against everything done without its direct participation as illegitimate ; in other words, one rock of safety alone remains to the nation — himself. So we are.to/believe that the individual and the regime which have brought the nation to its present pass, arc its sole elements of reconstruction and future prosperity. The paradox is a madman's. Fortunately the nation is still sane.