THE RELIEF OF PARIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 103, 3 May 1871, Page 4

THE RELIEF OF PARIS.

(From the Times Special Correspondent.) , • ' ' . ' Paris, Feb. 19. The distribution of the provisions sent out under the Lord Mayor's fund is a subject which is for the moment exciting cph/siderable interest and discussion in ; Paris. Anxious to judge for myself of tbe manner in which the distribution was •effected, I drove yesterday, in company ' „with.C olonel Stuart Wortley, Mr. Moore, "Mr. Herbert, and Mr; Marshall, who are members of the Paris Committee, to the . ; various;; icentree of distribution, . .visiting first the station of the Northern Railway, where the now deserted platforms are covered with these: stores. : From here we went to Mr. Moore's warehouse, and long before we reached it came upon the "queue," .which extended many hundred yards from the door and was composed of nearly, 2,0Q0 persons. These were all women and children,. it having been found necessary to exclude, the men on account of their violence. Some of the women at the extreme end of the queue had got their baskets and work: and were sitting ,'. i composedly on stools or on the pavement, , .contented to wait the requisite number of . hours until their turn should come. We were told that in order to be the first they came over night with their stools and sat until morning at the door, relieved occasionally by friends who took their places while they went for rest. Each applicant as she entered presented a ticket, which was cancelled, and, holding out ber apron, she passed rapidly before men serving bacon, cheese, flour, and biscuit, and went off rejoicing out of another door, with her arms full. From' 1,500 to 1,800 rations a day are distributed here. From this most lively and interesting scene we drove across to the Quartier Latin, where a large warehouse was devoted to the reception of the stores, which were temptingly displayed in the windows, aud here' > again there was a long queue and an eager press of women with cards, all crowding through the doorway, above which was written in large letters, " Dons patriotiquesde I'Anglelerre. A still more pertinacious crowd thronged the doors of the warehouse of M. Boucicault, at the '■ . " Bon March e." So voracious had been the applicants that they had broken through tbe barriers, and in their eagerness for food had engaged in a struggle I which rendered necessary the intervention j of the National Guard, and .had ended in the closing of the doors of the hall of j distribution. Even now a dense crowd 'of upwards of a thousand persons were pressing against them, having broken the queue and got into a somewhat excitedcondition owing to their scarcely terminated fight, and the proprietor of the warehouse was by no means easy in his mind ou our proposing to let them in without waiting for the 50 additional National Guards who had been sent for. A heavy iron shutter, which fell like a guillotine, was raised at our request, and we found" ourselves at the top of six or eight steps looking down on a surging sea of faces which instan tly ..swayed violently towards us, the nearest being carried partly up the steps. A 'French mob animated only by hunger seems a much more tractable auimal than one under the influence of political suspicion or animosity. A short appeal ,: in favour of calmness and moderation was, cordially responded to, aud we passed in some hundreds of women and a few men, who had succeeded .in fighting their way; ' to the front. Every now and then the' crowd surged with a sort of wave which thretor 30 or 40 on the ground, and here and there a woman fainted from exhaustion. Still they Beemed amply compensated when they recovered for ,what they had : : endured,, by the-food which they received, and , it ,is to be, remarked that this was : altogether an exceptional scene, arising from a 1 want. of courage and management when the crowd began in the first; . . : instance: to ' overflow its borders . Meantime, the pressure is considerably. .. increased by, the fact of the Goyeijninent ' being in the act } of ' abolishing the money allowance which this class of the in- . habitants have been enjoying duribg the siege;, besides ,30 . sous a day, married men received 15 sous , for their wives, .:,; making; in all 45. sous. .The stoppage* of is this allowance throws ,th«*!|*!^ddenly on their own. resource's, and>work not being procurable this supply has proved a most timely relief.- The private individuals. t o; whom ; its distribution is entrusted are charged:v to/ examine carefully into the necessities of eaph. case, and: friends have undertaken .to make enquiries in the higher ...grades of society, , for , cases more difficult, to discover, because, the, victims are too pEqudjtp nbecome, supplicants for charity; ,i The i hopeless feature of the/qase is this v a long , time/ must /lapse before business '•i can 1 recover andlmoriey 1 begin to! flow in, its accustomed ' f cnainrfe]^,- anii' until then the' l misery;|rtusf;;gQ : on r increasing . Paris is not byaoy/means'in of food; it has been pouring "into the town for th c *' -ia^HnreW' "'-Weffis, • «iftld the • strops . and.

markets are loaded with" .meat and vegetables at prices by no means exorbitant, aud which are falling every day. Upwards of 15,000 head of cattle, .the same quantity, o.f sheep, 3000 pigs,, besides enormous quantises of preserved meat, bacon, cheese flour, salt, and fresh fish, have come in, and some idea of the abundance which reigns may be formed from the fact that 50 salt herrings may be bought from tbe hawkers at the street corners for 2f. The question which agitates the mind of the buyer is where to get the 2f. from. If the London Committee, instead ot. sending one train of provisions after another, had sent the money instead, the would have been equally effectual and more easy to administer. , Even now the railway between this and Calais, which is in : the hands of the Germans, is- blocked with these provision trains, which are finding their way slowly along a line which must in the first instance be reserved for purely military purposes. What France is in want of more than anything else just now is money, and the financial crisis which seems hanging over the country, and especially the capital, is not the least gloomy spot in its future. The classes to whom I have alluded as having lived. in idleness upon 45 sous a day during the siege have become so coufirined in the habit of being fed for nothing that even when work offers they will not take it. Yesterday a gentleman informed me -that his friend suddenly found himself iv want of 300 workmeu to recommence a manufacturing business. He offered the men 12f. a day, and only 45 responded to the appeal. It is a mistake to suppose that this charity, therefore, excellent though it be, will do anything more than substantially testify our sympathy, and stave off the evil day for a few weeks. A crash of some sort seems inevitable, and iv view of it a meeting of 45 of the leading bankers was 1 held yesterday to draw up a statement, to be laid before the Chamber of Bordeaux, of the overdue bills, amounting to upwards of a million of francs, with a suggestion that a further delay of four months from the Ist of March or the date of Peace should be granted to the acceptors. It is difficult to say whether the condition of the townspeople or the peasantry is most deplorable. When I think of Chateaudun with its' ruined streets, its houseless, starving population, I have a scene before my eyes calling out more loudly for charity than anything I.liflve seen in Paris ; and when I think of j'^La Beauce," the granary of France, empty, so to speak, Avhen we used on fhe cold wjinter nights to light up the sky with blazing, fires made with straw with the wheat still remaining in the ear, a country of emptied barns, burnt stacks, and starving peasantry, a picture of misery, and fimiue not yet over is presented which is uuequalled by anythiug we have known of late times. It is to relieve this distress that it seems to me what I have been able to learn of Lord Vermou's Seed Committee that their charity is in the highest degree important, and not a moment 1 should be lost before, tbe season gets further advanced, in carrying out its object. In Paris the people are starving in the midst of abundance ; in the Provinces they are starving in the absence of it. -• I saw a man who, from his- appearance, belonged to the middle classes, engaged in catching his dinner yesterday with a small han<d-net in the Seine ; ; it was a long operation, for generally there was nothing in, the net, now and then a gudgeon or a smelt the size of a minnow. .^