INSIDE PARIS.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 109, 10 May 1871, Page 2

INSIDE PARIS.

(Fropi the Cot respondent of the': Daily. News*), iW'i i il, 1 l\'\ X X,. -, ii tj.r :1 I-X j-' ..7! The misery among the poorer classes is every day otXthe.-incr.ease^i Mpatlof the men manage to get on with their lfr. 50c.. a |day. .T^iirUlt&e'*. iiioVfiin^^hey^go '•to 1 exercise, and afterwards 101 l about until

night in cafes and pot-houses, making up with liquids for the absence of solids. Aa for doing regular work, scoff at the idea.^ Master tailors and others tell me that it is almost impossible to get hands to do the few orders which are now given. They are warmly clad in uniforms by the state, and except those belonging to the marching battalions really doing duty outßide, Ido not pity them. With the women and children the case is different. The latter, owing to bad nourishment and exposure, are dying off like rotten sheep. The former have but just enough food to keep body and soul together, and to obtain even this they have to stand for hours before the doors of the butchers and bakers, waiting for their turn to be served. Aud yet they make no complaints, but patiently suffer, buoyed up, poor people, by the conviction that by so doing they will prevent the Prussians from entering the town. If one of them ventures to hint at a capitulation, she is set on by her neighbours. Self-assertion, however, For remainder of news see fourth page.

carries the day. Jules and Jaques will hereafter quaff many a petit verre to their own heroism; and many a story will they inflict upon their long-suffering friends redounding to their own special glory. Their wives will be told that they ought to he proud to have such men for husbands. But Jules and Jaques are in reality but arrant humbugs. Whilst they . boosed, their wives starved ; they were warmly clad, their wives were in rags; whilst .tbey were drinking confusion to their enemies in some snug room, their wives were freezing at the baker's door for their ration of bread. In Paris the women-r-I speak of those of the poorer classes — are of more sterling , stuff than the men ; they suffer far more, and they repine much less. . I admire the crowd of silent patient women huddled together for warmth every morning as they wait until their pittance is doled out to them,, far more than the martial heroes who foot it behind a drum and a trumpet to crown a statue, to visit a tomb, or to take their turn on tbe ramparts ; or the heroes of the pen, who day after day, from some cozy office, issue a manifesto announcing that victory is certain because they have made a pact with death. . Paris, Jan 16. The bill of mortality for the week ending January 13 gives an increase on the previous week of 302. Tbe number of deaths registered is 3,982. This is at the rate of above 20 per cent, per annum, and it must be remembered that in this return those who die in the public hospitals, or of the direct effect of the war, are not included. Small-pox is about stationary ; bronchitis and" pneumonia largely on Ihe increase. In order to encourage us to put up with our short commons, we are now perpetually being told that the Government has in reserve vast stores of potted meats, butter, cheese, and other luxuries, of which we- have almost forgotten the very taste ; and that when things come to the worst we shall turn the corner, and enter into a period of universal abundance. These stores seem to me much like the mirage which lures on the traveller of the desert, and which perpetually recedes as he advances. But the great difficulty of the moment is to procure fuel. lam ready, as some one said, to eat the soles of my bootsVoX-the .sake of my country, but then they must be cooked. All the mills are on the Marne, and cannot be approached. Steam-mills have been put up, but they work slowly ; and whatever may be the amount of corn yet in store, it is almost impossible to grind enough of it to meet the daily requirements. The Pantheon was struck yesterday. What desecration ! everyone cries ; and I am very sorry for the Pantheon, but very glad it was the Pantheon, and not me. The world at large very likely would lose more by the destruction of the Pantheon than of any particular individual ; but each particular individual prefers himself to all the edifices that architects have raised on the face of the globe. Jan. 17. The papers publish reports of the meetings of the clubs. The following is from the Debate of to-day: — "At tbe extremity of the Rue Faubourg St. Antoine is a dark passage, and in a room which opens into this passage is the Club de la Revindication. The audience is small, and consists mainly of women, who come there to keep warm. Tbe club is peaceable — hardly revolutionary — for Rome is Rome no more, and the Faubourg St. Antique, formerly a turbulent, has resigned in favqr Belleville and La Villette. yesterday, evening the Club de la Revindication was ..occupied, aa, usual, in discussuion the misery of the situation, and the necessity, of electing a Commune. An orator, whose patriotic enthusiasm attained almost to phrenzy, declared that as for himself he scorned hams and sausages, and that he preferred to live on the air of liberty. (The women sigh). , Another speaker is of opinion thateif there were a.commune there would also be hams , and sausages in . plenty. . We still pay, he sayß, the budget of the clergy, as though Bounaparte were still on, .the. throne, instead of haying rationed the large appetites and forced every one to live on If. 50c. a day,. In order to. make; his meaning clear, the orator uses the following comparison. ■ Suppose, he says, that I am a peasant, and that I have fattened a chicken. (Excitement). Were I obliged to ; ;give the. wings to' the!' clergy,, the legs to the. military, and the . carcase .to ..civil functionaries, there would be nothing of my chicken left for me. Well, this is our case. : "We fatten chickens; others ; eat them. It would be far wiser, tor us, to, keep them for ourselves. (Yes,, i yes). A Pole, . theCitizen Strassnowski!, undertakes to, defend the (Government.; !i; He : <jfotai&aifja > hearing but not without difficulty. You complain that the Government,, he says, has not-cast'; riiore' cannon; ""' Where were the artillerymen ? ;x, '(otirseiVes). But three .mbttth*iagb?;y6ii,7wef6 cffize&s, you were not soldiera.7 , In makipg ypu march

and countermarch in the streets and on the ramparts, you have been converted into soldiers. The Government' was therefore right to wait. (Murmurs). The, orator isuoi^a'fayry with the G-ermau nation; he is angry only with the potentates who force the people to kill each other; and\e hopes that the day will' come when ihe European nations will shake hands orer the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Balkan, and the mountains of Carpathia. (Feeble ; . applause and murmurs). A citizeu begs the -audience to have patience with the Citizen Strassnowski, who is a -worthy mau aD<l ; a volunteer but the citizen then reproaches the worthy man for having attempted to defend^, a Government whose incapacity is a matter of notoriety. Come now, Citizen Strassnowski, he says, what has the Government, done .to merit jour praise '? It has armed and exercised us ; but why ? To deliver us over with our guns and our caunons to the Prussians after we have all caught cold on the ramparts. Has it tried to utilise us ? No, it has passively looked on while the Prussians surroumleri Parte-.witb a triple circle of citadefe.VMV'e are told every day that the armies of"*the provinces will deliver us. We do not see them. We are not, even secure in Pfiris. Every kind of story is afloat. Yesterday it was reported that General Sclimiiz had betrayed' us ; to-dny it is an actress who has arrested a spy whose cook was on in-, timate terms with a cook of the member of the H Government. Why these reports ?/ Because the Government has no moral support, and no one feels confidence in.it. In the meantime the food gets less am less, and this morning at 8 o'clock all' the bakers in this'arrondissement had closed their shops. (True, true ; We. waited five hours' at the closed doors.) When we get the bread, it h more like plaster than bread. In the third arrondissement, on the other hand, it is good aud plentiful. So much for the organising spirit of the Government. We have to wait hours for bread, hours for wood, aud hours for meat; and. frequently we do not get eithefybread, meat, or- wood. Things cannot, last long like this, my worthy Strassnowski. The speaker concludes by urging the people to take the direction of their affairs into their own hands. ( Cries of ' Vive la Commune.') The president urges his hearers to subscribe towards a society, the object of which is civic instruction. The club breaks up, tbe president is applauded." Paris, Jan. 19. This morning the bread was rationed all over the city. No one is to have more than 300 grammes per diem; children only 150. I recommend' anyone whe has lived' too high to try this regime for a week. It will do him good. No costermonger's donkey is so over-loaded as the stomach 6f most rich people. The Government, on December 12, solemnly announced that the bread would never be rationed. This measure, therefore; ilooks to me very much like the beginniig of the end. A perquisition is also being made in the apartments of all those who have quitted Paris, in search of proyisions. Another sign of the end. But it is impossible to know on how little a Frenchman can live until the question has been tested. I went yesterday^ «nto the house of a friend of mine, -in Vie Avenue de, l'lmperatrice, which is left in charge of a servant, and found . three families, driven out of their homes. Vy, the bombardment, installed iu'it — one family, consistijbf&of a father, a mother, and three, children,' were/ boiling a piece ' of horse meat, about' 4tn." square, in a-bucket full of water. This, exceedingly thin soup was to last 1 ; them" for three days. ; The <*ay before they had e*ach'had a carrot. The trouble of the bread, is; that the supply ceases before the demand in most quarters, so that those who come last get none.