ENGLISHMEN IN PARIS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 162, 16 March 1871, Page 7

ENGLISHMEN IN PARIS.

Under date of the 18th December, "The Besieged Eesident" of tho " Daily News " wrote :—": — " Prisoners have before now endeavoured to while away their long hours of captivity by watching spiders making their webs. I can understand this. In the dreary monotony of this dreariest of sieges a spider would be an event. But, alas ! the spider is outside, and we are the fly caught in his toils. Never did time hang so heavy on human beings as it hangs on us. Every day seems to have twice the usual number of hows. I have ceased to wind up my watch for many a week. I got tired of looking at it ; and whether it is ten in the morning or two in the afternoon is much the same to me ; almost everyone 'has ceased to shave; they say that a razor so near their throats

would be too great a temptation. Some have married to avoid active service, others to pass the time. ' When I knew there was an army between my wire and myself,' observed a cynic to me yts'erday, 'I rejoiced, but even the society of my wife would be bptter than this.' There is a hideous old woman, like unto one of Macbeth's witches, who makes my bed. I had a horrible feeling that some day or other I should marry her, and I have been considerably relieved by discovering that she has a husband and several olive-branches. Here is my day. In the morning the boots comes to call me. He announces the number of deaths which have taken place in the h )tel during the nigl.t. If there are many he is pirated, as he considers it creditable to the establislment. He then relieves his feelings by shaking his fist in the direction of Versailles, and exit growling, ' Ganaille

de Bis mark* . I get up. I have breakfasb — horse, cafe aw lait — the lait chnlk-and-water, the portion of horse about two square inches of the noble quadruped ; then I buy a dozen newspapers, and after having read them, discover that they contain nothing new. This brings me to about eleven o'clock. Friends drop in, or I drop in on frionds. We discuss how long it is to last — if friends arc French, we agree that we are sublime. At one o'clock get into the circular railroad, and go to one or other of the city gates. x\fter a long discussion with the National Guards on duty, pass through. Potter about fora couple of hours at tho outposts ; tpy with a glass to make out Prussians ; look at bombs bursting ; creep along the trenches ; aud wade knee-deep in mud through the fields. The Prussians, who have grown of late malevolent even towards civilians, occasionally send a ball far over one's head They always fire too high. French soldiers are generally cooking food. They are anxious for news, and know nothing about what is going on. Asa rule they relate the episode of some combat (Vavant-poste which took place the day before. The episodes never vary. 5 p.m. — Get back borne ; talk to doctors about interesting surgical operations ; then drop in upon an official to interview him about what is doing. Official usually first mysterious, then communicative, not to say loquacious, and abuses most people except himself 7 p.m. — Dinner at a restaurant ; conversation general ; almost everyone in uniform. Still the old subjects — How long will it last ? Why does not Grambetta write more clearly ? How sublime we are ; what a fool everyone els^ is. Food scanty, but peculiar. At Yoisins to-day the bill of fare was ass, horse, and English wolf from the Zjologii-al Grarden. A Scotchman informed me that this latter was a fox of his native land, and patriotically gorged himself with it. I tried it, and, not being a Scotchman, found it horrible, and fell back upon the patient ass. After dinner, potter on the Boulevards under the dispiriting gloom of petroleum ; go home and read a book. 12 p.m. — Bed. They nail up the coffins in the room just over mine every night, and the tap, tap, tap, as they drive in the nails, is the pleasing music which lulls mo to sleep.

" I enclose you G-ambetta's latest pigeon despatch. His style is so grandiloquently vague that we cau make neither head nor tail of it. "We cannot imagine what has become of Aurelles des Paladines and of the army of Keratry. The optimists say that it means that Bourbaki and Chanzy have surrounded Frederick Charles ; the pessimists say that Frederick Charles has got between them. The general feeling seems to be that the provinces are doing more than was expected of them, but they will fail to succor us. Here some of the newspapers urge Trochu to make a sortie, in order to prevent reinforcements being sent to Frederick Charles, others deprecate ifc as a useless waste of life. G-eneral Clement Thomas, who succeeded Tamisier about a month ago in the command of the National Gfuards, seems to be the right man in the right place. He is mating great efforts to convert these citizens into soldiers, and stands no nonsense. Not a day passes without some patriotic captain being tried by court-martial for drunkenness or disobedience. If a battalion misbehaves itself, it is' immediately gibbeted in the order of the day. The newspapers cry out against this. They say that Clement Thomas forgets that the National G-uards are his children, and that dirty linen ought to be washed at home, 'If this goes on

posterity,' they complain, 'will say that Aye were little more than a mob of undisciplined drunkards.' lam afraid that Clement Thomas will not have the time to carry out his reforms. Had they been commenced earlier, there is no reason why Paris should not have had on foot 100,000 good troops. "Mr. Herbert tells me that there are now above 1000 persons on the English fund, and that every week there are about thirty new applications. Unknown and mysterious English emerge from holes and corners every day. Mr. Herbert thinks that there cannot be less than 3000 of them still in Paris, almost all destitute. The French Government sold him a short time ago 30,000 lbs of rice, and this, with the chocolate and Liebig which he has in hand, will last him for about three weeks. If the siege goes on longer, it is difficult to know how all these poor people will live. Funds are not absolutely wanting, but it is doubtful whether even with money it will be possible to buy anything beyond bread, if that. Mr. Herbert thinks that it would be most desirable, to have a provision of portable food, such as Liebig's Extract of Meat as near to Paris as possible, so that, whenever the siege ceases, it may at once be brought into the town, as otherwise it is very probable that many of these English will die of starvation before food can reach them. It does seem to me perfectly monstrous that for years we should have, in addition to an Embassy, kept a Consul here, eating his head oft' like a stalled ox, and that he should have been allowed to go off on leave to some watering place, at the only moment when he might have done something in return for his salary. When the Embassy left, a, sort of deputy-consul remained here, but with a perfect ingenuity of stupidity the Foreigu Office officials ordered this gentleman to withdraw with Mr. Wodehouse, the secretary. Heine said of his fellow-countrymen, 'they are bom stupid, and a bureaucratic education makes them wicked.' Had he been an Englishman instead of a Prussian he would have said the same, and with even more truth, of certain persons who, not for worlds would I name, but who do not reside 100 miles from Downing-strect.

" From the 13t'i to the 20th inst. no military operations of any importance were undertaken by any of the belligerent armies. The order of General Trochu to close all the gates of Paris until further notice, is sufficient iv himself to indicate the active and immediate renewal of hostilities. The large number of French troops concentrated in the wood of Vinconnes and the peninsular of Gennevilliers threaten the G-erman positions of Chennevieres and Choisy-le-Roi to the east, and Malmaison, La Jonchere, and Montretout to the west. If the Parisian armies succeed in breaking through the lines at those points and forming their junction in rear of Choisy-le-Roi, they will most likely make the most desperate efforts to dislodge the Germans from their positions of Choisy, Thiais, Chevilly, Hay, aud Chatillon. If these efforts be crowned with success, not only will the way be cleared for the Army of the Loire, but the position of the Germans will be in the highest degree critical, as their live of retreat would be endangered.

" The deaths in Paris for the week ending December 17 reached the appalling figures of 2728, being an increase of 273 on the preceeding week, considerably more than double the usual number of deaths at this season of the year. The severe regime imposed by the stats of siege may have no perceptible effect upon the strong and healthy, but infants, weak, sick, and old people, unable to endure such privations, are cut down before their time. The number of little coflins daily seen passing through our streets forcibly remind us that a whole generation of innocents is untimely perishing."

The Rival Poets. — In the year 1789, before Burns' reputation as a poet had gone abroad, he and some companions were enjoying themselves in a roadside public-house, whither, bj accident, a person named Andrew Homer, who fancied himself a great poet, having written a great deal, happened to stop on his way to Edinburgh, to find a publisher for his verses. In the course of conversation, being rather overcome by the fumes of the toddy, he explained the reasou of his journey "to the great city ;" when one of the company made a wager with him that he would find a man in the room who could compose a better verse in a given time than he could. Andrew being rather confident in his muse took the wager, the time being some five or ten minutes, and commenced — "In the year seventeen hunner and eighty-nine," but was not able to get any further until the time had expired, when Burns was called upou to try his poetic skill. " I wunna alter the first line/ said he " but continue on — "In the year seventeen hunner and eightynine, The deil gat stuff to make a swine, And put it in 'a corner ; But afterwards he changod his plan. Aud fonn'd it something like a man, And oa'd it Andrew Homer." Andrew was so much dispirited at his own defeat and the witty genius of Burns that he threw all his verses into the fire, swearing lie would never write another, but be content to attend to his fapm and • let poetry alone for the future.