The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. In the cause of Truth and Justice wo strive. TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1871.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 844, 1 August 1871, Page 2

The Westport Times AND CHARLESTON ARGUS. In the cause of Truth and Justice wo strive. TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 1871.

We are glad to learn fi om a perusal of our home files that the destruction wrought by the Commune is not so great as was intended or as even was anticipated. Thanks to the persistence of the Loyalists aud the celerity of their movements the capital was saved from the ruin which it was intended should overwhelm and leave it a charred wildernesa. .Nevertheless, the amount of damage which has been effected by the vandalism of the Communists is most disastrous ; and not for many a day will France know the full measure of what she has suffered at the bauds of her children. The simultaneous firing of the capital at so many different points gives rise to the inevitable conclusion that the conflagrations were not the result merely of 6a desiro for revenge on the part of some single leader or isolated battalion, but' must, on the contrary, have been carefully planned by all the defeated rebel leaders, whoso disloyalty, the more disgraceful at such a crisis of the nation, had culminated in the monstrous determination to destroy

what they were no longer able to retain. The greatest atrocities have signalised the beginning and the end of the insurrection. The murder of the two generals, Leeornto and Thomas, at the outset alienated many from their ranks who might have supported their theories of social right or political decentralization ; and much that might have been said for them and their causo is necessarily excluded by the atrocious and purposeless crimes that must be laid to their charge. The extinction of the rebellion has necessarily thrown an immense number of prisoners into the hands of the Government, and it will be a difficult question how these are to be dealt with, and who are the leaders to be held responsible for their cold-blooded murders, and desperate acts of futile revenge. That they fully deserve any punishment that may befal them is obvious, but to deal with 200,000 of tho inhabitants of Paris as malefactors will be a difficult task for any Ministry. ,