MAIL ITEMS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 848, 10 August 1871, Page 3

MAIL ITEMS.

There iB, and perhaps always will bej Considerable uncertainty as to the fate of the individual members of the Commune and central committee. It is said that Courbet, the painter, who ■ordered the destruction of Vendome Column, was found hidden in a cupboard, not quite large enough to conceal him, in the Ministry of Einance, and, attempting some resistance, was, according to some reports, shot on the spot. Other Versions give a circumstantial accouri; of his alleged suicide by poison. Another leading insurgent, Mal-journal, who had boasted ever flince the fatal, 22nd of March-, when the Party of Order was fired upon in the Rue de la Paix, that he gave the order, has been shot. So it is said nave Baoul Fugault, late Prefect of Police, and Courtmet Billioray—the latter making desperate resistance. Lefrancais and Bousquet, both members of the Commune, died at the Corner of a wall near the church of St Laurent. Parisel suffered the same fate. Citizen Valles was taken opposite the Hotel de Ville, and, like

Billioray made a atrugglo for life. " He* was dragged up the Avenue Victoria with some other members of the Commune, and, in consequence of his insubordination, received a sabre cut across the face. Arrived under the Tour St Jacques, a volley Was fired on him, which stretched him on the ground. Still he continued to writhe, and the persons who had been taken ''with him, and who expected momentarily to share his fate, implored the captain of the guard to put mm out of his misery ; a bayonet thrust was given, and it was all over. His remains were conveyed to St Germain 1' Auxerrois." Vaillant has been shot; Travernier has been shot; Cluseret has mekwith the same fate. So, at least, it is wired, but the telegrams give no particulars. Delescluze is dead. It is stated, at least, that his body has been found in the Boulevard de Voltaire, and identified. Dombrdwski, it is reported, died of wounds in the bedroom of the Hotel de Ville, formerly occupied by Mdlle. Haussmann. He had received three rifle shots while at a barricade in the Rue d'Ornano, arid was transferred from there to the Hotel de Ville, where he died. .. • .

The wife'df Milliere is a prisoner in the "woman's prison" at Satory. Blanqui is said to be in the hands of the Thiers Government, as well Assy. Of General Henri, orie of the earliest leaders of the movement, we have only a glimnse, and his fate is at present unknown.

An international question seems likely to be mooted, as to how far the Communists who may chance to eseape can be treated as political refugees. M. Jules Favre has sent a circular note to the representatives of France abroad, in which he claims that the acts of the insurgents cannot be considered as political acts. Thefts and premeditated arson, he says, are crimes punishable by the laws of all civilised nations. No nation can grant immunity to the perpetrators or accomplices of such crimes, " consequently, if you learn that individuals compromised in the late revolt in Paris have escaped across the frontier of the nation to which you are accredited, I request you to ask for their immediate arrest, and to inform me, in order that I may take tho necessary steps for their. extradition.''

It appears that it was discussed by the members of the Commune whether it was preferable to burn or blow up Paris. Mines have been discovered leading from the Hotel de Ville to the Louvre, which seems to point to the idea of finally concluding their reign with an explosion as soon as their great stronghold should become untenable. Plans-, too, have been discovered among their papers for laying wires in the great sewers, which should, by a complicated arrangement of galvanic batteries, communicate with depots of picrate of potash and blow up the whole of the great City at the same instant.

The deliverers in Arris are scarcely less violent and bloodthirsty than its late oppressors. The first act of the delivered is to rush to the officer commanding the troops in the district and denounce their enemies as Communists ; and hundreds were arrested hourly last week upon information varying in value. One of the letters in the " Times " says—" The concierge of the house six doors from the one in which I live, and who has been the torment of all the neighbouring concierge because he was the only one who was a Communist, has already been shot, and so have two or three tradesmen opposite against whom the evi dence was complete. When executions occur of prisoners—for instance, of those captured at barricades—they are generally shot on the spot and buried in the nearest open space. The pressure of circumstances has been so great that the burial of persons who have died natural deaths has been attended with censiderable difficulty, and I to-day observed a cart in which were about a dozen rough deal coffins, evidently going a round of death visits."