PARIS LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2325, 4 June 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

PARIS LETTER.

[PROM OUR OWN CORRES^O^DKNT.] - i'AIUb, March 23. v Tin. anniversary of the . Commune has , come iouml with the regularity of the commencement of'spring—almanac date, the 14th July, or the feto Napoleon. It cannot be forgotten by those who were 'therefor: bTthose who "were not:"" Since March, 1871, the Communists have come* up smiling. They have been amnestied,> but this does not imply they are wiser or -better men;- They have-not made many proselytes,- -but j.theyvjare .sufficiently Tiumerous' to . I cause! danger -the*; natjouibe idistracted by home: or foreign troubles. .Orderly society, condemns'them; jfor theirssub3er.vi.ent doctrines;: they are, attacked (by the.* Anarchists for their, jmpderatism. The Comuiuuistsswantiin-' dependent loaal or commercial ;:goverjl,-M Intent, a oloudy. sort'of Home Rule. The iAnarchipts desire simply no government: ,of. any Jane!; abore sail, no chiefs, no leaders, only companions. They .do not want to, communalise,:but to universalise. property and peoples. ;They repudiate' patriotism as an abomination ; for them a Hottentot • Venus is as much a sister as an Empress, and the Ring of Ashantee more of a man and brother than a crowned ■ sovereign or, a president.

: .Tijq Communists, held; 37 banquets or meets of , several kinds to keep the memory ofthe March, 1871, insurrection groen, i.iv their souls. But it is the 21st May, when they congregate at .Eere; Lachaise to show the gnashing of teeth, that being the' date when : Macmahon wp.undjiip the V Sixty -four days;" ' ofthe insurgents , . possession of l( Paria, ■ and when, 'iEraoce .■< re-entereid Jthe; possession of bor r i capital, blocked since jSeptem ber, 1870, by. the Prussians, iAt the - 37 question, the sanie jsuckoQjnote; prevailed, to demolish;;the middle, classes. Louise, Michel varrainged: to. show.[nearly at them! all Jew mjnutes,,- Ma,dame S.everine, the editress; of'the'Cri,du Peuple, ■ vice. r Jules. Valles, deceased, recapitulated tho litany of; the; Saints of the ;iCo,mmune,an;d drank their memory, not in solemn silence, but jin rousing eulogies, and siTgar and water. Sire is. being run against Louise Michel; but the latter has martyr honours. r to :her credit; has graduated in New Caledonia, and rivalled Blangin and Prince i Krapotkiue in-cell imprisonment. She is as poor as a clnu'ch mouse ; in'toilette, is a union of shreds and patches, and ambitious only in that her party can capture the banks of Erance and Berlin to relieve the' poor. Falstaff had a somewhat similar ;crank T \vhen he counted on Prince Hal to rob the Treasury for him. Madame Severine is a buxom lady ; Robespierre was a dandy, though first among Jacobins, and dresses in the latest fashion. Thus, whenmaking her ppst-praudial speech, her face was as red as a tomato, in a plush bonnet, with two,, rising upwards from the sides, ostrich feathers, suggestive also, of heads of tussac grass.. At Marseilles, the third city, of France,, the. Municipal. Council adjourned its mseting as.homage to the Commune anniversary. Perhaps if ; the Government salaried the, councillors,- as ia contemplated doing.for their confreres here, loyalty might germinate in their bosoms. ...... '. ~.

: The .mural decorations of the new Hoti 1 cte.Ville 13 becoming a burning question; The majority of. the council is radical; and will tolerate only wall-pic-tures, which will form a panorama of the-history of Paris, from the days of LutiSce up to the present, from the people's point of view. Neither kings, saints, nor warriors, save Etienne Morcel, will be illustrated in the Town Hall. _ The Government claims to have a voice in the matter since the Prefect. A state functionary is entitled to free, furnished apartments in the building, a right the councillors decline to recognise till they have the power to transform the Prefect into a Lord Mayor, with or without a state coach. The censorship of art cannot excercise its pencil or scissors in this case, and it will not be an easy matter to agree how the Commune is to be painted.' Venice has been " glorified " ; why not secure some Paul Verouese to apatheosize Paris? If there were naughty subjects to be introduced into the background, why not lodge therein Gam.betta, Thiers, &c, names, that the Municipality so much abhor, that they will neither call a blind alley after either patriot, or grant a city site for any monument to them ? When Raphael was decorating the. walls of the Sistiue Chapel, he selected the portraint of those Cardinals he hated to tenant his .hell. And when they complained to His Holiness he laughed. While expressing his regret he could do nothing for them, as his influence was, unfortunately for them, limited to purgatory.

There is said to be a close connection between newspaper reporting and democracy. The reporter furnishes the material for the public to form its opinion. In France reporting is not the institution it is elsewhere. Much of this is due to the revulsion the French have to read a big speech. But they do not object to sit out along-minded orator, provided' he bs witty; and runs his eloquence on dramatic lines. If the auditors cannot with decency retire from the ; octopus grip of a bore, they will -commence to talk to each : ' other or read the feuilleton of a journal. In the Chamber of Deputies, no paper keepe a staff of reporters. First, there is no place really for them to write ; no paper has its special " boxes," 1 as in the House of Commons, with its 1 fifteen, ten, or five minute turns of note--1 takers.' The Parliamentary reporting 1 per sc is executed by the Chamber's own staff—its Hausardj the members of which 1 are not in a gallery, but on the floor of ' the House, under the tribune, so that not a word of a speaker is lost by the ' stenographer. There is besides the ver- '■ batim, a summary official writer, and his ' work, long or short, following the occa- • sion, is pasted up in the mile des pas perches; or lobby, from quarter-hour to quarter-hour. An hour or so after the t sitting is over this summary can be pnr- ) chased for. a sou or two. It is this t abridgment which the Paris papers pub ; lish, and that foreign 'correspondents utiUse; A full report appears in next day's Journal Officiel, which is the Hansard, r Members use the right very liberally of ■ correcting their proofs ; often so much as< ! to compose : a new address. Thiers was an incorrigible sinner in this respect, and' f wouldisit iip all .night correcting as a' Jabonrof 'love. : He was as bad as Canning, who made so mauy . changes: in the . proofs .that the printers preferred to set i up all afresh rather than attempt .the ■ alterations in the type. Gambetta never corrected his proofs; he left all' that to [ his favourite reporter—like Dufaure, and ; never felt comfortable speaking unless i his own man took him. Gambetta was I easy to report—about 115 words a minute . —because he was always clear. Floquet s ia a nice orator to take ; so is the Comte de Mud, The nuisance is the Demost thenes, who half reads, half extemporises, I or reels of his theme eloquence like a i Sunday school pupil his allotted hymn • from Watts. ''Extemporary" orators, I who Write their speeches, ought to hand t them in to the Speaker, as in the Ameri- . can Congress, who accepts them as deli-' i vered. : The reporters' gallery in the French E chambers consists of three divisions, for the Paris, the provincial, and the foreign i Press, all packed:on important days like f sardines in a box. As a rule there is no note-taking save in the head, the press , representative in this case is assumed to be ; a summary or a descriptive writer, or the »' two in one. The best writers, however, , are those who never attend at 1 all, but ; rely on the Officiel and their own ; inner i consciousness. Press men come to a ! debate of a serious character as if to a > premier at a theatre. Foreign correspon- • dents appear to attend as one lounges • into a club, but your German sticks like 3 a limpet to his post, all Argus eye and 1 Dionysius ear, lest between an interrup- > tion from Paul de Cassagnace and a witti- • cism from President Floquet, a declara-: 5 tion of war against Fatherland might be intercaled. To supply a "long felt

want," claimed by all the foreign syndicates present and to come, for the Amerijjanejare forming one of their own, and so "are Latin Unionists with Emilic | Castelar for honorary president the questions orders reserved placq's to be retained only for papers having special wire's, and the presidents of the several i syndicates, the other journalists if they waut.a. place -wilLbcaccorded thejn.ea,. of, the lobby to copy the posted up reports aa:,Ußual, cojne at a certain hpun m the morning to- btftain a numbered ticket—for.. the.».Raller-y, on ,the,...... same.. princ!iplej,spmew.hat.t!T,at the deputies re ceive in turn-tickets ; tb admit to the strangers' galleryr ,-Thestime is near when a reporter" iViust'have a pocket telegraph witiji wirei coiled round him so tlfat He'can unwind as he goes, but evercdrihec'ting with' the tiffice. ' ■ ' ! : i lii' France', the ■ rag'pickdrs, the dog's ; ear and 'tail ■ clippers, and the beggars,• from a g'tfiltl , ; that is, they are placed wider'p'o|icc'registration—not all • vagrants, but the Hipper ten o'f mendicity; are sup-' plied 'with' medals; thfeir charter like ! costermohgeVsahdcOnimissionuaires. The ambulatory glaziers demand s now to be authorised to syndicate.- '■' Ho\yever, their aim is, to expel foreign craftsmen. Chase the stranger, lias now taken the place of theendemioof espionnage on the brain. \ In 'Paris.'there'-are ; 6,500 ambulatory glaziers : of this , number, 500 are alleged to be" French, the <; remainder Italian. I'Expel the 6,000,, and an age of gold'will set'in for us,' l "ilay'the owl-eyed patriots. If there be work for such a number of diamonds, cut diamonds, where is ' the labour to'come frb'iri to 'rnmul our broken , panes 1 ''Are'we to'fallback On an old' liat or ft .discarded pair of'paritaloons^,'to ' bar out rheumatic giving,' and phithises producing currents'? 'Perish the thought, Bu^posing "iO riot',' , a :i revoluti6n or,anearthquake, were ; to shiver the -timbers of wiudows, and convert the glass-into' stars' and'stripes,'how could 500 glaziers repair damages ? In any case, , it is time to 1 purchase 'the Every man his own glazier," while demonstrating the , 'utility Of adopting ■Rousseau's Qounsel, teach every boy a trade help hiseducatioh/ The reason why foreigners are spoiling .the Egyptians is, the are becoming more and' more averse to humble decupations, or charge extortion-' ate prices, when exercising them. Hence why men decay:

Mile. Regnault, she hacl no aristocratic, High flag-name to sail under, was a fashionable eocalte, over thirty years old, the age Balzac glorifies in woman. Her throat, that of lier servant's, and the latter's daughter—her own, say some, was ciit'byari old hand. One gash, with a razor-edged bowie knife for each victim, placed them beyond all surgery. Trie murderer left behind his visiting card, hisshirt-cuffs, and waist-belt—he stripped for the work. Zola doubtless will wort up this naturalism, in!'due' course. ' The crime exposed the duelling of. successful vice on the vif. Mile. Regnault was one of 'two 'daughters of a provincial bailiff; her sister, is a common 3treet woman iii' Paris, deeper in the depths. Mile, rented an apartment in a leading avenue between the stories occupied by a divine and a deputy. She was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day. She took her meals off a service of silver plate ; had costly pictures, valuable bibelots, and : ; artistic furniture. She had a show case where was displayed all. her jewellery—as the Esterhazys exhibit'their decorations-—ill the result of a score of year's pigeonplucking. In her safe was a sum of 200;000fr., independent of scrip and shares ; what big Bonanza's vice cau realise, it is sufficient to make the mouth of virtue water. By her will the deceased left all her impurely begotten wealth to the little girl, also murdered to stop her crying. The legal question is now raised, which of the two persons, Mile, or the girl, expired the first? If the former out-lived, her family will become the residuary legatees ; if the child, the latter's relatives. As'for the murderer a. Iα Troppmarin—Dr. Pranzini—he has been captured by the Marseilles police. He was supposed to be in Paris, the safest of concealments, especially if lodgings be taken over a police office. The Government was urged to offer a reward for his capture. The French spurn this Anglo-German-Italian aid to detection, as cowardly assassins are then heroes. However, Napoleou I. put a price on the head of Pichegru, and Louis XVIII., in his Hue and Cry demand for enemies, offered round sums to secure those he wanted. The organ of the Archbishop of Paris states the Church never gives its benediction to any marriage between divorced persons ; nor celebrates funeral rites over such when they die. The grand and simple manifestation of syriipathy, as true as it was spontaneous, by the' German population towards their aged Emperor on attaining his ninetieth birthday has made a profound impression on the French. The ljetting interest appears to be too strong for the law. Since betting was suppressed:a fortnight ago ou the .race courses, the latter have.. become like banquet halls deserted. To prevent a total collapse of turfism the; Government must .'modify the new law in some shape. In Tonkin, where household furniture, is not plentiful, a small copper saucepan filled with lere: charcoal, and worked with a bamboo handle, does duty as a smoothing iron. For tapestry for wall decorations nothing is superior to the old parchment umbrellas of the Mandarins, with their figured dragons and other, pets of natural history. : M. Taine complained to Renan how much he felt having been cut by the Princesse Mathilde for speaking so severely of her uncle, Napoleon I. "My friend," observed Renan, "for having freely expressed my thoughts I have fallen ont with a greater lady than the Princess." "Who?"' "The Church."