The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-05-14 00:00:00

THE PLEBISCITE.

An occasional correspondent of The Times thus
describes how the Plebiscite is taken in France

PARIS, May_S

I happen to he at Paris on the thy of the Plebiscite. It Is
an operation which will, perhaps, be universal and customary
a thousand years hence, bur which to ns is novel and unique.
Every Frenchman is tusked to say before 6 o'clock whether or
not he approves a general policy and a series of constitutional
changes pursued during the list tee years. Nine years before
that period he had been invited to accept an Emperor. Ile
is now invited to accept the limitations which that Emperor
has found it wise to Impose on himself and his successors.
Oddly enough, this lathe exact reverse of the change now in
progress, or, at least, in contemplation, at Rome, where the
spiritual chief invites his subjects to release him from the
conditions and appeals alleged to qualify his personal
authority.
—•- .

Faris made no sign on Friday or even yesterday. On my
arrival I looked to the newspaper shops and stands for tokens
of the coming PlObi4cite. But, as I heard Met night that
lour newspapers had been seized, only half the tale could
be told by the Press. The only illustrations to be seen were
grotesque figures dropping Out and /Von into a ballot-box,
and a page of iniaginary portraits, which, in the interest of
fair play, the Democrats might have commended to the
notice of the Censor They were the portraits of the Minis-
try knd King of the future, and were of the most savage Re-
publican type.
Yesterday I asked which was likely to be the most crowded
polling-place. Our informant said there would be nothing
of a crowd anywhere, French elections alwayi being the
quietest and dullest affairs. Some one suggested the Bourse.
So I walked thither after an early breakfast this morning.
Something wa.s going on at the chief entrance of the Italian
Opera as I passed ; perhaps taking places for a performance,
I thought. I walked round the Bourse, and returned to the
small door where the Pbtbiscite might possibly be. Ten or
a dozen men were standihg about it with bundles of small
papers, and the steps, as well no the pavement under the
pillars, even at that early hour, were thickly littered with the
same. Imoking down, I read a hundred or two "Or, is." These
were, therefore, the polling papers, or bulletins, and they
were pressed upon on by a dozen men whi. might be porters,
the sort of people who undertake to find a carriage for you,
in the hope of half a franc, Inside the door was a desk at ,
which a man hail charge of papera, and looked ash expecting
I might want one. These papers I afterwards heard were
the paper vouchers of your ideality, and are called " cartes
electorates." If you had trot already obtanied one, you might
repair the omission to-day. In an inner room or large lobby,
a temporary table, made with boards arid trestles, stood on a
dirty piece of matting. Upon it win, a plain box. Behind
the table sat four men, of whom the biggest, best looking,
and beat dressed sat directly behind the box, with a cap that
looked rather official, but that anybody might wear. 1 stood
at the door. Shortly a working man passed me, bare-headed,
and took his station before the box, with his voucher or
ca rte in one hand, and his "bulletin" in the other; but
seemed not quite to know what to do with either. Be was
invited by a gesture to present the carte first, and after a
glance at it waa invited to do something with the bulletin.
While he was fumbling it, the official with the cap took it
out of his hand, completed the foldir.g, and dropped it Into
the box. lie then did something with the carte—tore off a
corner, I believe, and gave it back to the voter, who took it
not very readily, as 11 he had wished to be quit of it. lie
went off dangling it as if waiting for a chance to dispose of it
quietly. Four or five working men, one with an apron, went
through much the same process, but they came up slowly.
An elderly man, with the look of a gentleman, walked up
without taking off his hat, exhibited hie carte, dropped his
bulletin, already folded, aLd walked oat, as if it were a purely
mechanical operation. On coming out I stooped down to
pick up one or two clean bulletins. The men immediately
surrounded me, each off erng one from his bundle. 1 took
two. Here I. one of them i—
" PLEBISCITE hui 8 MAL
"BULLETIN DX VoTE.
OUL.

Thinking II potable Mg might be gaivale speadators.ll