The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1870-12-13 00:00:00

--
borne day tura Lis lice. Many could elitome of

greeter loy than to saunter &1011 g tht boulevards,
wander in its elyaian fields (champs elyede4 It me
the only paradise they anticipated. Similarly, men if
other nations, in their quest for sensuous, not to say
senontl, ple&etirlhfelt drawn t, Perm as the. piece ape"
every appetite might be inset agreeably setbfied. Thu
the great city hail always • fi ,ating foreign populatice
largely composed of men aid women of loose sod
dihaip•ted character, while from every department if
France families were perpetually reskieg it then
home, and, I may add, their grave, for it is • fact tin
the last life to which they yielded themteless ass
proved too much for their constitution, and, nor tie
lapse of at most 20 or 30 years, they h.l passed any,
and their placee had been filled by others. The ppole
tion was thus • heterogeneous mass, of which teepee'
Parisian was one of the smelled elements. Apia,
looked at from a pohtioal point of view, Paris me a
singular combination of people—lmperieLee =mg
whom were large numbers of the thriving amens, is
well as most of the wealthier portion of the commatety ;
Orleanista and Legitimiste, in lesser number; no
Republicans of the moderate school to which some II
the self-elected members of Frame belong, inch ea
Pane and J. Simon ; and then a vast horde of the
Republicans, contented with Imperialism so long as. it
acted on Socialistic principles, and supported them with
bread and games, but ready at any moment to rusi
the Red Bag, and rally round their favourite lead•ri—
Rochefort, Flouring, and others. Truly, again, • Were
geneous mass, to which nothing but intense sad burnmi
hatred of Prussia could possibly have 'iv, n even moused-
cry cohesion. What now, was the someloondition °tithe
vast svglomeration of people 1 To the stranger it
appeared as if everybody spent the greater part of flies
time out or doors, and as If pleasure in some form ot
other was the chief and almost exclusive pursuit of
both high and low. The oontrast between London god
Paris in this respect is most marked. But we meet be
careful not to conclude that bemuse living in public, as
It may ho called, and pleasure-seeking, were se
decidedly characteristic of a large part of the Permute
and of the foreigners who were sojourning amongst them,
therefore home-life WY • thing unknown in the PI
city. Paris had its happy homes among the rich and
poor, and thousands upon thousands spent their dsys
and much of their nights too in poorly remtmeretel
toil. The two elderly sisters that Sonvestre medulla
In one of his stories, who after living many ysan IS
the heart of the city at length summoned up coarsen,
and saved up money enough to make an excursion to lit.
Cloud, a distance of about five miles, mid were sm.
prised to find as one station after another was pawed,
that the world was so big, must surely have had their
counterparts among the working popubdion. Still, ii
due allowance being made for the existence of a largi
elms of sober, industrious, and home-loving persons, it
must be admitted that the life of the people generally
was marked of late by examinee gaiety and frivolity,
descending in many cases into open wantonness. Paris
for centuries has enjoyed the doubtful reputation of being
• dissipated city, but thine is a marked difference be-
tween Paris of 1830 and Paris of 1870. Into theatres
which have brought about so lamentable an increase of
dissipation and immorality this is not the time or plea
to enter. Suffice it to say that every succeeding year
of Imperialism his witnessed some fresh developront of
corruption. As a thoughtful writer has said, "In the
time of Louis Philippe, there was luxurious living, bid
since 1851 nothing else has been seen or heard of
Naturally, • Frerohman loves his borne, the plasi
of his birth. He feels an attachment for the sped
where his father and mother were wont to live, sod
where perhaps he maw his first child born. He is not
like the Anglo-Saxon, ready to wander to the farthest
ends of the earth in search of fortune. He is no A
rover. Rut that natural disposition has been cruelly
treated by the late rulers of Paris in their attempts te
riebuild a great part of the city, and render it arebitee-
' turally and strategisally the finest in Europe. Tnousaoh
and tens of thousands of houses have been demolished,
and in their place have arisen large and palanal'oetng
dwellings. Old associations have thus been rothlmall
destroyed, new ones have had to be formed, mud a nee
style of living to be adopted. 'rho expensive erid
ruinous habits of the court and its hirelings have bees
imitated. The comforts and almost decencies of Wets,'
been sacrificed in order to keep up • certain &Kew
Loc.: unbridled luxury, with its usual comoonntn.oB
of effeminacy and voluptuousness, was rapidly horrP4
Paris into • °audition dottier to that of Rome ‘lll.l
days of Nero and his successors. It proofs were Dean
in support of what to some mei appear exagir7,
atatemeuta of the degeneracy of the Paris of P,,s,
we might give atztlstles which would show very els" 11
that crime, and that of the worst and °maned Ines,
has been steadily increasing during the last few yew*
and in • proportion far beyond the increase of th.
population- Take the following as sufficient to lama',
the sad state of matters. Between 1856 the number o+
accusations of the nature I b ive referred to fornn4
more than half of the whole number of aseasaties.
of MOMS against the person, whilst from 18%.31, the
proportion wes only about one•fiftb. Infanticide to"'
lies been far more common of late peen. The mew
able desire for pleasure has 1.1 to the inventiou of
means
degriid of
eLud enjoyment wothheirib have madly tended to
.
P"Phk
absinth, has steadily progreed of
se , aTnbrrlu
b7its2:erel;
ions influence on the human system, has been red"(3°‘
many to the &win' condition common among tin,OptSt 0
eaters of China. My remarks have hitherto been sos
fined to Paris, but with some restrietioasi thin' "1
applicable to the whole of France. Parts WY • SSE*,l'i trittlon of all that was VI0‘0•11 and sensual. The" • ,--
ran riot. But the provinces fell the benefit' amnia
of the enstropons. Paris manners and habits were !°°_l••
or lees Imitated in every direction. Young France
•4 bead Paclatas, sad its efforts were but too annrses'
fel. Attempts were made to "tem the terrible carnal
that was rapidly sweeping away all the *hi landmiarke
I'6'4 60mulif *misty free to drift in any direction,'
whioh the wind sided happen to blow. But the band
of trucheertesi earnest men who saw whither thing'
were tending, was smell. They were regarded as run.
tantoal,and tut •riy oppose Ito t sw.mer 6,1 „nowt7
and the cow...corm means of enjoyment which were
the result, as it was supposed, of the wise You'i
adopted by the Imperial Government. Let 1:"
Jule bring before you the words of one, who. bean,'
he was • true patriot, resolved to speak what bebe-
lieved to be the tenth told. deluded. and, 55
h 8
evidently feared it would prove, perishing country :
I refer to W. Prevost Parade', • man of high boson',
and one of the highest ornaments of the daily Pre."
but who overcome, as we may suppose, by the feehng
that he bad pat himself in • false position, laid viol.°
hands on himself jut as he SISS via•effing on hi
functions as an Ambeeimullor of Prance to the Unit"
States. Wedge' in 1868, he says, "To the eyes of
every honest and Meat-sighted observer, our coeutrY
offers at the present woman, aspectaole almost withoot
• perallel in the world, of • society in which the Pint,
of hooour has become the principal guarantee for goal
order, and leads to the Waimea' of most of the donee
and merilLoss which religiose and Wheeling have la'
We power of wasseneadlag. IS au kw, it es 6g