The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-11-05 00:00:00

THE SIEGE OF PARIS.

The following is from the Special Correspondent of
The Times :
HIAD-QU ARTEII9 OF THE CROWN PRINCE'S ARMY,
VERSAILLES, 00t. 25.
- -

—.—.....—,
I visited the stores of the British Society for Help to the
Sick and Wounded. Their depot Is at preaent In the coach.
house, of a mansion In the Rue des Reservoirs, which Is filled
art h bales of shirts, flannels, medical and physical comforts,
which are distributed by Mr. Purley, who Is assisted by Dr
Rochel r•nd a few soldtera. All articles taken from the store
are entered In a book, which Is signed by the recipient, and
the demands from Prince Plea, Prince Pother, Prince of
Tour and Taxis, and others are numerous for the service
of the hospital., the Bavarians eapeolally being short
of many necessaries. Indeed, the Herman hospital
establishments do not at all come op to our Ideas
The representative of each branch of the National Auocia-
lions does the best he can for his own compatriots, for in
Father' .nd there are stills variety of children—the Prusrian
for the Pruulans, the Hessian for the Hessian", the Bavarian
for the Bavarians, the Wurtemberger for the Wurtembergers,
and no on—each woi ki forlds own compatriots Dr. Kirchner,
whole an energetic person, rules his palace and hia hospitals
the Lord of the Sliver Bow lorded it over Tenedos tam
not going to put my finger into the hot water which the
medical men are making in their kitchen, but it imams
as it a strict rendering of the rules of the Geneva Gonvantion
were not compatible with the views of exclusive control en-
tertained by the Prussian medical man.

I went round through the Palace wards afterwards, be.
ginning with those in charge of the Dutch Ambulance,
which Li admirably conducted by Dr. Van der Veld°, the
Palestine traveller. Al might be expected, these wares
were exceedingly clean and neat. " Wards," indeed ' The
first I entered was the "Salle des (inerriers CUbres"—the
ancient antechamber to the apartment of Madame de Pom-
padour—to which were the usual hospital scenes—a Sister
Ot Charity with a bowl in out hand inn a spoon( lithe ether

[...id, a ad.er weaa to rim; • surgeon deeming •
wooded wound i'm trying to save the lent, nut tear—
still it's a neat case. ' The poor wretch looked at the
shattered bone sail he more than shared the doubt. HOS-
pita orderlies moving about the rows of pale faces
with anxious eyes, and above them all these brilliant
warriors, In theatrical attitudes and glaring eye-
balls, following you all over the place. It was an
excellent idea of the Crown Prince Ile suggested the chang-
ing of patients able to be moved from one room to another,
Co that the monotony of "Roche fir ever," " Joiffiert as
before," and all the rest of them day alter day, might not
afll'cr. [Le um Vra of the sufferers and retard their cure. But,
of emote. it iambi not be carried out. Ott each door is •
notice of Om ItCpublique leau,nise, signed J ales Simon,
relating to the Internal arrangements of the hospital, and
precautions against lire. I wish Prussian surgeons used
chloroform—that le, if it be desirable in a medical point of
view. But It is not in favour with them, nor Is it with the
French. I see in the Perim papers specific directions for the
treatment of wand., in which chloroform is objected to as
well as the one of " perchlunire of iron." While I wan in
one of the Sallee dos Mai echaux a surgeon was probing •
gunshot wound in the thigh of a man, who uttered such
harrowing yells that the Sister of Cnarity—there leone in
each roam—turned and fled, a 'stranded man near burst Ibto
tears, and all in the ward were agitated except the surgeon
and Ms asaittants, one of whom tried to stop the outcry by
putting one hand on the top of the "patient's" head, and
eqweexing hhi mouth and chin with the other, till the doctor
Wet his patience and roared at the wretched sufferer to be
quiet, apply ing a atroeg term at the same time. The y ell
died into • whimpering moss still more dreadful, and I re-
sired The doctor is a very clever man, lam told, and has his
hospital in capital order. And d propos of him, let me
notice what seems an illiberality on the tart of the Prureffins,
as well as a folly. Jews may become regimental and
staff surgeons, but the post of Ober.Stabearst, which
may be ceesidered equivalent to our Deputy Inspec-
tor. General of Hospitals, is closed sgatustMiem. So if they
are fit for it the State is deprived of the services of able men
in places where they ere most needed I promised I would
not dwell on hospital scenes, and I shall refrain from the
description of the linked misery which extends along three
sidea, as you remember, of the centre in the re: de-shausete
—fourteen room., with their arrays of painted warrior..
But there are "cases" enough, come "very carious." A
peculiarity about curlew cases, I e nerve, is, that the
surgeon generally, If not invariably, says, "tie can't live
very long." And no wonder—" time was when brains were
out that men would die." Well if it were alwayelso. '
One man wee alive with a ball lodged hi his brain he had
even been conecioua Another bad the side of his skull
clean carried oft by • bit of shell; • third in • ward all by
himself was—but no! It was too horrible. The man WAS in
mauls, and Mr. Purley (who was with me) and I hurried into
the next ward, whence an orderly was sent to keep watch
and ward over the "case." The simpering swagger and
feathery flaunting of sowed these manhalain their " salles"
would be enough to make • man who was merely nervous
quite delirious. I would not spend a night alone with
"Catinat "or "Vary "for • small fortune in my strongest
days. Here you pus by the portraits of hundreds of men
who were faraous in their day, mid some whose names will
live in story for ever, fir they were great In the work of
war; and war, let us say what we like is still the ultinta
ratio, not only of kings but of peoples and Republics, as it
was the prima ratio of luckless. hapless France. The gal-
lery of Louis XIII, of the Admirals of France, and so on all
round, are filled with wounded men to the end till we come
to the officers' rooms'. My first glance was at the bed on the
left as you enter. I had men • gallant Captain of Artillery
lying there the last time I visited it, which was in e impany
with Count von Goetz, of Schatz, and had witnessed his re-
ception of a little deputation from the men of hie battery,
who had come in from Plesea-Plequet to see hew their officer
was getting on. The bed was empty. I was quite relieved to
beer from a Bavarian officer sitting op with one leg loft, that
the artilleryman, who had only lost the greater part of one
of his thighs, had been sent away to complete his cure at
home. The suites upstairs in the Palace, or Château as it
is mere generally atyled, are occupied in the Same way as
those below. There is at least silence in the rooms, broken
only by the whispers of Sisters of Charity, the voices of chap-
talus by the bedsides, and the rustling of newspapers, which
are eagerly read by the wounded; but the rooms are draughty
and cold, and as winter Increases in harshneas there will be
difficulties in ventilating the wards.
wsn's VICTIMS!

Every day there Is a ceremony which attracts a crowd In
Versailles, and makes its sad sensation—the departure of
funeral parties from the front of the Palace, with their
burdens for the Cemetery. I followed one the other day
from the Place d'Arolee, net more numerous than usual,
but broken up into two detachments. These military
funerals are conducted with great propriety and decent
solemnity. The troops are formed up in the Cour Royale at
the entrance to the Cour de Marbre, which is the appropriate
resting-place of the departed warriors in their shells. There
is • band in attendance, a body of officers, the chaplains of
the creed which the deemed profaned, an escort of
cavalry, and a firing party. The officers' coffin are covered
with • black velvet pall, with a cross edged with white
thrown over it, and the biers are decorated with wreaths
and chaplets: the men's are draped with white. When all
I. ready the bearers take up their loads, the band leads the
way, and nothing can be more touching, plaintive and tender
than the strains of the funeral march. Then comes the
Infantry guard with sloped arms, not reversed. Then the
officers who are mourners next the cheplain with an officer
on each side; the coffins are borne behind the chaplain, who
is on foot, and the procession 11 closed by the firing party
and by soldiers and civilians. As the strains of the music
and the roll of the drums summon the attention of the
people to the Place el'Armee, they run in all directions, and
form along the pathway, and as the coffins pass many of
the men uncover their heads, the women cross them-
selves. The procession panes down by the Place Hoch*,
past the Church of Notre Dame. All along the route to the
cemetery the streets are crowded, the windows are fulL
You see women in black with streaming eyes look out on
all that remains of an enemy whose hand may have filled the
unconscious houses with mourning. In the cemetery there is
an Immense excavation, capable of tiontaining some
hundreds of coffins. The embankment around It is rue to
be crowded. The day I was there, soldiers and civilians, men,
women, and children, flocked to the grave. There was a
Catholtc funeral and a Lutheran funeral, each with its band
and its company of mourners and escorts. The Lutherans,
nearly all Prussians, had six coffins ; the Catholics, of whom
most were Bavarians, numbered four coffins. The Pastor
stood by the grave and pronounced • discourse
which moved many of his audience to tears. An allusion
to the fate of a young officer of the lOth Cavalry, who was
wounded at Ablis In the night, and who was much beloved,
especial y moved them. Another pastor read the service,
and then, as he threw some clods of earth into the grave, the
volleys of the firing party rang out, and through the smoke
advanced the Catholic priest to the edge of the same grave,
and read the services of his Church. Many of the French
womeu present were In the deepest black, and not •
few wept bitterly. And so Protestant and Catholic are left
to their rest. They will never enter Paris," growled a
young man near me as he wattled off; "those there, at all
events." "Mon done," said, in a gentle tone, an old gentle
man, turning round on him, "let us hope they will tinier •
far beta place, where we shall meet them." The few words
were said with a charming grace and sweetness It was one
of those little phrases in which Frenchmen excel, and which
in Rs tourntere covers a thousand fault,.