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

ITEMS OF THE WAIL

The French have only 2,100 German prisoners.
The Municipal Council ot WOO has conferred the citizen-
ship cf that place on Garibaldi.
The prisoners taken at the last sortie from Pails state
theta, troops in the city receive only t clef a week half a
pound i.t meat •
. .

M. Ponson du Terrell, the sensation novelist, has been
commissioned by the Minister of War to raises battalion of
Franc-Tireurs to be called Les Franc-Tireurs &Weans.
The Paine mentions that there is a woman's club at
Marseilles, at which one of the orators recently proposed
that the scaffold should be permanent, and that the first
victim should be the Bishop cf Marseilles.
The news of the fall of Metz immediately penetrated to
various towns of France with the least possible asslstazca
from the authorities. At Amiens it became known on
Friday, and produced a strong feeling in favour of peace.
The army investing Metz consisted of seven Prusslau corps,
one Prussian Landwehr Division, and the Hessian Division,
in all 220,000 men Of these less than 20,000 will garrison
Metz the rest being destined for field operations.
• •

The capitulation of Metz took place exactly a month
after that of Strasburg (Sept. 277, and 64 years after the
entry of Napoleon I. iuto
The Kings of Bavaria and Wartentherg awl the Grand
Duke of Baden have been invited to witness the bombard-
ment of Paris, and after its fall to Sign there the treaty for
the unilicatioo of Germany.

The Francon,. referring to Prince Napoleon's letter, pub-
lished In the papers hut week, says that the feeling of
Fra,he towards the Napoleonic dynasty is not one of cold-
ness, hut of" execration and contempt"
The Saxon Minister of War has Just purchased 8,000,000
cigars for the Saxon troops who form a portion of the army
besieging Pale

The intelligence of the declaration of war between France
and Prussia has created much excitement in Australia, and
energetic measures were at once taken to place the c.dony
in a state of defence in one Great Britain should be drawn
into the struggle. Underwriters Imposed a war rate of 2!
per cent. in addition to ordinary charges.
• - - - • • ' "

As an example of the extent to which the war Is draining
the able-bodied adult population of Germany, It is stated a
youth, barely fifteen years of age, who was being educated
at ono of the English public schools, has been called back to
his own country to perform military duty.
An Orleans letter says that all the chops are shut, the
ladles wear nothing but maurnlng, and that every evening
when a Prussian military band playa the inhabitant, make a
point of not going to bear it.

The colonel of a Bavarian light cavalry regiment mean tl
said During the whole of thin war my regiment has not
made esthete useless march, so excellently Is everything fore-
seen and no exactly guided, whereas In 1860 I hardly ever
made a useful march."

"We learn that In consequence of the disingenuous
manner in which a number of French officers have inter.
prated the engagements into which they voluntarily entered
after being made prisoners of war, his Majesty has given
orders that henceforth no French officer shall be set at
liberty on Ma parole."—North German Correspondent,
Oct 29.

A daily paper, Le Journal de, As.iOges, Ii 110 a printed at
Brussels for transmission to Tours, and from thence, by ex-
traordinary post, to Paris. It consists entirely of short cons
munications which French emigrants wish to address to
friends and relatives ill PiLI.I3.

Tho N.us Preasriche Zeif utng writes :—.• When we shsll
have occupied the rich provinces of the north, then we may
quietly wait till the people on the other side of the Loire
recover their reason, and the resistance to be organised in
the south consume itself.

A baud of volunteers, calling themselves the " Wild Boars
of the Ardennet," joined to another atyled the " Railway
Destroyers," have caused a German train to run off the line
between LauLois and Unless, when a great many Germane
were tilled.

Csptain Wanner, of the Elie, teem Rio Grande to Ham-
burg, states to his owners that on the 16th inst, his vetted
was captured by • French ship of war and taken to Cher
bourg.

Gutrot, In a letter to the Princess Troubetzkol, terms the
war t' the most rhottvelesa, unnecessary, nenseleas, thought-
less, in a word, to speak plainly, the most stupid war which
was ever entered upon among civilized nations." The
Empire, he further says, undisputably merited its fell more
than any Government has ever done.

1 he number of inhabitants of Berlin belonging to the re-
serve of Landaehr who have been called on kir service is
35,000, or nearly 5 per cent, of the population. This, how-
ever, is considerably above the average of the whole
country. Mole than 13 000 of their wives, having no Malls
of support, have to be luaintained by the city.

- -
It was on Saturday lOct. 29) that the Germane entered
Metz the French troops were disarmed, and were being
lent through Saarbruck at the rate of 10,000 men per day. I
conaequence of General Murat and others having violated
their parole the French officers are to be treated in the lame
manlier as the common soldiers. Three thousand guns and
forty million of francs have, it Is said, been taken at Mete.

The damages sustained through the siege by private in.
habitants of Strasburg, as reported to the German autho-
rities, exceed £4,000 000. Mary persons, moreover, omitted
to make any return to the prefecture, in order to avoid re-
cognizing the present rulers.

A Prussian officer taken primner on Oct 21, at Moquebaril,
a hamlet in the Loire, is suppmed to be a person of some
Importance from the fact of the enemy having proposed to
glee up four non-commiasioned officers and four soldiers to
exchange for bins.
Professor Von Sybel writes to The Tiotee to declare that
the Germans are determined to do for themselves what
England's chiefs once dui for Europe—via, found their
security and independence on a firm and solid beet.; and to
this end it Is indispensable that they should recover
" Meas.." This conviction can never be rooted out of the

--
German mind, just because it Is the result of the love of

A newspaper correspondent. writing from Garibaldi's head-
quarters, says :—'Garibaldi feels pretty certain that we
shall have the Prussian. on us from one minute to another,
and I thtet see what Is to prevent them. Ills coming is a
mistake altogether. rho Jealousy of the French generals Is
such that he can do nothing. But we are here, and there
Ls no retreat."

According to an official report of General Hartman several
hundred women and children from Paris appeared at the
German outposts between alontrouge and Bic,lire, on the
24th inst. Being told they would to fired upon unless they
returned forthwith, they replied that they preferred death to
thetr miserable life Inside the city. They were permitted to
cross the German lines.

The Special Correspondent of the Daily News, at Tours
says thkt, notwithstanding the enormous losses France has
sustained, the towns and villages appear as WI of strong
men as Seders and armed men are pouting Into every town
and filling every railway line. In. journey he made to Le
Mans, the whole of his route, be says, was " bristling with
bayonets." Arms did not appear scarce. Men who had no
Chaseepots had Remington. or Solders The lalVe en mass,
wee taking place to the deiartments he passed through.
With regard to Colonel Loyd Lindsay's recent statement
that only 421,000 had been subscribed throughout Germany
in support of the "Johatintter," a letter from Bremen In-
forms us that In that town alone £25,(20 have been sub-
thribed for the sick and wounded. The correspondent also
encloses • copy of the Weser Zeitung, in which the receipt of
this sum Is shown. Immense quantities of wine, death,
Cognac, coffee, tea, ham, and woollen clothing are constantly
sent also to the army, as well as to the hospital..

Bismarck, Moltke, and 'Coon are usually occupied till late
into the night with important military and political affairs.
Hundreds of reports, Important and unimportant, daily
reach Moltke', offices, and hundred, of orders are despatched.
There is an enormous activity among General Moltke's large
general staff, and the elite of all the Prussian general staff
officers are collected there so as to elaborate and forward to
the various corn every order.
Mr. Malspert, one of the last travellers come from Paris
by balloon, gives the most satisfactory reports of the state of
the capital. He says the army available for sortres—com-
priaing the mobilised volunteers of the National Guards—
numbers 20,/,(ko men, all provided with Chassepots and a
field artillery of 2,060 breech-loading guns, contracted for
by private firms, and which were to be all delivered on the
28th October.
A grim Prussian who was looking over the 'clement
perlooical which is generally alluded to an our facetious
contemporary" did not seem at all struck by the cartoon,
" A quarter of a million," In the number for October 22. "1
euppose," he said, dryly, "that is the little per centage the
good lady make by selling of arms to enable de fighting to be
gone on with. She lea very good lady, Miss Britannia. She
pays her conscience money very well."—Timeit Correspon-
dent.

" I have read with some amusement a story that has
reached you from Berlin of an Inspired maiden said to have
appeared in Tours, who claims to have received upon her
Shoulders the mantle of Join of Arc, who carries a flag with
Hue Holy Virgin depicted upon it, and whose mission is to
arouse the enthusiasm of the army. Tours is not a lavge
place, and I am a good deal abroad in its streets at all hours
of the day and night, but I have neither seen nor heard any-
thing of the heroine in question, nor have I seen mention
made of her in any paper."—Correspondent of lA. Times.
The principal Inhabitants of Trove. have addressed a
memorial to Count Bismarck, in which they protest against
the notion of confining the political frontier to the limit of
language, and thus leaving Met, in the hands of the French.
They admit that the separation of the Lorrainers from
France will be at first painful, but they urge that the
effect of the annexation will not be sensibly different
whether it goes beyond or keeps within the linguistic
fxpntier. The difficulties and dangers which are appre-
hended cannot, they insist, outweigh the strategic advan-
tage of the possession of Mete. "We," they add, "whose
City touches the present frontier, protest against the habit
of making more account of the inclinations of a part of the
country about to be annexed than of the critical position
in which we ahould otherwise remain, and the serious
dangers which actually menaced U 3 when the war broke
out.

",t an affair which occurred at a place called Grand
Putts on the 21st of October between National Guards and
Bavarians, two women distinguished themselves by the
Intrepidity with which they went under lire to succour the
wounded. One of them WU Madame Merle d'Aublgn C. wife
of a captain in the force engaged, and the other, whose
name ls not mentioned, was the cantimere of the Montereau
National Guards. The latter had her arm broken by a halt,
and afterwards amputated. At Chateanden the cantiniere
of the battalion of the Franca-Tireurs of the Seine, which
fought well and suffered severely in the defence of that
place, a tall, active, fatr.halred woman, whom I remember
to have Keen marching with the corps when It was in pro-
cess id formation in Paris, was killed by a bullet in the
breast.7—Correspondent of The Tone.

I The following-is a iht of Parisian prices on the 10th of
I October. These are now doubled, says a French paper :
Codflah. If. 200. ; cost, 90e, or If. the week benne. Salt
, beef, H. 75c. and 21. 50c, the f kilo. Seine fish, much
sought after, relatively plenti Gudgeon, mixed with
bleak, 2L—a small dish for tw lions of small appetite.
A fine eel, 161. A fine carp, I 1. to 15f. A floe pike, 141.
Salt butter—scarce, and of bad quality, 4f. 50c. Lard If. 25c.
Fresh vegetables, of which the shops are full, are rising
rapidly. Bundle of fine carrots, if. 60c. ; cabbages, 700. to
if. bOe ; turnips, If. ; radishes, 20c. a bundle ; good
potatoes. 3f. 50c. the bushel. Eggs remain at 2f. 30c. the
dozen. Poultry is bad as well as dear, with the exception
of a few fine geese. A really good fowl coats 121.
The Investment of Phalsbourg, which has been almost /or.
gotton in the press of more important events, is still lan-
guidly continued. For more than a fortnight not a shot hal
been fired on either aide, and the outposts yawn at each
Other. The garrison, 1,5C0 Mobiles, are Buffering great pri-
vations, and have nothing but bread. Even malt Is beginning
to fail them, and but for well-organtsed smuggling they
would long have been forced to surrender, as would be the
case also lithe Germans had heavier guns. Little can be
. dune with 6-pounders, although the place has been set on
fire by them. An early surrender is hoped for, as the gar-
rison are giving indicati :us of discontent and insubordina-
tion.

A Florence Correnoudent says that #0 accounts which
have reached Italy from the Garibablian volunteers in France
are not encouraging. According to a letter from the Vosges,
many of the Garinaldlans there are shoeless, badly off for
clothing and food, and the local authorities under priestly
influence represent them in the most ruff avowable light to the
country people The Francs-ttreurs, too, will submit to no
Mit ipline, and are altogether disorderly and disorganised.
When Garibaldi first offered his services to the French
Government, they were refused, and it was In reality only to
Withdraw him from all connection with the revolutionary
movement in N ice which owed Its origin to him, that they
were afterwards accepted. Such, at least, Is the story In
circulation among the Garibaldi= volatiles=

Tte Ilagdaleito of Csptsie Benito leudoi with
petroleum, was captured at St Pierre by French cruisers and
rent to Ikea

General &bake has been raised by the Kin: of [Tunis to
the rack of Count, and the Prince Royal of Prussia and
Prince Frederick Charles have been appointed Field Marshals
by his Majesty.
The Comte de Dampierre has just died of his wounds. We
last moments were t onching to anguish. Ills wife died three
years ago. "What happiness !" he sighed: "I shall soon
see the dear ar gel that is gone before me," and the brave
fellow's head dropped back heavily on the bed.

The Prussian military authorities, says a Berlin letter In
the Cotryne Gazeft,, ere actively providing ter the winter
outfit of the troops. This Is chiefly e fleeted by requisitions
on be French territories occupied, but extensive contracts
have been made with manufacturers at home, which are to
be completed not later than the 15th of November, The
provisions are also procured where possible from those ter-
ritories, but preparere of preserved meat and sausages at
Frankfort, Solssons, andStrasburg will co-operate. The am.
balance trains are to be bested by Iron stoves.