The Sun.
London, England, 1871-01-24 00:00:00

AFTER THE SORTIE.

From Paris, January 20, the special correspondent of
the Daily News writes :—The number of wounded was
very great. It was the Prussian musketry fire that
did most execution. The artillery was comparatively
harmless. The Prussian gunners fire with a beau-
tiful regularity, which is, however, little service-
able. If you marked where a shell fell, you were

pretty sure to note that every twenty seconds other
shells would fall in the same place, or thereabouts
with the mechanical regularity of a steam hammer.
Beware of that particular spot, and you were compara-
tively safe. It was, I have said, the musketry that did
most execution, and its effect was murderous. In the
rear of the battle the sight of the ambulance carriages
and the stretcher-bearers leading up to them was to
be compared only to the precincts of the Italian Opera
in London on a grand night, when you see long
lines of carriages, sometimes three deep, waiting to carry
home the gay assemblage. If any of your readers
go to the Opera after reading this letter, let them
imagine, instead of neat broughams and capacious
carriages filled with bright-eyed beauties, long files
of stretchers, three deep, each containing a wounded
man, groaning and bleeding, and blanched of feature,
and each borne off tenderly by two men, one at the head
and the other at the foot. Itiy imagination full of this
terrible sight, I told the people as I entered the walls of
Paris that there were many wounded. They were greatly
agitated ; and then came the women round me, anxious to
know of their kindred. One had a son in this regiment
of the National Guards, another a husband, a third a
brother, some one else a father. I shall never forget the
trembling of the people waiting to have news of their
nearest and dearest—their faltering voices, their swimming
eyes, their restless manner. And if ever you wish to pic-
ture to yourself the horrors of war, do not let imagination
rest alone upon the battlefield. Think also of
the thousands of people at the gates of this great
city—thousands of all classes, fine ladies and poor women
—in agony for those they loved the best ; wondering
whether they are safe; fearing they are dead ; certain
they must be wounded. This it is to fight with National
Guards. They fight with their families in sight, and the
agony of these families waiting at the gates is in some
respects greater than the agony of the field of battle
itself. The crowds, let me add, were not merely at the
gates. All up the Avenue General Uhrich, formerly
known as the Avenue de l'lmperatrice, they stood in
groups. Half-way up is a solid.barricade right across the
Avenue. They got on the top of this barricade trying
to see something, and all round the foot of the Arc de
Triomphe they stood watching with an intensity which it
was most painful to witness.

The Rev. J. M. Rodwell, the rector of St. Ethel-
burga, Bishopsgate-street, preached on Sunday night on
"The doctrine of the Real Piesenceln the BleSied Sacra-
ment." There was ari overflowing congregation, most of
those present evidently belonging to the extreme High
Church and Ritualist party. Mr. Rodwell wore a bright
red stole over his surplice.

A. Parliamentary return of all expenses incurred
by the Royal Commissions severally appointed during the
year 1869 to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices
at elections in the city of Norwich, and the boroughs of
Beverley and Bridgwater, has just been made, from which
it appears that Norwich cost £3,183 12s. 4d. ; Beverley,
£2,550115. 2d. ; and Bridgwater £3,111195, 9d. ; making
in all £8,846 3s. 3d.