The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-10 00:00:00

A JOURNEY FROM THE CAPITAL.

A courageous merchant belonging to Maine-et-Loire
has just arrived at Lyons from Paris, having passed all
the Prussian lines. He had been delayed in Paris by
business, and tried vainly five different times to get out.
At last he got out through the Maillot Gate, and passcd
through the French lines, being stopped and searched
every moment. When he reached the Prussian lines be
was at once aimed at by the outposts, but having stopped
and signalled with his hat and handkerchief that he wished
to speak, they contented themselves with searching him;
and on his declaring that he was a merchant, and was re-
turning to his family at Anjou, an officer at once gave
the order he should be allowed to pass. The officer at the
same time advised him to travel quietly along the high
roads, when nothing would hurt him, but if he ran across
the fields, hiding behind hedges and having the appearance
of flying, he would certainly be fired at. The merchant
says that the Prussian cavalry, men and horses, were in
excellent condition, and that he especially remarked the
perfect order and extreme discipline of the enemy's
troops. The Prussians are collecting a quantity of
poplars which they strip of their barks and cover with

pitch. They have admitted to some peasants—who told
the merchant traveller —that this is a pre-arranged
signal, and that at the moment when a general attack
takes place on the capital all these beacons will be fired as
notice of the assault along all the line.

NOTES FROM STRASBURO.
THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

As the only space available the Jardin Botanique, ad-
joining the arsenal and citadel, was turned into a burying
ground. It wears at this moment, says the Times' cor-
respondent, as does, in fact, all the garden-ground for
miles round Strasburg, the aspect of a neglected over•
grown wilderness. Along its eastern side a trench far
deeper and broader than that of the parallels
has been driven in two rows, and here in
piles, four or five over each other, the dead of the
last six weeks have been crowded thick together.
In this dense agglomeration of mortality it was
painful to witness the anxiety displayed by survivors not
to lose sight of their relatives. Wooden crosses, with
brief inscriptions, immortelles, bead wreaths, statuary,
floral bouquets elbowed and crowded each other. When
I entered, a tier of five coffins piled one over the other
were lying exposed in the trench, one a handsome studded
oak coffin, the rest of plain white wood. The grave-
digger assured me they had interred 1,600 bodies, but
seeing an official in a corner of the grounds busied
with papers, I walked up to him. Before him lay
the daily register of burials, and he informed me that the
numbers did not much exceed 1,100- Of these 500
belonged to the garrison and 600 to the citizens. The first
interment was on the 22nd of August, and, although the
siege had now ended four days, they still continued bury-
ing here. The springing of a bridge had cut off com-
munication with one, and the only cemetery at present
available is that in the parallels of the besiegers. Stras-
burg has a population of 80,000, and during the siege the
garrison may be assumed to have equalled the number of
those who quitted the town. The mortality would seem
to have been 200 a week, half of them due to violent
deaths. In the week of September 14th to 20th, the
greatest number of deaths occurred, amounting in the
military and burgher hospitals to 200, deaths. September
12, 18 military ; 16th, 26 ; 18th, 28 were interred. In every
instance I was assured there was a funeral ceremony at the
grave—a duty equally shared by the Catholic priests
and Protestant Pastors of the city, and a perilous one,
for the garden lying alongside the arsenal had its full share
of the bombardment, and the registrar pointed out to me
a heap of fragments of shells which had fallen in the pre-
cincts. No accident, however, occurred in it during the
siege. With but few exceptions, the families of the
deceased did not accompany the coffin to the grave. It is
not intended to transfer the dead to the city cemeteries ;
almost all are buried in plain white coffins, and identifica•
tion would be impossible.