The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-29 00:00:00

Current : it is said that one of AlacMahon's corps d'armte is
approaching in the direction of Stenay, and another corps
in another direction. Great excitement prevails in all
quarters ; families leave in crowds for Belgium; the
remaining inhabitants look at every one who enters
the town in the most suspicious manner ; you hear at
every infinite, "He must be a spy !" Then you are
surrounded, and your papers examined, or you are
given in charge of the gendarmes and douaniers. I can
see from my window at this very moment a little tiny
priest, surrounded by two gendarmes, twenty Garden
Mobiles, and a mob of roughs. I saw the beginning o
the affair; it has been going on some two hours, and I do
not know how it will finish, for the little cure is still
talking and gesticulating in the middle of his guardians.
At the railway station the little priest, who is
curate of a village five miles distant, was discussing
about the war, and finished his speech by saying : "Ah I
you have not finished with the Prussians ; it is only the
beginning, and God has sent them on you to punish
Frenchmen for their sins." It was quite enough.
Cries of "A bas le Prussien" were heard, and
my little friend carried away by the mob and given into
the hands of the gendarmes. They have arrested him,
but they will have some difficulty in staying his tongue.

OUR COTEMPORARIES---This Morning.

PROVISIONING PARIS.

The Times says that the "useless mmitb.,,
t • he

;lab azodusi ivr., has
is, indeed, stw• iat
leave the capita; zhe
.zi'those who are
and the sight of ,ach

convoys hurrying from the city would not tend to increase
•lebs feigning within it. It is even more difficult
to understand how those who are bound to remain can
look forward with undisturbed serenity to the future.
Paris is estimated to contain 1,800,000 inhabitants,
and neither voluntary emigration, nor forced exile, nor
both combined, could reduce such a population by
a third. This would be, indeed, an extravagant esti-
timate, especially if we bear in mind the suggestion
made 14y M. Thiers, who is now a member of the
Committee of Defence—a suggestion favourably re-
garded at the time by the Ministry—that the population
of the surrounding towns and villages for some miles
wound the capital should be compelled to come in, bring-
ing their stores of provisions with them. One of the first
difficulties in the problem of defending Paris plainly
consists in providing food for the vast population
within its walls. We know something of the way
in which a great city is fed, and of the neces-
sity of a daily importation of food for its
consumption. We are told that Paris is provisioned for
three months, and that the stores continue to accumulate ;
but who can define the degree of belief to be given to such
cheerful assertions ? The stores of wine at Bercy may
be ample; the bakers have, no &milt, been ordered to in-
crease their stocks, and if a population could be main-
tained on bread and wine it would be comparatively
easy to provide for a lengthened siege ; but some-
thing more than this is wanted, and the assurance that
anything else has been laid up in considerable quanti-
ties is not re-assuring. We remember how the resources
of the Commissariat were described as abundant at the
beginning of the campaign, and cannot but feel some
apprehension that, if the confidence of Paris rests on the
statement that three months' provisions have been aeon-
nulated, it may prove to be misplaced.