Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-02-02


POORER CLASSES THE PUR
Lie.
PARIS, Dec. %.
Our stock of horses is fast diminishing
Eight hundred horses are slaughtered
daily-two hundred for the army, six
hundred for the civil population. Eggs
are forty 10 fifty cents each; butter, s.
a pound turkeys and geese, SIG to SIS
apiece, and worthless even at this price
chickens, Sc each, and getting very
morning a piece OF salt beef in shor
back of the Garden of Plants; it weighed
nearly pound; 1 gave $3.50 for it
restaurant in Paris is closed. Those
which remain open half vow every night
they will not open next morning. Onions
carrots and turnips are now five to eight
cents apiece. The packet of soup herbs
which from time immemorial has cost
three cents, costs now from forty to fifty
cents Everybody has been buying string
beans put up green in the cans. They
make an excellent salad, and, above all,
they require no cooking, for the rub now
is to find fuel. Although two or three
times the old price was asked for them,
they have all disappeared. Peas and
other vegetables prepared in the same
way are quite abundant, but nobody buys
them, for we have no means of cooking
them.
CHEAP CALICO PRINTERS
use a sort of sizing made of whites of
eggs. These whites are dried here during
summer and sent to the manufacturing
towns. The siege prevented their trans
mission, and they are now on sale here as
an article of food ! Intoxication has been
so prevalent since the commencement of
the siege that the supply of wines and
spirits, which was reckoned sufficient to
last eight months, will be exhausted in
four. Prices are already advancing of all
wines under sixteen cents bottle.
THE INTENSE MISERY
which reigns in Paris is the great danger
of the hour and of the future. 1t is the
danger of to-day, because it prevents ne
gotiations for peace. AS l have more
than once said, the poorer classes never
were in more comfortable circumstances
than now. They are the most indolent
people on earth, and now they do nothing
but gable and CAD about, which is the
Frenohman's beau ideal of happiness. The
official returns exhibit 477,000 persons
supported by the government, but / am
inclined to believe that 100000 would be
nearer the truth; for in one ward alone
the true figure is 32,370 persons, and this
number is daily increasing, whereas the
official figure is $4,000. 1t is the danger
of tomorrow, for the return of peace will
not be the return of prosperity. What
can then be done to relieve all these beg
gars, who have lost all taste for work, all
habit of toll The most mischievous step
taken by the government next to the re-
fusal to negotiate peace at Ferrieres) was
the Stay law, postponing pay of house
rent. That money (which, until the Stay
law appeared, had been jealously disband.
ed has been thrown away; the immense
of living without paying
house rent has become familiar to the
people here, and it will be hard to bring
them back to their old regularity. One
of the strapgest phenomena of French life
is the hatred which exists between class
es, and especially the hatred felt by ten.
ants to landlord. Rent seems the unjust
est of burdens, and to injure rented prop
erty is felt by most of these people to be
sacred duty. All will 60 well as
long as the government is able to satisfy
the poorer classes; but this is hourly be.
coming more impossible. The lack of fuel
alone is driving people to lawlessness
Mobs of people are tearing down fences.
cutting down trees, pulling houses
to pieces in the remoter quarters of town
almost every day. They fly when National
Guards are seen coming to their pursuit,
but the citizen soldiers cannot be every
where.
THERE ARE BREAD PANICs
daily, but they are merely local; still
they are important, as indications
of increasing embarrassments. 1t
seems that, while there is wheat
enough, there is not -four in sufficient
quantities, and the mile are unable to
turn out daily an adequate supply. Then
there is the question of fuel-fuel for the
mills and fuel for the bakeries-which is
daily becoming more difficult of solution.
Again, bread is cheaper than oats or bar
ley, and horses and cows are fed on bread |;
these are consumers that were not reckon
ed when stock was taken. Further, it
has been discovered that the condition Of
the roads and provinces is 30 deplorable