Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1871-06-22
COMMUNIST HUNTING.


/ turn from the spectacle, sad and sick,
to be sickened yet further by another
The Versaillist troops collected about the
foot of the Rue st. Honore, were enjoying
the fine game of Communist hunting
The Parisians of civil life are caitiffs to the
last drop of their thin, sour, white blood.
But yesterday they had cried 'Vive la
Commune p and submitted to be govern
ed by this said Commune. To-day they
rubbed their hands with livid, curious joy
to have it in their power to dennunce a
Communist and reveal his hiding place
Very eager at this work are the dear
creatures Of women. They know the rat
holes into which the poor devils have got,
and they guide to them with iendish
glee which is phase of the many-sided
sex. VOLTA! the braves of France return
ed to triumph aftera shameful captivity |!
They have found him, the miserable !
Yes, they drag him out from one of the
purlieus which Hausmann had not time to
sweep away, and a guard of six of them
hem him round as they march him into
the Rue St. Honore. A tall, pale, hat
less man, with something not ignoble in
his carriage His lower lip is trembling,
but his brow is firm, and the eye of him
has some pride and defiance in it. They
yelI-the crowd-"Shooth him shoot him, y
the demon-women most clamorous, of
course. An arm goes into the air; there
are on it the stripes of a non-commissioned
officer, and there is a stick in the fist
The stick falls on the head of the pale
man in black. Ha the infection has
caught men club their rifles and bring
them down on that head, or clash them
into splinters in their lust for murder. He
Is down he is up again; he is down again +:
the thud of the gun-stocks on him sound
ing like the sound when a man beats a
cushion with stick. A certain British
impulse, stronger than consideration for
self, prompts me to run forward. But 1T
is useless. They are firing into the fac
cid carcass now, thronging about it like
blow-fies on piece of meat His brains
spurt on my boot and splash into the gut
ter, whittier the carrion is bodily chucked,
presently to be trodden on and rolled on
by the feet of multitudes and the wheels
Of cnn carriages. Womanhood, then, is
not quite dead in that band of Bedlamites
who had clamored, .'Shoot him." Here
is one in Mysteries; another, with wan,
scared face, draws out of the press an en-
bryo Bedlamite, her offspring, and, let us
hope, goes home But surely all man
mood is dead in the soldiery of France to
do deed like this. An oficer-onc
with bull throat and the eyes of Aigiers,
stood by and looked UP at the sport, suck
ing cigar meanwhile. Particeps crimi-
mis- surely was he if there is such word as
dicipliEe in the French ranks; if there is
not, and Iquestion whether there be, he
might have been pitied II he had not smll-
ed bis smng-faced approval.
The merry game goes on. Denoun-
cling becomes fashionable, and denouncing
is followedSi in the French natural sequence
by Draining. Faugh! lot us get away
from the truculent towards and the bloody
cutters, and the yelling women and the
Algerian-eyed officers. Here is the place
Vendome, held, as learn on credible au-