The workingman's advocate. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1864-1877, 1871-07-15
CORRESPONDENCE.
I'VE do not Id ourselves responsible for any opin-
ions eKs ressed BY cur COrresppndentsl
FROM LEIPZIG.
LEIPZIG, June %, 1871

[
Ludwig Plan, a man of established
character, and whose word can be i'm
plicitly Irustei-by the by, he is one OF
our first writers on Art-has just re.
turned to Paris, where he had been
living before the war, writes to the
Frankfort Gazette, under date of Jun,
IL, as follows:
"WiIh regard to the state of things
here, the public has been shamelulll
deceived and misinlOrmed. Excepting
few monumental edl6ces, winch can
not be restored SO quickly, all traces OF
the late catastrophe will have disap.
peared in Paris before two months art
over. Not SO in the surrounding
towns-Neuilly, ST. Denis, Anteuil, etc
where : longer time will be requlred.*
One single Improvement of HaussInann,
the old Project of the Seine, has de-
mollshed more houses than all the pc
troleum Of the Commune has done
and the Versailles have by th,lr bom6r
battered down at least twenty times a.
many uOuSc6 as luc
have burned. No doubt CERTAIN ter
ror hid >ez d the whole town; anu
that is not To be wondered at. d, es
not the cOnfsgration OF large buiI,I-
my rrdden The sky so that il can b.
seen for many miles? And If We coh.
slider that here several colossal edIhces
were in flames, together with a nun Der
OF six-sIOrled houses IN different parts
OF the town; If We further consider the
mce 'oIrIng OF the cannons, the
sIorrning Of the bar ricades, The rattliug
| q Iick-liIe OF the ChassepOts, and the
AIN of balls filling down every where
and all this gong Oh for day s-then
we cannot wonder if The ParI>Ians
;hou. BIT the " OF their last judgment
had come anu their town Was dlsai
pearmg from The face or the earth. A
panic-Ienor such as Paris has never
1elt shook the town aud seized the
minds, aud the inhabitants quaked and
tremblt d Ike toI est trees under the
>courge Of the hurricane. | saw still
many cellar noles that had been walled
up or stuffed with sAnd-sackS, 10 guard
against the pouring in Of petroleum,
AMI | spoke with people, OtheI wise
quite reasonable, v hO w,re still con.
vInctd that The Communists had flied
the subterranean drains with petrOle-
UNI, IN oder 10 blow up Whole Paris.
Aud yet three sec )nds Of reflect on are
sufficient to show The utter impossIbIlIly
OF such plan. The dTains OF Paris are
so high hat a man can walk upright il
them, anil cOrrespOnding,y wide. They
have trOttOIrs OH both sides, and IL
the middle the stream Of sewerage is
running towards the Seine. PetruI, um
thrown into these drains would, Of ne-
cessity, have run into the Seine, nnless
the outlets had been stopped; but il
that case ii would have collected in The
lower parts, and IN any case, it would
have been so thinned by the water and
The sewerage that 1t could not have
burned.
THE stories Of batallions of drilled
lncendiaries OF 'Petruleurs and Pc.
tr"lenses' with oil cans. and Of children
with matches, are phantasIic decisions
and Infamous lies, that would raise our
laughter # they had not been the cause
OF so many innocent people losing their
lly,s. | have wandered through Paris
n all directions, and | have looked at
every thing with my own eyes; and the
truth IS, altogether not more than one
hundred private buildings are burn d
I'm the little town of Strassburg The
Pru>>ians destroyed five hund ed hous-
e. and those hundred houses have, by
lying correspondents, been puffed w
INTO third Of Paris.
should only wish the horrors told
Of The Nersaillese might in the same
manner prove exaggeraIions but here,
unhappily, the manufacturers of lies
were in no need Of exaggerations. The
houses burned were, almost all of them,
burned near the barricades, as a last
means Of defence, when the barrie
had been taken or had become unten-
able, in order to stop the progress of
the troops. Other buildings, near some
public cdi6ce, took fire acc identalv,
| against the intentions of those who had
fred it Chat public edifc,); o hers
G lin were e. ed by individuals induig-
irg their private or political vpr e ancc
III instance, some g eat Nag. Gins de
NOureduteS, whose owners had made
thrmseiv, obnoxious by their votes at
the last fatal pleblsctt. Of course,
there was also a parcel of mlscreants al
work, who tried 10 profit by the orpor
unity, but this much is sure: A plan Of
burning Paris by organic d petroleum
hands has not existed. Whether Auch
plan will not b. formed and executed
in future, | will not for~wear, after
what has happened in The last four
weeks"
/ thought it my duty to translate for
YOU the g"rattr pat of this letter, be- I
cause, as far as | know, it is the most
weighty evidence against tie SANDER.
ers of the Commune yet produced. I
The writer is not a common newspaper
corr espondent, whose principal aim j.
to create sensation and 10 please his /.
employers; he is man of tri. d prnbi-
~, who is known throughout Germany, |
and beyond our f,ontlers even (sOme I.
of his works on art are translated into /
foreign laDguages), and utterly unable
to swerve from the sIrctest truth. This /,
testimony Is all the more weighty be
cause be had to give it in the teeth of
his own pr judices against Socialism,
and more or less in opposition to his
Political fiends, all prtjudiced against
Soc alSm in general, and the Commune
in particular. He belongs 10 the So |