The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-28
PARIS UNDER FIRE.
Fearful scenes In the Streets.

The special correspondent of the Daily Ne,os
in Paris, in letter of the Sth, says there can
be no doubt of the resolution of the people to
resist to the last
They will resist far longer than any one
could have supposed. When / last wrote to
you on this subject ] stated that Paris could
hold out certainly to the Let of February, and
probably for q longer period. But | think |
may now say with tolerable certainty that Paris
is good for the 1st of March. 1t is beyond all
expectation, and | confess am surprized; but
it is 40 more than members of the Government
have again and again predicted in my hearing
for many weeks past.
'The bombardment still goes on, but with an
effect, moral and physical, so small that any
description of it would sound almost like
bravado. That there have been deaths, and that
there has been destruction, it is impossible to
deny; and death and destruction are always
terrible to witness. But for the object which
the Prussians have in view the prodigious can
nonade with which Paris has been visited might
as well have been salvo of champagne bottles.
The only practical result of the bombardment
which | can find is one jest the more for the
little boys of Paris. When they see man or a
woman particularly well dressed-say n mlu
glorious in furs that argue an extraordinary care
of his person-they cry out 'fat, fat shell a
shell, plat Ventre! Down on your faces The
man, gorgeous in fur, falls fiat on the ground
perhaps in the gutter-and the Parisian urchin
rejoices with exceeding great joy.
The Prussian shells have burst upon the gar
dens of the Luxembourg, upon the Invaldes,
upon the Observatory, upon the boulevard and
street which take their name from the hottest
of all hot places-the Boulevard d'Enfer. But
most of all they seem TO converge upon the
Pantheon, for it appears that the Prussans
have an idea that here is a powder magazine.
There is not grain of powder in the Pan
theon-onl " hundreds of women and scores of
men praying to Sainte Genevieve to save
Paris-though the blessed virgin of Nan
terre seems TO hear them not. This quar-
ter OF the town begins to be deserted, for it is
dangerous. cantniere is in her bed, sound
asleep, and dreaming doubtless of her gallant
regiment; a shell kills her in her sleep. dozen
people are drinking at cabaret; a shell comes
to scatter them. A mother is sitting at her table
with her two daughters; a shell smashes into the
room, but does them no harm. In house hard
by 1t bursts on two babies in their cradles; the
mother rushes in terror-stricken, and swoOns
with Joy to find that her babes are unhurt.
In one OF the houses some soldiers are cook
ing their dinner; shell comes tumbling into
the pot, and the dinner is disspated, but the
eoldiers are untouched. In another house a cele-
brated painter is working at his easel shell
plunges into his studio destroys his pictures but
does him no bodily HARM cab joys along the
streets in the lazy fashion peculiar to French
cabs. 1t contains two ladies, and if the coach
man had been little more active it need not
now be recorded that one was killed and the
other only frightened. Frightened! People
may well be frightened at such personal expe-
riences; but Paris, nevertheless, is compare
lively Indifferent, and the psychological moment
is not come, nor is it at hand. So much life has
been DESTROYED that few lives more or less
can make no great differences and so much
property-valuable property-has suffered de-
struction around Paris that more waste and de-
structicn can produce little effect. We have
become seasoned to suffering-hardened.