Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-02-03
Paris During the Hombardmeu,.

The following letter, dated January 9Th, from
the Paris correspondent of the Cincinnati Ga
zette, dispels some of the illusions that have
been carefully cherished. This correspondent,
though something of cynic, evidently sees and
thinks for himself and is not blinded by official
proclamations or sentimental theories
We have bran new sensation. Some of the
Krupp shells overshot their mark, which is the
ramparts, and fell into the city proper. One felt
to-day about two miles inside the ramparts and
TO do it the poetical justice it deserves, 1t tell
bang into bogus ambulance. You must know
that all over our beautiful and forlorn capital
there are fine houses, closed and covered all over
with devices for deceiving the easily deceived.
From the top floats the flag Of the Geneva con-
vention, and over the door there reads the word
Ambulance" in prodigiouS capitals. Well, to-
day, at about four O'Clock in the morning, there
came crashing down through the roof of one of
these counterfeit hospitals, and scattering the
glass all over Rue du Bac one Of tire monstrous
missiles which are now being yomted upon us
from the mouths of Krunp'S guns. Butanother
OF them barely escaped the roof of convent or
a religious house of the convent kind, where as
the sweet-taced superior told us, women 20 for
little while to "get out Of the world" 1t
| would not be a poetical joke for Krupp shell
| to break in upon that quiet retreat Quiet it
| is-fascinatingly SO. We paused moment in
| the pretty chapel, where not a sound of the
| cannonade could reach us. Two tall candles
| burned, one on either side Of the neat altar,
| while in front of it there hung suspended from
the ceiling little lamp whose red flame seemed
constantly to symbolic the fallen country. In
the hospital department all was tidy and sweet
| and all was quiet there, too. A Sister glided
| noseles5ly from bed to bed, the crisp white bon
net bent here and there over the pillow, a great
| contrast 10 the bosterous attentions and heart
less silence 90 conspicuous in the public ambu-
| lances. If ! am wounded, and shall have
strength enough for the purpose, shall pray the
Lord and the iolk lads who pick me up to de-
liver me from the public amhulances whether
military or civil. They are conducted on the
most frolicsome principles. You never saw
more diverted and delighted lot of phanthro-
pists than those who receive and load the man.
gled wretches on the days of our magnificent
sortics. No sboddy tourists who "profane the
austere grandeur of the Alps and no gorgeous
man las who fish in every European resort for
suitable sons-in-law, could find more exhilara-
ton in their employment than do we in the
Geneva regimentals ON the battleields before
Paris, Or we who, in the uniform of surgeons,
whet our knives and our wits over a compound
fracture" BY the way the wounded continue
to slip through the human fingers Of both nurse
and surgeon with accelerated rapidly. You see
funeral after funeral all day long. Stepinto any
church at any hour, and you will find two, three
or four collins waiting for the service of chant,
censor and water. The hideous black hcarse,
with its hideous black pail bearers with tall
glazed hats, is continually coming out of the
Grande hotel, where contagion, infection and
death hold perpetual carnival. What a change
from last summers swarm of Americans.
see the grateful prohibition against them still
deCorates the cafe door. They are forbidden to
hang about those precincts where now there is q
tremendous pile of tremendous tree butts being
transformed into stove wood. Instead of the
high, shrill, nasal profanity echoing to the glass
roof, nothing is to be heard in all that region OF
rooms and halls and expensive dinner tables
save the means of the victims of unsuccessful
science. Alas for the swell American and his
economical little wife when he shall put up al
Grande after the siege to find himself paying, in
addition TO the neat hotel bill, a doctors ditto
: Of no less pretensiuns. Twill be charming
5 doubtless, to be afflicted with as many diseases
r in your bedroom as Of courses in the dining
: room. But twill be an opportunity, neverthc-
a less, for an American sympathizer with "poor
france to perish on the same mattress where
3 upon gallant mobile breathed bis last in the
pntrld embrace OF the malignant smallpox.
c But upon my word this is no way to talk
r, about our 'bomhardment." The official report
! says the bombardment has commenced. Tho
o enemy, tired Of investment and exhausted oil
n patience, has begun TO point his guns upon
u houses. Now, | have watched this lombard
II ment by the hour for several days, and | have
n no reason to believe that one of these shells was
&c Intentionally thrown into the city proper. They
L were evidently aimed at the ramparts, and 4
+ large majority Of those which 90 beyond do MOI