The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-21

recent cataStrOpnes at HarlS moro cleatiy pears
the marks of an ungovernable mental and
moral epidemic than did the mutual rage of the
combatants in the long religious wars of
the Reformation. Germans and Elemings,
Spaniards and Walloons, Bohemians and
Frenchmen, alike in those times proved
themselves capable of gusts of barbarous
rage only comparable to the undermining of
the Malays, or to those ancient fits of Ber-
serk madness in which the Scandinavians
recognized power above man, and by man
as irresistible as the tornado is irresistible by
the trees of the forest. If we come nearer
our own days we find the Puritans of New
England in their persecution OF witchcraft
possessed with q contagious madness which
led to results as cruel and
as bloodthirsty, all things considered
as the worst deeds of the Commune. The
murder of Archbishop Darboy and his
innocent companions, horrible and detestable
as it was, was not more horrible and detest-
able than the murder of Giles Corey. And if
any Englishman imagines his own country
men to be incapable of abandoning them
selves under certain provocations to excesses
as awful as those of the Commune, he will do
well to open Charles Dickens novel of "Bar-
naby Rudge," and to peruse therein the
authors story of that ferocious outbreak
against the Catholics which under the lead of
crazy Lord George Gordon threatened Lon
don with destruction and the empire with
anarchy for several days, no longer ago than
in the year 1888.
Granted the existence of such thing as
epidemic madness, is it easy 20 conceive of
circumstances more likely to generate it than
those through which Paris has passed during
the last twelve months?
Here was q city which had grown up during
twenty years of peace and prosperity to con-
slider itself and to be considered by others
the capital of civilization. That it was the
most beautiful city the world had ever seen
was conceded on all hands. The pride of its
Inhabitants had been raised to the highest
pitch by the admiration and homage of the
whole of Christendom. They believed them
selves, and they had much excuse for believ-
| ing themselves the flower of a nation re-
| garded as the first military power of the
world. One after another the sovereigns
of Europe had visited them. The Sui
tan himself had emerged from the awful
mystery of the Ottoman power to pay his
tribute in person to the prestige of the
| glory of France and of Paris. In day, al
most in an hour, all this fabric of splendor
and of reputation was blown to atoms by the
artillery of Germany. The siege of Paris by
people of Paris like some monstrous
dream or nightmare. But while the
possibility of such a reverse acted
upon their minds like a possession, the
actual material sufferings inflicted by it ag-
| gravated the disorder. Men were suddenly
and violently thrown out of their ordinary
| habits and relations in life, out of their GUS
tomary processes of thought, out of their
| daily diet even and walk and conversation.
1t is not easy for us to estimate the demoraliz-
ing effects upon great metropolitan popula-
| tion of sudden isolation from all its habi-
tual communication with the outer world
The siege of Paris, as it were, threw two mil
lions of people suddenly and violently back
| out of modern life into the middle ages.
| Perhaps New York or London might bear
such shock as this better than Paris did.
But we should be 10th to see either city sub
| jected to the experiment.
After the siege had ended in peace utterly
crushing and humiliating to all that Paris
felt and believed of herself, and of France,
there came upon the unhappy city a series
of governmental shocks and jars, mainly re-
sulting from the incredible weakness and
unworthiness of the official authorities of the
nation. These ended finally, as we know, in
the incoherent and immature enterprise of a
most startling social and political experiment;
and this again, after fresh siege entailing
new disasters, public and private, ended in
the horrors of an armed capture of the
capital.
That the elimination of all these trials
should for time have unhinged the judg-
ment, the moral sense, the courage, and the
character of the community is surely neithe,
surprising in itself, nor need it hastily COM
pei the conclusion that nothing is to be
hoped hereafter, in calmer circumstances and
under more propitious influences, of the com
munity SO smitten and shaken asunder.
wANTED-A DEMOCRATIC GRIEVANCE
From the NJ Y. Times.