The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-08


These made show Of defense, and the
Guards refusing to fire upon citizens frater-
nized with the mob Officers who sought to
compel them to their duty were shot down and
butchered, and two old men, who had serve
the country in the Republican armv wer,
executed after sham trial by men without
knowledge of law or sense of Justice. In
the excitement of the hour the mob, rein
forced by the traitorous Guards, expelled
the Government officials, seized the public
places of the city, and instituted a govern
ment which they called that of the people,
but which was that of the mob. Its brief
rule has been one of bloodshed. II has filled
the prisons and depopulated the streets, COM
pellipg the hasty flight of two hundred thou
sand citizens. 1t has fred upon delegations
of loyal people with whom the National Guards
showed signs of fraternizing, and it has
marched against the loyal army guarding the
Assembly and shot down one Of its leaders
while expostulating with them and Offering
peace. Its members are inspired by no love
of liberty and order, but are intoxicated only
with the wish to rule. With them to be a
landlord is TO be a criminal; to be rich is to
deserve death. Blanqui, Flourens, Lullier,
and others of the committee are ignorant
men, who have known nothing of events
which have occurred outside of Paris for
several months past, and who, if they were
well informed on those points, are incapable
of appreciatipg the gravity of the crisis. It
is these who have demanded, as they had un-
doubted right to do, electoral laws for Paris
as democratic city and it is in this violent
and despotic way which we have described
that they have demanded it. While no one
will question the rights they claim, will any
approve their method of asserting them
The political situation in Paris is not with
out familiar parallel in other cities-New York
for instance. This metropolis is ruled by a
municipal government elected by violence
and fraud only little less fagrant and open
than that which now aims to control Paris.
If the "Reds" seek to inflict on their city
such officials as we in New York endure, they
deserve no sympathy from us, and not much
mercy at the hands of those whom they have
forced to take up arms. There is no compro-
missing with such mobs, whether in Paris or
New York; and blood-letting there seems to
be the only remedy. This, to all appearance,
is likely to follow their crimes, and, having
provoked it, there will be few to regret the
severity of the punishment.
1t is not little singular that the confusion
of mind into which ''Social Democrat has
been thrown by superficial study of the situa-
tion in Paris should be largely shared by
Americans and by American papers. The
same confusion led them into false sympathy
with the French when they forced the war
upon Germany. They are as much in the
wrong in sympathizipg with the Communists
who proclaim the republicanism they do not
understand as with the nation which called
itself the Republic of France aud continued
to commit the crimes of the Empire. The
Communists of Montmartre are rebels against
the Government of all France, not of Paris
merely; and their committee represents 9
mere faction of the capital, whereas the AS
sembly is the constituted authority of the
whole country.