The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1871-08-09
Among the Communists.

We make the following extracts from private
letter. dated Paris, June 18th, written to gentleman
in this city:
wrote You word Immediately after the taking
of Paris by the French to let you know that for
tunately was not numbered among the forty or fifty
thousand poor wreches who made their last account
during that black week. By this time, of course,
you are familiar enough with the scenes that took
place here at that time; so it would be useless for
me to repeat them to you. Fortuuately-or unfor-
tunately, ought to say 81 saw great deal of the
fighting. By accident, King and l, and an English
man named PonsonbY, spent Sunday night (the night
Of the entry at the house of Major Hitchcock, in
the Boulevard Malesherbes. When we awoke on
Monday morning the Communists were building a
barrcade across the Boulevard Immediately beneath
our windows, and at 10 o'clock the fight there
began. Luckily, the family of Major Hitchcock had
gone TO Italy few days before, and so we had the
entire house TO ourselves. From the upper window
(fth story,) we could overlook large part of the
battlefield. The fight commenced at 10 o'clock on
Monday morning, May 22d, at the Malesherbes Bar
rcade, and ended by its capture at o'clock on
Tuesday afternoon. Our barricade was the key to
the whole central position, and when it was carried
the last faint hope of the Insurgents was gone 1t
was situated only 200 yards from the great barricade
in the Rue Royale and the loss Of the one was the
loss of the other. 1t just at this tme-5 P. NJ,
on Tuesday-that the Communists set the first fire
in the Rue Boissy d. Anglas, which you will remem-
Der is narrow street just west Of and running par
allel with the Rue Royae Fire was then set in this
last named street. and during the night all along the
Rue de Rivol, in the Tuieres, etc, the line of
retreat
We had some pretty narrow escapes during those
two days. Twenty-Five bullets struck the facade of
the story in which we were stationed, and bomb
shell carried away large part of the corniee. In
our front room almost every window was pierced by
chassepot balls, the mirror was smashed, and the
furniture badly damaged OF course we had to
conceal the fact of presence in the house from
both combatants till the struggle was decided. If
the house had been occupied during the fight by
either side, We should all, very possibly, have been
shot at once as belonging TO the other All during
the week, too shells were falling everywhere, many
people were killed or wounded, and many Others
had miraculous escapes.
see by the American newspapers that they are
with them, of course The American public are very
badly instructed in regard TO this second great
French Revolution do not desire to go into long
defense Of the Commune. only beg that you viii
reserve your judgment till its story is fairly told.
have studied it with care for two months. came
to Paris as strongly preudced against it as any one
could be. saw reasons to modify my views. 1t was
a blind, spasmodic, natural movement this revolu-
ton of II You will find the solution of it, not in
politics. not in religion, not in any chimeric princ
pie or Utopian ideal You viii find it In hunger 1t
was simply the old struggle over again-the protest
of the unfed against the wellfed and it will keep
coming up and coming up, until it is settled the
right way They callf the men of the Commune
cdHdille My dear - the salt of this earth always
has been, and always will be, the cdndlle. 1t was
the cGadile Of the old Hebrew arstocracy-the fish
ermen and carpenters, and the like of such-that
started the revolution of revolutions eighteen hun
dred years ago Happened to know personally some
of the men of the Commune, among them Dom
browsi aud O'Kologowick-the two best soldiers
in the movement-and know that they were by no
means the fends and scoundrels they have been rep
resented to be- You will not misunderstood what
have said Don't think that uphold the murder
ibg of innocent persons, the sackng of churches,
the making of forced loans, the burning of public
and private property. Politically speaking, the
Commune was mistake and a crime from the out
set But let rue not forget for instant that there
are things in this world immeasurably above all
politics. "-Erehdnge.