The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1876-09-22

kles, rags and ulcers, due to the superincum-
bent weight of the upper social strata, have
always been adduced as evidences of their
depravity. "What an old hagp' exclaimed
the pious colonists of Salem as they stran-
gled an unprotected, lonely and destitute old
woman. So it is in Paris. Belleville and
Montemarte cannot fairly be expected to
abound in forms of ideal grace and beauty;
but the ragged blouse and weather-beaten,
SCARED and pinched faces of the denizens of
those quarters have cost thousands of them
an unlamented death and hateful reputa-
ton throughout Christendom. If it is al
legged that they and their unprincipled lead
ers desired to lay Paris in ashes. their very
faces are taken for conclusive a priori evil
dence of the charge. Even so good tempered
writer as Frances Anne Kemble in the Oc-
tober Atlantic draws brief pen picture of
the Commune which burns like fire and
whose sentences sting and bite like serpents-
No doubt, therefore, many otherwise well
informed persons will be surprised to learn
that, excluding the column in the Place
Vendome only twenty-four public and private
buildings were destroyed by the insurgents,
evey one of them in strategic points and
nearly every one of them sacrificed after the
Versailles forces had entered the city and
were giving material form and substance to
the metaphorical "rivers of blood" whose
origin the popular accounts had ascribed to
the blood-thirsty Commune. The petroleuse
has been found after the wanton slaughter of
many women, who at worst were only uiran.
dieres, to be myth-as arbitrarily created
parsonage as the witch, banshee or fury.
"But the column Vendome?" After the
fall of the column Bergeret mounted on the
pedestal ard said: "Thus we triumph over
despotism-that bloody negation of the rights
OF man." They destroyed it, not so much as
monument of the first Empire as OF war.
Thoroughly imbued with communistic theo-
ries and especially with the views of the Iu-
ternational Workingmen's Association, they
held out the olive branch to all the nations
with which the royal dynasties of France had
selfishly involved the country in constantly
recurring wars. Their famous cry of 'Lib-
erty, Fraternity and Equality" had more
than local range-it embraced the world.
"And the murder of the hostages ?'' Let
this historicalS fact be remembered. The
troops of the Assembly had FROM the first
shown the captured insurgents no mercy.
From the volume of Fetridge, historian Bit
terly hostile to the Commune and its ideas,
to say nothing of the more emphatic state
ments of the Communists and their sympa-
thizers, it appears that men aud women alike
were massacred on the slightest occasion.
On the other hand the insurgents killed not
single disarmed man until MacMahon had
been four days in the city and had all the
while permitted his troops to ply without re-
straint their new avocation OF human butch
ers. can incalculable number of insurgents
were slain," says Fetridge. Under these cir
cumstances the hostages were executed-a
deed inexcusable, to be sure, but neverthe.
less an act of extreme moderation compared
with the indscriminste slaughter of Paris
ians on all occasions by the Versailles troops.
Nor did the savage fury of the latter aba.e
when after mighty struggle Paris was SUBJ
dued. The quagmire of Satory held thirty
thousand captives, many of them women and
children, exposed for the most part TO the in
c'emency of the weather, and in condition
OF destitution and discomfort equal to the
horrors of our own Andersonville. Here on
the slightest evidence of imprudence or insub-
ornation they were shot down in cold blood.
Here women were seen goaded on by the
bayonets of soldiers; and here, after sum-
mary trial, great numbers were taken out
and shot. Those who were so fortunate as
to secure more careful hearing were con.
demned in thousands to what is the practical
capital punishment of Punishment to French
Guiana
This is the Communist side of the case,
and if it is strongly stated, it is small recon-
pense for the monstrous exaggerations which
for years have given public feeling wrong
direction, and made the name of those French
agitators whose political ideas are most in
harmony with our own Democratic institu-
tions, name of terror and reproach. Mis-
guided and often remorseless in their enthu.
siasm, it is nevertheless true that the Com
munists make universal benevolence end co.
operation, not only between individuals but
between peoples, the basis of all their theo-
ries and their acts. And when so noble and
venerable character as Victor Hugo asks
mercy for men actuated by such motives, the
American people should give at least justice.