The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1879-09-20

/ Thus, in the blue waters Of the ancient
o Portus Vonerls, dld the transport Var cast
a anchor on Monday morning. Late on the
previous evening she had been sighted by
the crews Of some fishing vessels; the news
of her coming rapidly spread; and, SO 500"
as the huge vessel entered the harbor, she
was surrounded by fotilla of boats. The
Var was Immediately boarded by the au-
thorities of the port and the Custom House
officers; and it is stated that much kindness
, was shown by usually stern "douaniers' to-
wards the ex-convicts, who were allowed 10
keep Sundry little articles on which Gus
toms duties might have been demanded
None Of the Communists, political or
otherwise, were suffered on board the Var;
but, in the course of the afternoon, four
hundred and ten banishec Frenchmcn once
more set foot on the "bclle ct bonnie terrc de
France" There was presumably proper
ton of ultra-dcmocrats among the towns
people of Port Vensres, the fishermen, and
the Spanish 'arrieros" who had come
down by the mule-path from
LAMA, in Catalonia, TO Col dc Ban
yuls; and some cries of "Vive la Republi-
que" were raised as the poor people who
have suffered so much were landed; but the
Communists, it is said, did not respond to
the cry. Their first care was to eat the pro-
visions which had been collected for them
| by sympathizing friends; the next was to
hurry away to the railway station.
\ wcll-fed, prosperous Paris artisan OF
Twenty-Five was but boy Of twelve when
the madness of the Commune raged-may.
f gazing upon some gaunt, weary wori'
phantom-looking exile, newly landed from
the Var, murmur to himself, Us lie women
OF Ravenna used to murmur as they watched
the awful form, Of Dante Alighicri stalking
by, There goes the man who has seen hell"
, The Commune of 1871 was, it is undenia-
I bic, guilty and disastrous frenzy. Tie
number of the hostages, the destruction Of
the public buildings, were tremendous
crimes, which posterity will justly regard
with horror and Indignation; but if bygones
are ever allowed to be bygones, the only
estimate with which the unfortunate men
who have Just been restored to their native
land should be regarded must be feeling
of commiseration. There may be proftssed
anarchists, incorrigible conspirators, nay,
desperately wicked men among them: but
the bulk of their number are most sincerely
to be pitied. Some Of them possibly were
not guiltess of acts of incendiarism or free
booting. The criminality of the Others did
not 20 beyond implication 70 greater or
smaller extent in revolutionary outbreak.
Their lot, if they escaped defamation at the
hands of such Generals as the Marquis de
Galhfet, was to be driven in droves, like
cattle, tethered together byropes, and urged
on by the butt-ends of muskets along
dusty-road, aud under burning sun, from
Paris to Versailles. There they were thrust
by hundreds together into the great bui.d-
ings of the Orangery. Hunger, thirst, "a.
tigue, and mental excitement reduced many
OF their number to the condition of wild
beasts and the story OF the "Fossc aux
Lions at the Orangery, could 1t ever be
faithfully narrated might equal in intensity
of horror the record Of the Black Hole #
. Calcutta. Then, for such OF tn,
convicted Communists who escaped the FL.
sillades Of the plain of Satory, came
the dreary journey in cellular vans to the
ports Of cmbarkation, the weeks Of Slow
agony passed in the classmates Of Mont st.
, Michel or Fort Lamalguc, the months Of
wretched monotony and discomfort in the
cages placed tween decks of the convict
, ships which bore them to Noumca. They
may not have been quite so sayaccly
treated in their captivity as the most ire
concilabe eXi,ed Communists would have
G us believe; but it is unQucstonable that
c they were at one period subjected to
4 rigorous discipline; and that the very cir.
a cumstance of Their detention cntailcd on
- them an amount Of physical and mental
+ anguish which may fairly be accepted as
G adequate retribution for the crimes, or the
I follics OF which they may have been guilty
c Other transports full of pardoned Com
= munists are shortly expected in France
h The Picardic, the CalvadoS, and yet a third
i | yroat SHIN are COMING MI Laden with