Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1890-06-07
CHATTER VII.
''HEADsTRoSG LIBERTY is LASTED WITH
WOE

ing II the letter which he writes daily TO the
wife he loves may notbe written TO the dead
for Il IL months since he has had tidings Of
wife or child; and who can tell where the
angel Of death may have visited? A change
had come over the great city and the spirits
of the people-brave still, bearing their bur-
den calamity, still crying their cry of NO
surrender" but gay and light of heart no
longer, bowed down by the weight of ever
increasing Indebtedness, pinched by the
sharp pans OF hunger, enfeebled by
disease, tortured by the bitter cold Of a
severe winter, which just nov Is the hardest
trial Of all. And now, in these dark DAYS
after Christmas, the ice Is broken, the Siege,
for which Paris has been waiting patiently
three months, begins in bitter earnest, and
the thunder Of the guns shakes earth and
sky. The me, the Mobile, the National
Guard, all do their duty; but at best they
can only die bravery for a cause that has
long been lost. The bombardment ceases
not day or night now on this side, now On
that, In the trenches the men suffer hor-
ribly. The snow falls on the living and the
dead. Every sortie results in heavy loss.
The ambulancss are all full to OVERLOOKING.
Trochu, the irrcsolute, the man OF proclama-
VII Abd htAHlttNEAffNs bNb XVIII paw w
Vinoy; but what generalship can hold a
bhleaguered city against those grim captains
Famine ead Death?
The woncn b,artleir burden with a quiet
resignation wiirh Is among the most heroic
things in hs'ory. Day after day, In the
early whit T dawn, they stand in the dismal
train Of housclo!ders waiting for the allot-
ted portion e meat-a portion so scanty
that il seems b~ittarcst irony tocarTy it home
10 a hungry family. There they stand
ladies, servants, work women, from the high
est 10 tie lowest-5uleted by the savage
north-eaSter, showed uNon. hailed upon,
shiyerlns. pale, exhausted, but divinely pa
tent, each feeling that In this silent suffer
ing she contributes her infinitesimal share
OF heroism 10 the defense OF her country.
So long as her rulers will hold out, so long
as her soldiers will fight and die, so long
will the women of France submit and suffer.
Their voices will never be Joined In the cry,
Surrender for our sakes."
The little children are fading of the face
of this troubled scene. That Is the worst
martydom OF all the mothers. The little
faces are growing p.nched and haggard, the
fragile forms are dropping, dropping, day
by day. The mother and fathers hope
against hope. In a day or two the siege will
lie raised; milk and bread, fuel, comfort,
luxury, the Joy and light of life, will return
tothose desolate households ;andthe dropping
children will revive and grow strong again.
And, while the mothers hope, the little ones
are dying, and the little collins are seen, in
mournful professions, day by day aud hour
by hour, in the cold cherries street.
At the butchers-sllops, at the bakeries,
there the same dismal train waits day after
day. Everything Is scarce. Butter is forty
five francs a pound; the coarsest grease,
rank fat. which the servants would throw
int the grease-tuD IN INES or plenty, Is
sold for eighteen francs a pound. Gruyere
cheese il 4 thing beyond AL price, and is
only bought by The rich, who wish 10 offer
q costly present, like a basket Of strawber-
riesh February or peaches in March. Pota-
toes are twenty five francs a bushel; a cab
bage six francs; and garden-stuff, which
last year one would have hardly offered TO
the rabbits, is now the luxurious a%ccompani-
ment Of the pOt-du-feu de cherdL. There is
no more gas for the street-.amps, n the
| once brilliant Lutetia Isl city Of Zimmerman
darkness. Bltterest scarcity of all, fuel has
become pTodigiously dear; and the poor are
| shiyering, dying In their desolate garrets,
| pinched and blue with the cold OF a hard
winter.
Even among the well-to-do classes funds
are running Iow. Provisions at siege prices
have cxhaus ted the purses of middle-class
citizens. Stocks have been sold at aterrlble
loss, capital has been exhausted. Ruin and
hunger stare in at The windows, and haunt
| the snowy night-like spectres.
- A. ,-.-,. AZ ztfIf charnar.
but the poor are familiar with the pinch OF
poverty, with the pangs of self-deniai. And
| then, perhaps, there is more done for the
INDECENT in this day Of national calamity
than was done for them n the golden years
OF prosperity; albeit the Emplre, wnatvseI
It's shortcomings, was not neglectful 10 the
houseless and the hungry.
In all these troubled days-with surren'
der and shame far away yonder at Metz,
with defeat on this side and on that, here
general slain and there a gallant leader
sacrificed, a little gain one day only to be
co~unterbalanced by a greater loss the next
A threatened revolU, ion, Flourens II bis
crew strutting, booted and spurred, on the
tables In the Hotel je Vile, little explosion:
of popular feeling az Belleville, semi-revol
at Montmartre-thrJu ugh all this time o.
wild fears and wilder hopes the Red Fla!
| has been boldly unturled In the face o.
Paris, and has managed to pay its contribu
tors. When bread and meat are so dear
who would stint himself OF his fayorit,
newspaper, In which, for two sous, he ma!
read words that burn like vitriOl, sentences
that sound like the Kissing Of vinegar fiunl
upon white-hot ironr The Red Flag find:
some pretty strong language for the expires
sion Of its opinions about William, and
| Bismarck, and Moltke, and the hordes o1
black helmets yonder; but this language 1:
mild as compared with the venom which Il
spits upon the Empire that Is vanished-tht
Mar of Sedan, the Mar Of Metz, the En-
peror who surrendered Empire and army
all that could be surrendered-in the hrs
hour of reverse; the general who kept TIM
flower of the French army locked up within
the walls of a ~beleaguered city, tied HAND
and foot, when they pining to be up and do
Ing, hungering for the fray, eager to films
themselves into the teeth Of the foe, to Gu
their way to liberty or TO death, only U
hand them over ~ the enemy like a flock o.
sheep when he found that his imperialis
game was played out, and the stakes los
irretrleyably.
At last came that which seemed thu
browning humiliation, a capitulation which
TO the soul Of the patriots. was more shame
full than that of Sedan, more irreparablt
than Strasburg, more fatal than Metz. Pari'
surrendered her forts, and opened her gates
to the invader; France gave up her prov
inces, and pledged herself to the payment
Of a monstrous indemnity. The flag Of thu
Germanic Confederation floated above Mon
Valerien, and the Guard Of the Emperor 8
Germany defled along the Avenue of thu
Grand Arnee to encamp In the Champs
Eiysees. Dark and mournful wa the aspec
of Paris on that Observation-Disclosures day
The populacc held themselves aloof from
the region occupied by the invaders, as from
the scene Of Z pestilencc. Those who came
as captors were as prisoners In the conquer
ed city. The theatres were closed, AND
Paris mourned In gloom and silence for thu
ruin Of France. And on the morning of de
partnre. when, after ar occupation OF onl,
twenty-f0ur hours, the barbarous fiooi
swept back. the Partisan gunstn was seer
pursuing the ~rear-guard Of Williams sol
diery, burning perfumes IN red-hot shovels
a. II TO purify the air after the passage Of
some l0athsomc beast.
Unhappily for Paris there were wors'
enemies than William ~ ~ souareAssdI