Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1893-11-16
The KID FLAG.
CONTINUED.
To be continued.
.'HeadstrOng Liberty is Lashed With
Woe
CONTINUED.
To be continued.
Chapter WI.


IA dark and dreary New Year TO
many a severed household: the mothe
and the children afar, the father lionel!
IN Paris, not knowing if the Letter
which he writes daily TO the wife may
not be written to the dead-for it il
months since he has had tidings of wife
or child; and who can tell where the
angel Of death may have visited? 4
change had come over the great city
and the spirits of the people-brav(
still, bearing their burden gallantly
still crying their cry of NO Surren
derr' but gay and light of heart nC
longer, bowed down by the weight OF
! ever increasing wretchedness, pinched
! by the sharp pangs of hunger, en-
feebled by disease, tortured by the
bitter cold of a severe winter. which
! just now 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 pa
tienly three months, begins in bitter
earnest. and the thunder of the guns
shakes earth and sky. The Line the
,, Mobile, the National Guard, all do
their duty; but at best they can only
die bravely for a cause that has long
been lost. The commandment ceases
not day or night-nOw on this side,
now on that. In the trenches the men
suffer horribly. The snow falls on the
/ living and the dead. Every sortie re-
suits in heavy loss. The ambulances
oil full TO vo,.Hn o.I,,,
! the irresolute, the man of proclama-
tons, and manifestOs, has given place
to Nin0y; but what generalship can hold
Il beleagured city against those grim
captains Famine and Death?
The women bear their burden with a
quiet resignation which is among the
most heroic things in history. Day
after day, in the early winter dawn,
they stand in the dismal train of house
holders waiting for the allotted portion
of meat-a portion so scanty that it
seems bitterest irony to carry it home
to a hungry family. There they stand
ladies, servants, WOrkWOmen, from
the highest to the lOWest-buffeted by
the savage nOrth-eaSter, showed upon,
but divinely patient, each feeling that
in this silent suffering she contributes
her infinitesimal share of herOism to
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
IN Il
SakeS"
The little children are fading off
the face of this troubled scene. That
is the worst martyrdOm of all the
mothers. The little faces are growing
punched and haggard, the agile forms
are dropping, dropping, day by day.
The mother and fathers hope against
hope. In day or two the siege will
be raised; milk and bread, fuel, COM
fort, luxury, the joy and light of life,
will return to those desolate house
holds, and the 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
cheerless street.
At the butchers shops, at the bak-
cries, there the same dismal train waits
day after day. Everything is scarce.
Butter is forty-tive francs a pound;
the cOarseSt grease, rank fat, which
the servants would throw Into the
grease-tub ia times of plenty, is sold
| ~; 4
cheese is a thing beyond all price, and
is only bought by the rich. who wish
to offer costly present, like a bas-
ket on strawberries in February OF
peaches in March. Potatoes are
twenty five francs a bushel; cabbage
SIX francs; and garden-Stuff, which last
year one would have hardly offered
to the rabbits, is now the luxurious &C
compartment of the pOt-au-feu de che
val. There is no more gas for the
Street-lampS, and the once brilliant
Lutetia is a city of Zimmerman dark
ness. Bitterest scarcity Of all, fuel has
become prodigiouSly 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 low. Provisions al
siege prices have exhausted the purses
| Of middle-class citizens. Stocks have
been sold at terrible loss, capital has
been exhausted. Ruin and hunger stare
! in at the windows, and haunt the
snowy night-like spectres.
FOR tho moor tha STRUGGLE is still
sharper; but the poor are familiar with
/ the pinch of poverty, with the pangs
of self-denial And then, perhaps, there
is more done for the INDECENT IN this
day Of national calamity than was done
for them in the golden years Of pros
perity; albeit the Empire, whatever
its shortcomings, was not neglectfu
to the houseless and the hungry.
In all these troubled days-with sur
render and shame far away yonder a
Metz, with defeat on this side and OF
that, here a general slain and there
a gallant leader sacrificed, a little gail
one day only to be counterbalancet
by a greater loss the next, a threat
ened revolution, Flourens and his crew
Strutting. booted and spurred, on thu
tables in the Hotel de- Vile, little eX
p1osions of popular feeling at Belle
vile, semi-revolt at Montmartre-
through all this time of wild fears ant
wilder hopes the Red Flag has beer
boldly unfurled in the face Of Paris
and has managed to pay its contribu
tors. When bread and meat are 81