Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-12-29

w.fehcloves may not be written TO the dead
for IL Is mon.hs since he has had tldings 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 gailantly, still crying their cry of mo
surrender but gay and light of heart no
longer bowed down by the weight of ever
increasing wretchedness, pinched by tho
sharp pancs of hunger enfeebed 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 patiently
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 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-
rihly. The snow falls on the living and the
dead Every sortie results in heavy loss.
The ambulancas are all full to Overflowing.
Trochu, the irresolute, the man OF proclama-
lions and manfestoes, has given place to
Vinoy; but what generalship can hold q
beleaguered 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 householders waiting for the allot-
ted portion Of meat-a portion so scan<y
that it seems biterest irony to carry it home
TO hungry family. There they stand
ladies, servants, workwomen, from the high
est to the lowest-buifeted by the savage
nOrth-easter, showed upon, hailed upon,
shivering, pale, exhausted, but divnely pa
tient, each feeling that in this silent suffer-
Ing she contributes her iniinitesimal 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 off the 'ace
OF this troubled scene. That IS the worst
martydOm of all the mothers. The little
faces are growing pinched and haggard, the
fragile forms are dropping, dropping, day
by day. The mother and fathers hope
against hope. In 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 and hour
by hour, in the cold cherries street.
At the butcherS'-shops, at the bakeries,
there the same dismal train waits day after
day. Everything Is scarce. Butter In forty
five francs pound; the coarscst grease,
rank fat, which the servants would throw
into the grease-tub in times of plenty, is
sold for eighteen francs q POUND. Gruyere
cheese is q thing beyond all price, and Is
only bought by the rich, who wish 10 Offer
a costly present, like basket of strawber
ries in February OF peaches in March. Pota
toes are twenty-five francs n buShel; a cab
bage six francs; and garden-stuff, which
last year one would have hardly offered tC
the rabbits, is now the luxurious accompani
ment of the p0t-du-fcu dc chCUdL. There j:
no more gas for the Strc1t-lamps, and the
once brilliant Lutetia is city Of Cmmeriar
darkness. Bitterest scarcity OF all, fuel has
become prodigiously dear; and the poor ar,
! shivering, dying in their desOlate garrets
pinched and blue with the cold OF d hare
winter.
Even among the well-to-do classes fund,
are RAINING low. Provisions at Siege price:
have exhausted the purses of midde-cas,
citizens. Stocks have been sold at terribl,
loss, capital has been exhausted. Ruin anC
hunger stare In at the windows, and haun
the snowy night-like spectrcs.
For the poor the struggle is still sharper
but the poor are familiar with the pinch o.
poverty, with the pangs Of sclf-denial. AnC
! 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 prosperity; albeit the Empire Uhateve
its shortcomings, was not neglected. to the
houseless and the hungry.
TO BE CONTINUED.