The morning news., 1899-01-18

dred yards of the roadway on one side
of Fleet street. while the police reports
and the weekly returns of the building
inspectors are said to furnish sensational
reading with regard to the large number of
big edifces In the city, and mansions both
great and small in the residential dis
tricts, that show cracked walls that are
totterlng, or that are actually wrecked
by the subsistence of the ground.
curious feature about the whole af-
fair is that, in spite of all these burrow-
| ings no one seems to possess any definite
| knowledge as TO their extent. and Il would
| appear that they are. so to speak unchart-
| ed. For ii, was only ten years ago that
general mazement was caused by the
chance discovery that a gigantic metro
| politan sewer passed right under Bucking
nam Palace. and that il was so imperfect
| ly constructed as to have impre gnated the
entire subsoil of this the Queens London
| residence, with sewage, circumstance
| which served to account for the fact that
| her majesty invariably complained of feel
| ing i'll after spending more than twenty
four hours in this palace. That huge
sewer of this kind should have existed
| right under the palace within a few feet
of the floors of the royal cellars without
anyone being aware of its presence there
speaks volumes for the happy go-lucky
| methods that govern the subterranean por-
tons OF the British metropolis.
The same ignorance prevails with re-
gard TO the underground portion of Paris,
for which, however, there is more excuse
than in the case Of the English metropo-
lis. For the subterranean part Of the
Galhc capital is of ancient origin and
many centuries old. True, the state
maintains an engineer, who bears the
title of Inspector General" of this Plu-
tonian region. and he has at his disposal
liberal resources, as wei as a large staff
for the purpose of snoring up wherever
the surface shows signs of subsistence.
But he is obliged to wait for these mani
| festauons as no plan or chart Of sub
| terranean Paris is in existence, and a
large portion thereof, at any rate, Is as
| yet uneXplored.
1t is asserted that more than a third, in
| deed nearly one-haIf of Paris, is underrun
| by the quarries out of which the stone that
| went to buiId the city in ancient times was
| extracted. These underground passages and
| tunnels bear the name of catDcombs. but
were not originally intended as such. In
deed, it was only at the close of the last
| century that the government conceived the
| idea of converting a portion of these tun-
| nels In the stone to sepul-
| chral uses, and from 1886 until
the end of the revolution ala the
| bones of the dead were collected from the
| various churches and cemeteries of Paris.
where they had been accumuiating for CEN
| turies, and were deposited in these vaults
! 1t is calculated that the remains of over
! S,0OOOOO human beings were thus disposed
| OF, the bones, as a rufe, being laid closely
! in order, with their ends outward while
| al regular intervals skulls are interspersed
| an ranges so as TO present alternate rows
of the back and front part of the heads
The portion of underground Paris devoted
| TO these relics of humanity is known Of
! hcially as the "ossuaire municipaF'-the
| municipal bonery-and strictly speaking
il is only this part that should be known
as the catacombs. But it forms a relative
| ly small portion of the entire maze beneath
| the surface of Paris, which is TO such an
! extent undermined that the city may al
most be said 10 be built on pillars and but
tresses, rather than on solid ground.
As just stated, no one knows the extent
/ of underground Paris Tunnels and sub
ways the presence of which had been un-
! suspected, are constantly being found. and
| it is no exaggeratiOn to state that Il is
| almost impossible TO make any excavation
! along streets built before the present CEN
| tuTy without finding subterranean pass-
ages and vaults. OF the advantages which
| all the latter offer TO the criminal classes
! it Is hardly necessary to speak and MANY
a robbery has been perpetrated by burg
lars making their way into the cellars
! through tunnels the existence Of which
! was ignored by the owner of the house.
! 1t is with the object of protecting the
! Bank of France from burglaries oc this
| kind that the institution has been provided
| with most ingenious system of tanks.
! which would have the effect of discharginr
/ an enormous volume of water into nnv tun
mel thieves might endeavor to bore from
the secret subways beneath the city into
the vaults of the bank. The disappearance
of the water from the tank has the effect
of starting off a burglar alarm
AT the close of the commune a number
of the insurgents are known to have
sought refuge in this underground portion
of Paris, and, owing to the absence of any
charts or plans, the authorities were soon
obliged 10 give up the search 1t is under
stood that the majority of the fugitives
got lost below ground and starved to death.
although some are known to have escaped.
But even to this day the so-caUed cata-
combs or carriers afford a hiding place
for the criminal classes, where they are
relatively safe from intrusion on the part
of khe police, who only venture into the
outer galleries, and do not attempt to in
volye themselves in the maze of passages
| and subways, which remain to them terra
incognita. Occasionally when the Siene
| floods us banks there are sudden and mys-
| tcf.OuS efuPtiOnS OF water into these tun-
nels. and, as was shown by the destruc-
tion of the Champeeux restaurant the 9th
or day, gas escaping from leaks in the. big
! mains sometimes accumulates in the SUBJ
| ways and eApiodes.
Rome is another city honeycombed ike
| Paris with subterranean passages, which.
| according to st. Jerome, were in existence
! already in the earliest period of the Chris
tian era, but which have closed up and
| forgotten for hundreds of years. until. in
! the seventeenth century, their existence
! was unexpectedly brought to light by ex-
! cavation. There, too, they are uncharted
| and 10 one knows their extent, the onicial
| figures Of the mileage of these underground
| passages varying from 300 TO 900 miles. And
| as if this were moi sufficient in the wav of
! honeycombing the Eternal City. the Ro-
| man municipality has just begun The CON
| struction of a long tunnel which is to CON
! meet the Old city with the new. passino,
right under the quirinal palace
There is something distinctly uncannv
in the ignorance which prevails in paris
! Rome and other cities of Europe with ro-
/ ,,ard 10 the SUDterra nortt,u..