The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1871-01-28 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

WAITING FOR THE NEWS.  Tte Daily Nee,' 4 qrtspowlent went out to see the recent battle before rails, and glvee the following account if fete !Cum : .  I went nut early to see what WA3 to be seen, but I was suffering from a Revere attack of influenza. The day was damp and cold ; there was a fog which made it difficult to Ste anything ; and, after finding that the French had made god way, end that acre was a lull . . - .  in the battle, I re-tunrned to Viten. I suppose I was about the first to return from the firld. As I entered by the Porte Maillot there was a moat wonderful sight. A dense crowd—perhaps 2,ooo—men, women, and children, waiting wiih dread aexiety for news. They ci uld see nothing, standing as they did for the moat part behind tee drawbridge, but they listened to every shot that was tired, and looked hard for any one c endng from the field. I was sloe at torn to pieces. They ett upon me with terrible eagt rn era. "What news? How goes the battle ? Do you know anything of the 12fted of the National Guards? How many guns did they find at Montre. tout ? " Of course I could tell them very little. I had only seen little bits of the battle. But ore thing I could tell them—and perhaps it was thoughtless of me tohave let it out—that whereaa so far the troops had been successful, Paris must he prepared for many killed and wouceled. The number of wounded was very great. It was the Prusaian inniketry tire that did most semithin. The artillery was comparatively harmless. The Prussian gnaw ra tire with a beautiful reaularity, whigh, is, however, little serviceable. If you marked where a shell fell, you were pretty sure to note that every twenty seconds other shells would fall in the same place, or thereabouts, 1 with the mechanical regularity of a steam haulm. r. Beware of that particular spot, and you were corm paratively safe. It was, I have said, the musketry that did most execntion, and its affect WA% murderous. In the rear of the battle the sight of the ambulance carriages and the stretcher.beartrs leading up to them was to be compared only to the precints r f the Italian Opera in London on a grand night, whirr you sae long lines of carriages, corner lines three deep, writing to carry home the ttcy assemblage. If any of your readers go to the Opera after reading this letter, let them imagine, loot, ad of neat broughams and capacious carriages filled with bright•eyed beauties, long tiles of stretchers three deep, each containing &wounded man groaning, and bleeding, and blanched of feature, and each b irue elf tenderly by two men, one at the head and the other at the foot. My imagination fu lof this terrible sight, I told the people as I entered the wells of Paris that there we re many wouoded. They were greatly agitated ; and then came the women round me, anxious to know of their kindred. One bad a son in this regiment of the Natii mai Guards, another o husband, a third a brother, some one else a father. I shall never forget the trembling of the people waiting to have news of their nearest and dearest —their faltering voices, their swimming eyes, their restless manner. And if ever you wish to picture to yourself the horrors of war. do not let imagination rent alone upon the battle field. Think Aro of the thousands of people at the gates cif this great city— thousands of all clauses, tine ladies and poi r women— in agony for those they loved the best; wondering whether they are safe ; fearing they are dead • certain they ninet be wounded. This it is to fight with National Guards. Teey fight with their families in sight, ani the agony if these families waiting at the gates is in some respects greater than the agony of the field of lict,le itself. l'he crowds, let me add, were not merely at tie gates. All up the Avenue General Uhrieb, f, rmerly known as the Avenue de l'lmrratrice, they stood in group'. Half-way up is a solid barricade right across the Avenue. They got on the top of this barricade trying to see something, and all round the List of the Arc de Triomphe they stood watching with an intensity which it was most painted t s witness.