Year: 1871

Signs and symptoms which are easily inter-
preted by the watchful and experienced eye
are visible In the news from Europe that we
this morning publish, and in all that we have
been receiving for some days past. The Ger
man investing armies are pushing the siege Of
Paris with tremendous energy, and the inevi-
table result begins to force itself upon the
minds of the most sanguine. The French capi-
tai must fall Her resistance has been heroic,
under all the circumstances, beyond parallel,
and history will transmit from age to age the
story of this her sorest trial, her supremest
tribulation. Her wonderful variety of ofresources,
her equally astonishing ingenuity Of adapta-
ton, her quiet. order, patience, fortitude self
reliance and patriotism have excited afresh
the admiration of the world, already accorded
to her artistic taste, her spendor, her gayety
and her priceless treasures, relics and monu-
ments. Yes! Paris-the proud, imperial city
Babylon the Great Of modern days-must yield
to hard necessity. She cannot allow her chill
dren to be slaughtered nor her accumulatisas
of art and science to be destroyed in q
futile resistance, after the guns Of her own
fortresses have been turned upon her
populous suburbs and the enormous shells Of
the Krupp batteries have begun to rain down
into the courtyards of her palaces. The foe is
close upon her in tremendous numbers
recruited freshly from beyond the Rhine by
new forces one-third as strong as the whole
invading army was month ago. He Is now
pressing her with desperation, sharpened by
the exasperated outcry that swells hourly to
more menacing notes from vast united people
in Fatherland demanding to know why the war
is not promptly ended by its crowning success.
All the resources, masculine vigor, gene
ralship aud supreme determination of the new
Germanic empire are bent with tenfold zeal
upon the capture of the great city on the
Seine, and neither life, outlay, science, mate
rial, invention, whether in engineering or
diplomacy, will be spared to bring it at once
to terms.


The drest necessity exists on both sides for
this conclusion, Disguise j as they may,
thousands nf people in the beleaguefed place
are suffering dreadfully, while throughout all
Germany the suspense aud impatience to bs
done with this work have become well nigh .
frenzy, if we are to Judge by the tone Of every
journal lthat reaches us from the land Of King
William and his proposed imperial subjects.
Moreover we know that even amid the thuu-
der of hostile guns, the most strenuous
secret efforts are making to effect what has
been 80 often refused-an honorable and rea-
sonable captulation. Bismarck is as great a
manager as Moltke is military stragetist, and
he is, after all, republican of the future who
well knows that royalty is not immortal Two
vast organizations that were purely military
viz, the original French and German regu-
lar armies-have been enormously diminished.
The chief masses on both sides now set over
against each other consist of armed citizens.
1t Is Germany's boast that her entire people


are in the war; it is the cry of France appeal
ing to the world that she, too, Is now the peo-
pie battling for home and fireside. The secret
voice Of both these peoples is not for blosd it
is for peace. Both have shown the grandest
heroism; both have suffered beyond ex-
ample; they have revealed themselves to
each other at last with ''the light OF battle
on their faces" and irreconcilable hatreds are
not the growth Of manly hearts, the causes
being corrected or removed. on-combatants
may curse unto the end, but men who are
familiar with the gaze of death are most access
sibie to reason-'+the bravest still the
gentlest." Paris is on the eve of the noblest
resolution of ALTO be morally equal to the
fortune Of war-and with her acceptance Of
this result will come the free, spontaneous,
overwhelming offer of the true German people
for lasting peace and friendship. This day
may bring the first note of it's coming.


But, unfortunately, this reconciliation be-
tween the two great belligerents whose
of mankind, is anything but the harbinger of
general peace. In fact, both adyersares feel
the necessity of some arrangement in the
prospect Of far wider and more destructive
conflict on the North and the South, and ex-
tending from the latter quarter to perhaps the
financial and naval Power Of the worlds,
beyond all question, arming, in hot haste and
on an imposing scale, for some tremendous
conflict. Her naval and military work.
shops ring, night and day, with
the dreadful note Of preparation, and
she is purchasing artillery and rifles
Of the latest and most approved construction,
in this country, in enormous quantities. At
the same moment the tread of freshly sum-
moned armies echoes along the western and
southern frontiers of Russia, and Austria and
Turkey are both on the alert. There is storm
gathering on the Baltic and the Black Seas
which will sweep down upon the German
Ocean. the English Channel and the MediteD-
ranean with q violence in the presence Of
which France and Prussia may well hold their
hostile hands and seek nrAsenk reacun. and