Year: 1871

tho Guards refusing to fire upon citizens
fraternzcd with the mob. Officers who sought
to compel them to their duty were shot down
and butchered, and two old men, who had
served the country in the Republican army
were executed after q sham trial by men
without a knowledge OF law or sense of
justice. In the excitement of the hour the
mob, reinforced by the traitor0us Guards, ex-
PEELED the Government officials, seized the
public places of the city, and instituted a
government which they called that of the
people, but which was that of q mob. lis
brief rule has been one of bloodshed IL has
filled the prisons and deropulatcd the streets,
compelling the hasty flight of two hundred
thousand citizens. IL has fired upon delega-
tions of loyal people with whom the National
Guards showed signs of fraternizng, and it has
marched against the loyal army guarding the
Assembly and shot down one of its leaders
while cxpostllating with them and offering
peace. Its members are inspired by no love
of liberty and order, but are intoxicated only
with the wish to rule. With them TO be
landlord is TO be a criminal; to be rich is to
deserve death. Blanqui, Flourens Lullier, and
others of the Committee are ignorant men,
who have known nothing of events which
have occurred outside of Paris for several
months past, and who, if they were well Informed
on those points, are incapable Of appreciating
the gravity of the crisis. 1t is these who have
demanded, as they had undOubted right to do,
electoral laws for Paris as a Democratic city
and it is in this violent and despOtlc way
which we have described that they have de-
manded it. While no one will question the
rights they claim, will any approve their method
of asserting theml


The political situation in Paris is not
without familiar parallel in other cities
New-York for instance. This Metropolis Is
ruled by a municipal government elected by
violence and fraud only little less fagrant
and open than that which now aims to con-
troll Paris. If the "Reds" seek to inhict on
their city such officials as we in New-York en-
dure, they deserve no sympathy from us, and
not much mercy at the hands of those whom
they have forced to take up arms. There is no
compromising with such mobs, whether in Paris
or New York; and blood-letting there seems
to be the only remedy. This, to all appear
ance, is likely to follow their crimes, AMI,
having provoked it, there will be few to re-
gret the severity of the punishment.


1t is not little singular that the confusion
of mind into which a Social Democrat" has
been thrown by superficial study of the situa-
ton in Paris should be largely shared by
Americans and by American papers. The
same confusion led them into false sympathy
with the French when they forced the war
upon Germany. They are as much in the
wrong in sympathizing with the Communists
who proclaim the Republcanism they do not
understand as with tho nation which called


itself the Republic of France and continued to
commit the crimes Of the Empire. The Com
munists of Montmartrc are rebels against the
Government of all France, not Of Paris
merely and their Committee represents
mere faction of the capital, whereas the AS
sembly is the constituted authority of the
whole country.