AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

Press, Volume XXII, Issue 2680, 10 March 1874, Page 3

AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

[FROM A CORRESPONDENT, j Paris. Jan. 13. Politically it is but of little importance how often tli> % sinsjor* he rcca«(, so lone ns thp music itsolf remains unchanged. Possessing no statesmen to direct her affairs, France has no loss to deplore wher> her Ministers are either defeated or dismissed, or resign, the hotter to remain in office. Actors and spectators since months past I understand this comic oprra, which is enjoy- | ing a forced run. Ev.-ry ministerial discomfortnre is known in advance will be arranged, replastered ; but the check will not be forgotten, and every new shock induces fresh debility. This exhausting process may be long, even trying for the heir-npparent—in the present case the country, but the issue is certain to be fatal. Tho living and the hopeful can find pleasure if they choose in the struggles more or less agonising of such a moribund as the existing Assembly, which, like Robinson Crusoe, claims tn be monarch of all it surveys, though its right is disputed by a people. Every fresh repulse for the party which is devoted to oppose the wishes of the country is additional lead in the wing. Since the relinquishing of the policy inaugurated by Thiers—that of rallying all moderate men to liberally concur in bowing to the manifest verdict of the country for a wise and real, not an extreme or mock- Republic, matters have only progressed from bad to worse. France is now suffering from the determination of men to govern the country in the interests of party. Hence, the absence of all government, as Ministers labor to make the mountain come to them. How can the Republic produce stability when it is only decreed as provisional, and even this is refused organisation. The electors, as patient as Job, await the moment when they shall be called upon to elect a new Chamber, as the present cannot continue to survive after passing constitutional laws. The ostensible object just now is to manipulate the electoral body —to make it Monaichical, anything rather than Republican. Hence the grotesque crusade against universal suffrage, now one of the estates of the realm, and of contemplated fee-faw-fum laws against the press. It is the same spirit which has pushed the Ministers to propose converting the 36,000 mayors and their assessors into electioneering agents. The safety of France, it seems, depends on this social reform. The Assembly thought otherwise, by rejecting its consideration in the morning, to vote the opposite in the afternoon. Every superseded mayor will become an opposition election agent, with the strong motives against the Royalist Government—conviction and resentment; and parishioners will be more inclined to listen to the mayors they spontaneously elected, but who have been dismissed, not on account of incompetency to administer the affairs of their commune, but owing to holding opposite political views, rather than the successors imposed by the Home Office.

It is supposed that by thus centralising the humblest functionaries, the Government will be able to return the official candidate — a spectre that has vanished with the late Empire, and under which voters marched to the poll between a policeman and a gendarme. But Sedan and Metz have opened the eyes of electors, and universal suffrage haß grown robust and manly of late. Indeed, since May last the Monarchists have been in possession of power ; they have swept away all they could of officials and journals tainted with republicanism, and still the country has become more republican ! In 1851 the populaoe only was republican ; to-day, the bourgeois is as much so as the workman j the rich as much as the poor. Hence, the difficulty of drafting a scheme of voting that would produce a special class favorable to Monarchy. The most remarkable circumstance to note is, the perfect tranquility which everywhere reigns, and this, despite an administration that is irritant rather than conciliatory, and independent of martial law and bayonets. The nation is resigned, feeling certain of victory. It remains calm when officially calumniated, and only laughs now when a minister announces the country to be in danger. The bugbear is as much seen through as the "order" of Napoleon III.; both had the same consoling effect as the parson's " Mesopotamia " in his sermon, had on the old lady. However, so long as ministers refrain from orcanising the Republic by acts, ignore the majorities against them in the assembly, and drag Macmahon, who ought to hold aloof now at all events from monarchical strategy and give France the first place in hiß thoughts, the country will drift more and more into apathy, fatal to all interests. Moral prostration is not what the French require; they want the stimulus of worthy preoccupations, to open up issues for their activity. With the present Assembly, although elected by universal suffrage, nothing clear and precise can be expected, regarding public instruction, finance, foreign policy, nor municipal liberty. All the reforms France demanded the day after peace was signed, demanded so sincerely and so passionately, remain just where they were, and the circumstances exacting the renovation exist still, and more powerfully, because the evils are aggravated. The Deputies can.only agree to differ ; they are their divisions only that triumph; it is but intrigue that succeeds. There is for peoples as for individuals, something worse than a grand disaster : it is a disaster which produces no fruits. There is something worse than misfortune ; it is a calamity that begets no lessons.

Something more than uneasiness reigns respecting the foreign relations of France with Italy. Here the ministerial policy is undecided, equivocal, full of comminatory reticences, fraught with perilous incidents, and marked by helplessness and absence of forethought. The policy of Mentaua is felt must be fatal for France, as driving Italy into a natural self-protecting alliance with Germany, and possibly bringing about fresh invasion and two dismemberments. Thus the " Syllabite" party in this country is commencing to reoeive close attention, for although Henri V. has been very well scotched, his principles are not killed. The last bulwark of the temporal power is boasted to be this country, but not the people. Austria, the Vatican knows full well, belongs to tbe Liberals, Spain to the factious, Francs, to the impious, and Rome to Victor Emmanuel. France has lost two provinces, paid five milliards ransom money, and suffered at home an equal money loss by the invasion. She has to find about threequarters of a milliard of francs also annually, to meet her financial engagements. Yet the Ultramontane party believes her " remains" are beautiful, and, aided by her latent material forces, and the Pope for partizan, she would at once become great, glorious, and free. This is a matter that produces grave thoughts, and justly so, as the Ministry depend for their parlimentaTy majority on the support of the Ultramontane deputies, and who may push them to commit some imprudence for which national chastisement might be considered as the only reparation.

Then again the complaints as to heavy taxation are waxing louder, and will increase in proportion as business continues stagnant. In every centre of commerce and industry working hours are being reduced, expenditure diminished, business contracted, and bankruptcies are but too general. An industrial crisis is casting its shadow before. What France stands in need of is that confidence which would enable work to bo resumed, the atciien to be re-occupied, and orders to find their way back. Employers and employed are alike idle, and both are fully aware theirmisfortunes are owing to the political deadd lock, which cannot restore Monarchy, an will not organise the Republic. It is not t° the criminal declaration of war by Napoleo n JII. that the hard times are attributed, but t° the Republic, which is clearly responsibl e for having raised the money to liquidate the disasters he created.

Since the commencement of the year Paris has been enveloped in a succession of fogs, which the philosophical accept as in harmony with the general gloomiuess of affairs. Since the alliance with England, the French attribute quite a meteorological change in

the climate of the capital from clear days and sharp frosts, to mist and mizzling rain. The theatres, like IV church •. -\re mere coughing gatherings ; i»: : ests •■. •■ nis, and artists are alike ~atrli<-t- <T wTffi rT.iarseness, and the most solemn or the most crave proceedings are momentarily interrupted to allow jujubes to be swallowed. For those who hold that there is a close connection between fogs and suicides, the latter it may be noted were never more numerous than at. the present time, amounting to as many as nine per day. Ordinarily fine weather is preferred for committing self destruction, bnt it must not be forgotten, that at the commencement of cv.mv yr\nr, there exist almost justifying circumstances for the misdeed, in the demands made upon your purse by everyone who has or has not the honor of your acquaintance for a token of friendship. A great deal of gormandising and guzzling also take place at this epoch in honor of the holidays, and naturally indigestions follow. The roystering commences with fermented cabbage—sour krout—for supper on Christmas Eve, and finishes with the beancake on Twelfth Night. Happily Algeria is commencing to forward supplies of new fruits and vegetables, so that one feels that spring is coming, though we are certainly in the Ides of January. The Bonapartists ought to be content that their late chief is not by any means forgotten in France. Even the politicians who confirmed at Bordeaux the foundering of Imperialism in September, 1870, and are now hail fellow well met with the few Bonapartist deputies in the Assembly, cannot overlook the cause which separated Alsace from France and its consequences. The " manifestation" in several churches on the occasion of the memoriam mass, was very . well arranged ; between fideles and curious '. there was a crowd. But all this does not ' bring the second empire a whit nearer again to France. Paris knows what such displays mean, and in addition, the provinces that believed really that the " Empire was peace," now known to their cost that it wa3 the contrary. All dynasties have aimed to do everything for the people—but without the people. The French are in the mood to do everything for themselves and by themselves.

The municipality is about taking a sensible step, that of taxing unoccupied premises. This will have a salutary effect in compelling landlords to let such apartments at a rational figure ; for, strange as it may appear, such penny-wise and pound-fooiish people prefer to keep premises empty, rather than reduce rents. Like certain shops, landlords have fixed prices; however, as they will have to pay the taxman, they will endeavor to secure a tenant on moderate terms, and so the ice once broken the example will be followed. We are the moutons de Panurge. Further, houses are not to be more than 65ft in height for the future, which persons with weak limbs and asthmatic affections, will not object to. The very tip-top garrets, for there are stories even of these, are usually rented very fortunately by porters, laborers, &c. ; so that compensation exists everywhere in nature ; it is a strange " evolution " which places the hewers of wood, Ace, over the heads of the Upper Ten in Paris. " Lifts" have been tried in several mansions, but failed. Frequently the cage got foul, and the tenants were kept prisoners for hours, though next their own doors, till an engineer came. Whenever bailiffs arrived, they were often disposed of in a similar fashion, and the bird they wanted thus escaped. The corporation has not been successful in renaming some of the streets, as tenants have left in a few cases, in consequence of the streets having been called after some Gallic warriors in the time of Julius Cassar. Several cabmen claim an additional gratuity for their extra ability in becoming posted in these changes. The new fashion of supplying cabs with tins of warm water for the feet, is becoming general, especially those engaged in night work. Indeed, many private carriages have adopted the luxury since several years, Every market woman and keeper of a news-stall has a footpan of charcoal, which the baker's boy renews during the day; the pan also serves to keep the meals warm. Old persons in the house even, do not neglect the tin of boiling water in its fur and carpet case. The two-headed negress declined to afford science the satisfactory proof that they constituted a monstrosity, so the French, as usual ingenious, alleged they were impostors, and called upon the Minister of Police to investigate the matter, which he did, by directing the chief medical officer of health to wait upon the ladies and to request that they would select a doctor on their side, and fix an hour for an interview. The doctors have sent in their report, and the Academy of Science promises an interesting debate on the subject of deformities in general. A subscription breakfast was given in honor of the darkies at the Grand Hotel, where the ladies performed some rare feats } one eat when the other drank ; one patronised a sweet, the other a bitter ; one sang a song, while the sister, or half, returned thanks ; and both signed their names in albums belonging to such visitors as desired. The question haß been raised, ought mourning to be worn for persons civilly buried ? The materialists pure say, no.

The markets of Paris are at this moment supplied with a number of foxes, to be pur: chased as food, and for the sum of five francs each. Foxes, are not hunted in France, and no. higher estimation is entertained of them than is for rats or kindred vermin. To make the flesh of Reynard palatable, the animal is to be hung for six days, without becoming high ; then it is to be skinned, placed in vinegar with aromatic herbs or spices tor a fortnight, and finally cooked as venison, which, it is alleged, it very much resembles. Parisians are indebted to Bismarck for many forced additions to the table ; they have never completely recovered their omnivorous habits of lhe winter of 1870-71.

A worthy John Gilpin has died, who made his fortune from sugar-plums and candles—with the same hands for both, and often in the same pans. The explanation is, he made his bonbons from honey, and with the residue wax, he fabricated candles.