OBITUARY

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7382, 7 August 1889, Page 5

OBITUARY

[per press association.] Received August 6th, 12.-5 p.m. London, August 5. Sir W. Ewart, M.P. for Belfast N. is dead. Resolved Ausust 7th, 1.25 p.m. Paris, August 6. The death is announced of M, Felix Pyat, Communist. Sir William Ewart, Bart., was the son of the late Alderman W. Ewart, of Sydenham Park, county Down. He was born in 1817, and was consequently in his seventysecond year. He was Mayor of Belfast 1859-60, and in 18S7 was created a baronet. Felix Pyat, political writer and dramatist, born at \ ierzon, October .th, 1810, received an excellent education, studied law at Paris, and was admitted an advocate in J 831. Contrary to the wishes of jhis friends, he devoted himself to literature, and after writing ' for the Figaro and the Charivari, was attached to the Siccle. As an author he is best known by his dramas, such as "Mathilde," "Diogene," and "Le ChiiTbnnier de Paris," which acquired considerable popularity on account of the political allusions they contain. At the outbreak of tbe revolution of IS4B, he abandoned literature for politics, joining the ranks of Ledru Rollin, with whom he went into exile. His political views are developed in his work *'Le Droit dv Travail," published in ISIS, and he addressed " The Letter of the Jersey Exiles to the Queen of England," after the return of her Majesty from her visit to France in 1855. He was tried for some political offence before the Correctional Police in Paris, and was sentenced par contumace to a line and imprisonment in 1861. Soon after the establishment of the Republic in 1870, he returned to Paris, and became one of the leaders of the Communists, and the editor of several revolutionary journals, such as the Combat and the Vengeur. In March, 1573, he was condemned to death, par contumace, having been indicted for incitement to civil war, partisanship in the insurrection of the Commune, and complicity iv the massacre of the hostages, j He was permitted to return to France by ! the amnesty of ISSO. I