A PARIS LETTER.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1424, 15 June 1899, Page 21

A PARIS LETTER.

PARIS, Bth April. A thanksgiving day ought to be organised when the Court of Appeal decision on the Dreyfus scandal is promulgated. The nation is worried, wearied, and perhaps disgusted at the whole scandal. The wind has been not a little taken out of the sails of the court by the " Figaro ” newspaper —Figaro is here, there and everywhere—publishing, in sandwiches, by anticipation, the confidential evidence given at the inquiry. It was not intended to give that manna to the public till the decision had been rendered. People are not sorry at the indiscretion; it has developed floods of light, and, besides, Parisians like to pin prick the authorities. To publish prematurely documents connected with a coming " trial ” subjects the sinner to 50f. or IOOOf. penalty. The " Figaro ” retorts the evidence did not affect any trial, nor had the public any voice in the verdict. Further, a copy of the evidence was placed by a distinguished individual at the disposal of the "Figaro” on condition that it would be textually published. The donator wanted no money for the “ copy,” and claimed to make himself known if any innocent person was to be punished for his act..

The African Convention is never alluded to, save by geographers, whose bosoms swell when they look at the map of the Dark Continent and see by the colouring the vast tracts of territory France now sways over. The Fashoda incident has been forgotten. The arrival of Captain Marchand in Abyssinia has expunged the dark spot at Fashoda. The English behaved chivalrously with the Captain, to fit him out and fix him up for his journey from the Sobat to Abyssinia. It may fret him to learn that the Negus is now all English : the French and Russian deputations had made him somewhat anglcphobist. He now sees as far into a milestone as his advisers. He knows the history of his country and of the little punitive visit of “ Sir Napier.” The English have now the Nile Valley, and the Khalifa is only preparing a larger grave for his final punishment. Apart from the facilities of traffic by the Nile, the Kitchener railway from Suakim to Khartoum, via Kassala, at once taps (he mercantile resources of Ethiopia. The French railway from Jibutil to Horrar will feel that commercial competition. There is a great deal of talk indulged in respecting the intentions of France' to open tip the regions she has been given round Lake Tchad. She will first have to secure peace to that vast domain —a matter for years; then a railway must enter on the sceue. That, according to some economic writers, is only a mere flea bite. Start the line at Algiers and run it to Lake Tchad as the crow flies. The cost will not be more than ,£10,000,000, and the line can be completed within 10 years. That will vex Mr Cecil Rhodes, they say, if he ever gives a thought to the matter.

It is not at all certain that he desert tribes, the Tuaregs, with their Senoussi fanaticism, will ever allow the line to he constructed till they are " squared.’ They .can always block Southern Algeria. The tribes when raided can never be seen till they are upon the traveller, and they can

never be witnessed departing, since they leave no living soul to relate the deed. Only the dead do not return. That is the great obstacle of the French in their opening a commercial route to Central Africa—no one can estimate the unknown. The next impediment is to secure the millions; what are the proofs that the regions are in a condition to become surety for =£20,000,000? And yet'there are writers —otherwise common sense men—who pooh, pooh such a paltry question. They are the same blind leaders of the blind who sneer at the great achievements of Rhodes, and believe the trans-Siberian railway as easy to construct as the Canadian-Pacific line. The Cairo-Cape and the SuakiniKhartoum lines will be carrying Cook’s excursionists before the first sod of the Algiers-Tchad railroad be cut. President Loubet’s first official outing was to his native heatfi, Moutolimar. He threw the " protocole ' to the winds, and that was enough to cause poor Faure to turn in his coffin. And when he arrived at Moutelimar, tne provincial town where he commenced and ripened his public career, he was the same Loubet as 35 years ago. The old station-master received the first " shake hand”; then it was bail fellow, well met, with ail the countrymen. His mother, or as the not unkindly journals call the old lady creeping to the 90’s, "Mamma,” came from the native farm house to see tire entry—nothing official—of her son into the town of Moutelimar; and when he saw from the procession " Mamma ” on a stand with some friends he stopped his carriage, rushed up and embraced her, and then returned to his seat I Then he was among life—comrades, playmates and schoolfellows; the President neither reigned nor governed; he joked and gossiped. A little reception had to be done; some decorations were bestowed upon several well deserved citizens, and the first chosen were from among his political opponents. There was but one gentleman decorated with the Legion of Honour, a man who all his life " did good by stealth and blushed to find it fame”; he had ben overlooked by bis own party; M. Loubet corrected the social neglect. There was no attempting to curry favour with the crowd; that is not M. Loubet’s way at all. He remains natural; he indulges in none of that pride which apes humility. But there must be no nonsense under the Republic.

The widow of the historian Michelet has just died from infectious pneumonia; however, she was aged 73, and survived her husband exactly a quarter of a century. She never allowed anything to be changed in their home, in the ttue d’Assas, since her husband’s death at Hyeres, in 1871. It was just as if Michelet had gone to the college of France, close by, to deliver his historical lecture as visual. She was his second wife .and her stepdaughter caused great difficulty at tlie time of the burial of Michelet, who lies in the Pere Lachai.se cemetery, with his soil. To avoid any further altercation about the family sepulchre, Madame Michelet had requested to be cremated, and her ashes, that weighed lllb, placed in an urn, and deposited at the side of her husband's coffin. That request lias been executed.

'• A run through the works at the 1900 Exhibition justifies the state of advance. A 111 are still in the skeleton stage, bpt all are ready for closing in without delay or difficulty. The gardeners commence to make their influence felt. They are shaping alleys and arranging portierres while not forgetting to plant trees. They make crooked paths straight. The scaffolding will soon be taken away from the Alexandre 111., bridge, which is a graceful structure inside its shell. When all the barricades are cleared away, and from the two palaces also, a splendid view of the site of the Exhibition will be obtainable. The " lfig wheel ” will likeU commence rolling on May day next. By then the

Eiffel towner will have its new dress of paint, five shades of orange, almost recalling by colours the different tones in the flounces of a lady’s costume of to-day. If the Tower” will respond to the wireless electric calls from Dover to the Foreland, and not be in the sulks for having been so long neglected, it will collect hosts of friends. It would breatc the monopoly of the Submarine Telegraph Company, which charges 2d a word on telegrams from France, when .'d would be sufficient to yield a dividend of io per cent. The dreary, cruel winter is still with us, and appears resolved net to depart. It lias fostered much and severe sickness, and retarded many important works. Elderly persons have paid a neavy tribute this season to the severity oi the weather. It not only entered to the very marrow, but seemed to cling there iike a Nessus shirt. Anyone who escaped the sicknesses raging deserved at least to be decorated with the merite agricole. Since it has become known that the Kaiser has been experimenting with submarine torpedo craft, M. Loc-kroy. Minister of the Marine, is less confident of being able to clear the seas. England will add fifty new vessels to her fleet by the close of the year, and perhaps a flotilla ot submariners; it takes only six weeks to build them. The English Admiralty has all the plans ready, if a few points can be solved. May the Czar’s fad destroy all the destroyers, comencing with those oi Holy Russia. Paris Correspondent, Melbourne "Age.”