THE PRUSSIANS AT ORLEANS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1001, 4 February 1871, Page 4

THE PRUSSIANS AT ORLEANS.

M. Ame'dee Achard, in a letter to the Moniteur, speaking of the late occupation of Orleans by the Prussians, say a :—

Thtf first hours following the occupation of Orleans were terrible. Bands ofi soldiers invoke into the houses and established themselves everywhere, leaving the bams to the proprietors ; and everything within t^eir reach disappeared. Instead of the dtt jy rags which they threw about, they took shirts, stockings, handkerchiefs, anything they could find. The rest went into thek" pockete and their knapsacks ; then, nrpJete with all they had found in the kitchen.' and cellars, they slept j rooms meant for w <> people contained thirty lying in heap*, The arrival of an officer put a stop to thigr<lk' o *d«* ? particularly if the room happened V° "nit him. Blows with the flat of his sword, and often kicks, dispersed the crowd, whW x settled itself in the yards and outhouses; Order came later, but order of a hard, mevkodical, dry, naughty, implacable sort. .The population was spared personal violent for the discipline under which the Prussia! " soldier bends is of iron, and wherever there is an officer he allows of no infraction of it unless specially commanded. Moral violence was, however, constant and unremitting, and this is the bitterest and most painful to a sensitive people. The Turks cannot help being grave. ThePrussians are naturally arrogant ; even when they wish to be civil, they remain overbearing. They are masters, and make this felt. Their politeness is not. always and everywhere equal. Contrary to what takes place in a lake when a stone is thrown in, it is on the outer circumference that the harsh and evil working of the invasion is most felt. It became brutal farthest from head-quar-ters. It became orderly and lost its asperity and violence as it approached the centre ; rapine disappeared. There remained only requisitions, coldly imposed and coldly exeouted. Sometimes the> angry German blood asserted itself. There were explosions of fury about champagne when it was not sufficiently plentiful, or about dishes not exquisite enough. Omoere were seen to draw their swords on servants, and to stagger after them ready to run them through ; and one of them at the Hotel dv Loiret thought fit to enter the dining-room on horseback. Were it permitted to philosophise on thii sad subject, it might be asked how officers who are continually brutal in their behaviour to their own soldiers, who actually thrash them, and even strike them in the ranks, in uniform, can be gentle towards the inhabitants of a conquered city ?

Typhoon vs Japan.— On the 2nd, ths long-anticipated anneal typhoon made its appearance, heralded in the morning by a copper-coloured sky, a rapidly falling barometer, a hot, angry wind from the south, and a high sea. A strong gale blew at about 8 o'olock, and Increased in intensity, accompanied by torrents of rain, till nearly 2 o'clock, when it abated. Shattered tilea, broken plaster, flooded rooms throughout the foreign settlement, three rained huts at the camp, attest its force ; but providentially only one instance of loss of ufe has to be recorded — a Japanese crushed beneath the ruins of his house. The exceptionally high waves whioh washed the wall of the Bund toppled over stone after stone of the coping, and the damage done to the Frenoh hatoba in the storm of Auguit 20th, and never repaired, was so intensified aa to render it almost useless. At the English hatoba many large boulders were carried sheer over from one side to the other. Fortunately the shipping in the harbour escaped with comparatively little damage. The damage caused by the typhoon at Yedo has been very groat, and over 30 people have been drowned, and others crashed beneath the houses that were blown down. Six junks of the largest size, together with 13 smaller ones, and a steamer owned by a Japanese company at Yedo. whioh were anchored in the river near to the Yeitai Bridge, parted their cables, and drove on to the bridge, and are now all completely wrecked. The bridge is broken in half, and it will take a long time to repair it, it being one of the largest in Yedo. At a place named Nerima Mura, about two and a half ri from Yedo, a large meteorite fell. It ia computed to be 3001b to 4001b in weight. It fell on Saturday night. A small island, called Itiushima, about half a mile in circumference, near to the coast at Yedo, has been swept away and submerged beneath the sea. Numerous lives were lost upon the coast, several junks with their crews, it is said, foundering in the gale.— Japan Herald, November 12. Aa Australian paper states that an application of Stockholm tar to the nostrils and mouth of a beast affected with pleuro-pneu-monia, if applied immediately after the disease has made Its appearance, will be found an efficaoiou* our©. ,