My Experiences as "a Besieged Resident."

Otago Witness, Issue 2200, 30 April 1896, Page 52

My Experiences as " a Besieged Resident."

What alwajrs surprised me while I was in Fiu-is in 1870 as a "Besieged Resident " was that the G -imaus did not some nigbt carry the town by assault. They would have lost a certain number of men from the fire of the nearest forts, but they could easily, as it seemed to me, have reached the city walls,, and then have got inside. Had they done this, the resistance would not have been great, and they must have been successful.

Tbe snffe ings from want of food have been ' a good deal exaggerated. Hurst flesh, particularly tbe flesh of cab horses, is not particularly toothsome, but it is as nonri-hiug ac oxfleab. The same may be said of cats, dogs, and rats ; the last, in a ragout, are juufc as good as rabbit — ra'her better, indeed, it struck me. . There was, too, an unlimited store of wine. The bre*d was bad, but a soup made of this bread soaked in wine was staging. The end came at last. Trocb.ii, who was & respectable nieiit crily (. s m i.j ■• a >>ero, had announced tkmt he nt-ve. ■• •■ capitulation. When he leirnt there wan Jo.>d only for the coi-sump-tion (if « fe«r day*, he retiigntd the p<"6b, -and the cft|.itul»tion was signed be his «ucc<ssor. More of my 'letters reached their destination, I believe, than those -of otter correspondents. The res-son was this : — The correspondents waited <an Jules Favre, and asked him to afford the-m facilities for sending their letters. He klnflly>6*id that he -would, and told- us that, wh&utVdr a Taallo a started, we might give them up ma j>arcol to the ta&u ia charge, who

would make it his business to transmit them to their destination so soon as the balloon touched land outside.

There was a complacent) smile on his countenance when we gratefully accepted his offer that led me to suspect that whatever might happen to the letters, they were not likely to reach the newspaper offices to which 'hoy were addreßßed unless they lauded everything.

So, instead of falling a victim to this oonndenoe triok, I placed my letters under cover to a friend in London, and put them into the postbox, calculating that as each balloon took out about 20,000 letters, those posted in the ordinary way would not be opened. — Mr Labouc&bbb, in the Daily News.