blood." Here, then, are acts of slaughter of no less than nine kinds, and of nine kinds so distinct that they do not merely differ in their accidents, but are divided the one from the other by strong moral gradations. It is certain that deeds ranging under all these nine categories were done in Paris on the 4th of December, 1851, and it is not less certain that, although they were not all of them specifically ordered, they were every one of them caused by the brethren of the Elysée, More Troops are sometimes obliged to kill insur- | wards been put to death by their captors with gents in actual fight, and unarmed people circumstances indicating deliberation. This standing in the line of fire often share the fate is called "killing prisoners in cold blood." of the combatants; what that is the whole Again, soldiers after a fight in a city have world understands. But also an officer has rushed into houses where they believed that sometimes caused people to be put to death- there were people who helped or favored their not because they were fighting against him, adversaries, and, yielding to their fury, have nor even because they were hindering the put to death men and women whom they had actual operations of the troops, but because never seen in combat against them. This is he has imagined that under some probable massacre of non-combatants, but it is massachange of circumstance their continued pres- cre committed by men still hot from the fight. ence might become a source of inconvenience Again, it has happened that soldiery seizing or danger, and he has therefore thought it unarmed people, whom they believed to be right to have them shot down by way of pre- favorers of their adversaries, have neverthecaution; but generally such an act as this less checked their fury, and, instead of killhas been preceded by the most earnest en- ing them, have made them prisoners; but treaties to disperse, and by repeated warn- afterwards, upon the arrival of orders from ings. This may be called a precautionary men more cruel than the angry soldiery, these slaughter of bystanders, who are foolhardy people have been put to death. This is called or perverse, or wilfully obstructive to the an "execution of non-combatants in cold troops. Again, it has happened that a slaughter of this last-mentioned sort has occurred, but without having been preceded by any such request or warning as would give the people time to disperse. This is a wilful and malignant slaughter of bystanders; but still it is a slaughter of bystanders whose *presence might become inconvenient to the troops, and therefore it is not simply wanton. Again, it has happened (as we have but too well seen) that soldiers not engaged in combat and exposed to no real danger, have suddenly fired into the midst of crowds of men and wo-over, it must be remembered that this slaughmen, who neither opposed nor obstructed them This is "wanton massacre." Again, it has sometimes happened, even in modern times, that when men defeated in fight, have thrown down their arms and surrendered themselves, But there is yet another use to which, if asking for mercy, the soldiery to whom they it were not for the honest pride of its officers appealed have refused their prayers, and have and men, it would be possible for an army instantly killed them. This is called "giv- to be put. In the course of an insurrection ing no quarter." Again, it has happened in such a city as Paris, numbers of prisoners that defeated combatants having thrown down might be seized either by the immense police their arms and surrendered at discretion, and, force which would probably be hard at its not having been immediately killed, have suc- work, or by troops who might shrink from ceeded in constituting themselves the prison- the hatefulness of refusing quarter to men ers of the vanquishing soldiery, but presently without arms in their hands, and the prisonafterwards (as for instance within the time ers thus taken being consigned to the ordineeded for taking the pleasure of an officer on nary gaols would be in the custody of the horseback at only a few yards' distance) they civil power. The Government regretting that have been put to death. This is called "kill- many of the prisoners should have been taken ing prisoners." Again, defeated combatants, alive, might perhaps desire to put them to who have succeeded in constituting them- death, but might be of opinion that it would selves prisoners, have been allowed to remain be impolitic to kill them by the hand of the alive for a considerable time, and have after-civil power. In this strait, if it were not tering of prisoners was the slaughtering of men against whom it was only to be charged that they were in arms-not to violate, but to defend the laws of their country. for the obstacle likely to be interposed by the | were black, and at once carried off all those honor and just pride of a warlike profession, whom they so condemned, with a view (as platoons of foot-soldiers might be used-not to defend not to attack-not to fight, but to relieve the civilians from one of the duties which they are accustomed to deem most vile by performing for them the office of the executioner, and these platoons might even be ordered to help the Government to hide the deed by doing their work in the dead hours of the night. Is it true that with the sanction of the Home Office and of the Prefecture of Police, and under the orders of Prince Louis Bonaparte, St. Arnaud, Magnan, Morny, and Maupas, a midnight work of this last kind was done by the army of Paris? To men not living in the French capital, it seems that there is a want of complete certainty about the fate of a great many out of those throngs of prisoners who were brought into the gaols and other places of detention on the 4th and 5th of December. The people of Paris think otherwise. They seem to have no doubt. The grounds of their belief are partly of this sort: A family anxious to know what had become of one of their relatives who was missing, appealed for help to a man in so high a station of life that they deemed him powerful enough to be able to question official personages, and his is the testimony which records what passed. In order, if possible, to find a clue to the fate of the lost man he made the acquaintance of one of the functionaries who held the office of a "Judge-Substitute." The moment the subject of inquiry was touched, the" JudgeSubstitute "began to boil with anger at the mere thought of what he had witnessed, but it seems that his indignation was not altogether unconnected with offended pride and the agony of having had his jurisdiction invaded. He said that he had been ordered to go to some of the gaols and examine the prisoners with a view to determine whether they should be detained or set free, and that, whilst he was engaged in this duty, a party of non-commissioned officers and soldiers came into the room and rudely announced that they themselves had orders to dispose of those prisoners whose fingers were black. Then, without regard to the protesting of the "Judge-Substitute" they examined the hands of the prisoners whom he had before him, adjudged that the fingers of many of them the "Judge-Substitute" understood) to shoot them or have them shot. That they were so shot the " Judge-Substitute" was certain, but it is plain that he had no personal knowledge of what was done to the prisoners after they were carried off by the soldiers. Again, during the night of the 4th and the night of the 5th, people listening in one of the undisturbed quarters of Paris would suddenly hear the volley of a single platoon—a sound not heard, they say, at such hours either before or since. The sound of this occasional platoon firing was heard coming chiefly, it seems, from the Champ de Mars, but also from other spots, and in particular from the gardens of the Luxembourg, and from the esplanade of the Invalides. People listening within hearing of this last spot declared, they say, that the sound of the platoon-fire was followed by shrieks and moans; and that once, in the midst of the other cries, they caught some piteous words, close followed by a scream, and sounding as though they were the words of a lad imperfectly shot and dying hard. Partly upon grounds of this sort, but more perhaps by the teaching of universal fame, Paris came to believe-and rightly or wrongly Paris still believes-that during the night of the 4th, and again during the night of the 5th, prisoners were shot in batches and thrown into pits. On the other hand, the adherents of the French Emperor deny that the troops did duty as executioners. Therefore the value of an Imperialist denial, with all such weight as may be thought to belong to it, is set against the imperfect proof on which Paris founds her belief; but men must remember why it is that any obscurity can hang upon a question like this. The question whether on the night of a given Thursday and a given Friday, whole batches of men living in Paris were taken out and shot by platoons in such places as the Champ de Mars or the Luxembourg gardens-this is a question which, from its very nature, could not have remained in doubt for forty-eight hours, unless Paris at the time had lost her freedom of speech and her freedom of printing; and even now after a lapse of years, if freedom were restored to France, the question would be quickly and righteously determined. Now it happens that those who took away from Paris her freedom * Granier de Cassaignac, vol. ii. of speech and her freedom of printing are the very persons of whom it is said that during two December nights they caused their fellow-countrymen to be shot by platoons and in batches. So it comes to this, that those who are charged, have made away with the means by which the truth might be best established. In this stress, Justice is not so dull and helpless as to submit to be baffled. Wisely deviating in such a case from her common path, she listens for a moment to incomplete testimony against the concealer, and then, by requiring that he who hid away the truth shall restore it to light, or abide the consequence of his default, she shifts the duty of giving strict proof from the accuser to the accused. Because Prince Louis and his associates closed up the accustomed approaches to truth, therefore it is cast upon them either to remain under the charge which Paris brings against them or else to labor and show, as best they may, that they did not cause batches of French citizens to be shot by platoons of infantry in the night of the 4th and the night of the 5th of December. wanted for recording the whole quantity of the slaughter.* In the army which did these things, the whole number of killed was twenty-five.† Of all men dwelling in cities the people of Paris are perhaps the most warlike. Less almost than any other Europeans are they accustomed to overvalue the lives of themselves and their fellow-citizens. With them the joy of the fight has power to overcome fear and grief, and they had been used to great street battles; but they had not been used of late to witness the slaughter of people unarmed and helpless. At the sight of what was done on that 4th of December the great city was struck down as though by a plague. A keen-eyed Englishman, who chanced to come upon some of the people retreating from these scenes of slaughter, declared that their countenances were of a strange livid hue which he had never before seen. This was because he had never before seen the faces of men coming straight from the witnessing of a massacre. They say that the shock of being within sight and hearing the shrieks broke The whole number of people killed by the down the nervous strength of many a brave troops during the forty hours whieh followed though tender man, and caused him to burst upon the commencement of the massacre in into sobs as though he were a little child. the Boulevards, will never be known. The Before the morning of the 5th the armed burying of the bodies was done for the most insurrection had ceased. From the first it part at night. In searching for a proximate had been feeble. On the other hand, the notion of the extent of the carnage it is not safe to rely even upon the acknowledgments of the officers engaged in the work, for during some time they were under an impression that it was favorable to a man's advancement to be supposed to be much steeped in what was done. The colonel of one of the regiments engaged in this slaughter, spoke whilst the business was fresh in his mind. It would be unsafe to accept his statement as accurate or even as substantially true, but as it is certain that the man had taken part in the transactions of which he spoke, and that he really wished to gain credence for the words which he uttered, his testimony has a kind of value as representing (to say the least of it) his idea of what could be put forward as a credible statement by one who had the means of knowing the truth. What he declared was that his regiment alone had killed two thousand four hundred men. Supposing that his statement was anything like an approach to the truth, and that his corps was at all rivalled by others, a very high number would be moral resistance which was opposed to the acts of the President and his associates had been growing in strength, and when the massacre began on the afternoon of the 4th of December, the power of this moral resistance was in the highest degree formidable. Yet it came to pass that, by reason of the strange prostration of mind which was wrought by the massacre, the armed insurrection dragged down with it in its fall the whole policy of those who conceived that by the mere force of opinion and ridicule they would be enabled to send the plotters to Vincennes. The Cause of those who intended to rely upon this scheme of moral resistance, was in no way mixed up with the attempts of the men of the barricades, but still it was a Cause which depended upon the high spirit of the people, and it had hap Paris was between thirty and forty, and of these *The number of regiments operating against about twenty belonged to the divisions which were actively employed in the work. 3d to the 6th of December. The official return, + Including all officers and soldiers killed from the Moniteur, p. 3062. pened that this spirit—perplexed and baffled and sarcasm which Paris knows how to beon the 2d of December by a strategem and a stow.* Even the suddenness and perfect night attack-was now crushed out by sheer success of the blow struck in the night behorror. tween the 1st and 2d of December had failed For her beauty, for her grandeur, for her to make Paris think of him with gravity. historic fame, for her warlike deeds, for her But it was otherwise after three o'clock on power to lead the will of a mighty nation, the 4th of December; and it happened that and to crown or discrown its monarchs, no the most strenuous adversaries of this oddly city on earth is worthy to be the rival of fated Prince were those who, in one respect, Paris. Yet, because of the palsy that came best served his cause, for the more they strove upon her after the slaughter on the Boulevard, to show that he, and he alone, of his own dethis Paris—this beauteous, heroic Paris-this sign and malice had planned and ordered the \queen of great renown, was delivered bound into the hands of Prince Louis Bonaparte, and Morny, and Maupas or de Maupas, and St. Arnaud, formerly Le Roy. And the benefit which Prince Louis derived from the massacre was not transitory. It is a maxim of French politics that, happen what may, a man seeking to be a ruler of France must not be ridiculous. From 1836 until 1848 Prince Louis had never ceased to be obscure except by bringing upon himself the laughter of the world; and his election into the chair of the Presidency had only served to bring upon him a more constant outpouring of the scorn massacre,† the more completely they relieved him from the disqualification which had hitherto made it impossible for him to become the supreme ruler of France. Before the night closed in on the 4th of December, he was sheltered safe from ridicule by the ghastly heaps on the Boulevard. To be concluded in next No. first eleven months of '51, would verify this state- ace. tives; what will the number be at the date of the next census, if the present rate of progress continues?-Chambers's Journal. LONDON is undergoing transformation. Provincial folk who come up once only in ten years will hardly recognise the great city at their next visit. Every month adds to the improvement of our street-architecture; and warehouses, hotels, and insurance offices now present their fronts to the passers-by in all the state and style of a palAn important improvement in naval architecOne of the latest specimens is in Grace-ture has been satisfactorily tested this week. The church Street; and in Paternoster Row, a lead- steamer Kate has been tried at the Nore with a ing bookselling-firm are finishing an edifice, su- double screw-an arrangement which enables her perior to any yet erected in the metropolis, for to steer herself rapidly and easily without any the sale of books. Unluckily, its proportions can use of the rudder, and to turn with the greatest never be properly appreciated from without in facility where ordinary steamers find the operathat narrow thoroughfare. A grand hotel is to tion one of much difficulty. Should the rudder face the Strand at the terminus of the Charing be shot away, the screws, which are not at all Cross Railway; and a great space has been made exposed to the enemy's shot, would still give for another, by clearing away a number of the complete steering power.-Spectator, 7 March. shabby old houses between Wych and Holywell Streets. The success of the underground railway has set speculators planning others; and in a few years, travellers may pass from one end of London to the other without seeing it. There is talk of laying a railway through the Thames' Tunnel, and two more railway-bridges are to be built between Blackfriars and London Bridgc. In one respect, the over-ground railways are detrimental; the viaducts by which they cross the streets are ugly, and mar the perspective. Nevertheless, we see that constructive art will have a wide field before it for years to come. At present the railways of England employ seven thousand locomo M. FRANCE, a lieutenant of artillery in the French army, has invented a shell which illuminates an area of several hundred yards. Three or four of them are found sufficient to light up an extensive plain. CONDENSED air in shells is about to receive a trial at Chatham, England. The elasticity of compressed air augmented by heat, as in concussion, is said to be awfully explosive. From Good Words. BY M. C. CHAPTER I. him, as he read, several impatient ejaculations. When he had finished it, he slowly and deliberately folded it up, and placed it again THE clock on the chimney-piece had just in the envelope, and still holding it in his struck eight, when one of the wealthy mer- hand, he rose, and going to the drawingchants of our money-making city, having fin-room, handed it to his wife, saying, "Really, ished a successful day's work in his count- this is provoking! After all the expense I ing-house, and lingered for an hour or two have had with these boys, to have Dr. Blunt over his luxuriously arranged dinner-table, always complaining of them-idle little rasrose with a well-pleased expression, and re- cals! and to be plagued at this moment, too, tired to his favorite retreat, a tastefully and when I had just settled myself for a little very hadsomely furnished library, for an quiet study. It's too bad. I wonder why hour's rest and solitary enjoyment, leaving my boys have all such a dislike to books and his wife and daughters in possession of the study. The girls do well enough, though, to more gayly decorated drawing-room. be sure, they never were very good at their books; but I have set my mind on these two being scholars. Though I doubt it is not in them," he added, with a sigh. As he seated himself in a wide and amply cushioned easy-chair beside the bright fire, and drew towards him his carved oak reading-stand, on which lay several uncut periodicals, and an ivory paper-knife, he glanced complacently round the darkly curtained, softly lighted room. His eye took in with great satisfaction the well-filled book-shelves, the heavy oak cornice, the few choice carved busts whose presence he permitted, and the great bronze timepiece which never erred by so much as a second. His thoughts were something as follows :— 66 Well, it really is a comfort to have such a room to come to after the work I have done to-day. Now, if I had only a little more time to devote to literature, I certainly should have been a great student. As it is, even, I am afraid I'm too fond of these books, and of spending my time in study here. [Query -Was it the comfort of the room or the hard study that was so congenial to Mr. Huntly's taste? What a firstrate position I should have had as a literary man! I almost wish I had let the business go to the winds; such talents as mine were never meant for a counting-house; but I'll make Fred and George scholars at any rate. Come in." The last two words were uttered aloud, and being addressed to some one outside the door, who had given intimation of his presence there by two slight knocks, were followed by the entrance of a footman, who, having handed a letter to Mr. Huntly on a small silver tray, immediately retired. By the time this speech was concluded, Mrs. Huntly had read the letter, and looking up to her husband with a countenance which betrayed even greater anger than his, she said quietly, "Well, Walter! and whose fault is it that the boys' lessons aren't prepared?” "Whose fault is it? I suppose it's their own!" "By no means, my dear, if I rightly understand what you pay Mr. Graeme so highly for." "Oh! Graeme can't make them learn if they wont do it. The truth is, as I said before, it isn't in them. I believe they're desperately stupid. Mr. Graeme is an excellent tutor; not a boy at all, but a person quite fitted to teach them entirely. At least I was told he was, and so far as I can judge he bears it out." "Oh, well! if you choose to put it that way, I can't help it; but it's rather a hard thing to hear a father abusing his own children; and such children as they are, too." And as she spoke, Mrs. Huntly put on a highly injured expression. Her husband looked vexed, but only said, "There are a good many hard things in this world, my dear. At any rate, I had better get Mr. Graeme and show him this. I will go to the library, and send for him and the boys; I suppose he is with them now, and they can go over the lessons before me." Mr. Huntly carelessly opened the envelope "And see," added Mrs. Huntly, sharply, and glanced over the paper. It was a short" that he doesn't leave till they can say it note, but its contents had the effect of somewhat ruffling his brow, and drawing from perfectly." "Well, I'll try; but you know we don't |