ial organs,
that perhaps the bread will have to be rationed; I may be wrong, but I
am inclined to think that the population will not submit to this.
Government makes no statement with respect to the amount of corn in
store. Some say that there is not enough for two weeks, others that
there is enough for two months' consumption; M. Dorien assured a friend
of mine yesterday that, to the best of his belief, there is enough to
carry us into March. Landlords and tenants are as much at loggerheads
here as they are in Ireland; the Government has issued three decrees to
regulate the question. By the first is suspended all judicial
proceedings on the part of landlords for their rent; by the second, it
granted a delay of three months to all persons unable to pay the October
term; by the third, it required all those who wished to profit by the
second to make a declaration of inability to pay before a magistrate.
To-day a fourth decree has been issued, again suspending the October
term, and making the three previous decrees applicable to the January
term, but giving to landlords a right to dispute the truth of the
allegation of poverty on the part of their tenants; the question is a
very serious one, for on the payment of rent depends directly or
indirectly the means of livelihood of half the nation. Thus the
landlords say that if the tenants do not pay them they cannot pay the
interest of the mortgages on their properties. If this interest be not
paid, however, the shareholders of the Credit Foncier and other great
mortgage banks get nothing. Paris, under the fostering care of the
Emperor, had become, next to St. Petersburgh, the dearest capital in
Europe. Its property was artificial, and was dependent upon a long chain
of connecting links remaining unbroken. In the industrial quarters money
was made by the manufacture of _Articles de Paris_, and for these, as
soon as the communications are reopened, there will be the same market
as heretofore. As a city of pleasure, however, its prosperity must
depend, like a huge watering-place, upon its being able to attract
strangers. If they do not return, a reduction in prices will take place,
which will ruin most of the shopkeepers, proprietors of houses, and
hotel keepers; but this, although unpleasant to individuals, would be to
the advantage of the world at large. Extravagance in Paris makes
extravagance the fashion everywhere; under the Empire, to spend money
was the readiest road to soc