matters for fear of being denounced. We are, indeed, still in a most
unsurrendering mood. I was talking to-day to a banker--a friend who
would do anything for me except cash my bill. In business he is a
clear-headed, sensible man. I asked him what would occur if our
provisions gave out before the armies of the provinces arrived to our
succour. He replied that the Government would announce the fact, and
call upon all able-bodied men to make a dash at the Prussian lines; that
300,000 at least would respond to that call, and would either be killed
or force their way out. This will give you an idea of the present tone
of the population. Nine men out of ten believe that we have enough
provisions to last at least until the end of February. The only official
utterance respecting the provisions is contained in a paragraph in the
_Journal Officiel_ to-day, in which we are informed that there are
15,000 oxen and 40,000 sheep in Bordeaux waiting for marching orders to
Paris. This is much like telling a starving man in the Strand that figs
are plentiful in Palestine, and only waiting to be picked.

The bombardment has diminished in intensity. The Government has put the
Prussian prisoners in the ambulances on the left bank of the Seine. It
appears to me that it would have been wiser to have moved the ambulances
to the right bank. By day few shells fall into the town beyond the
immediate vicinity of the ramparts. At night they are more plentiful,
and seem to be aimed promiscuously. I suppose about ten people are hit
every twenty-four hours. Now as above fifty people die every day in
Paris of bronchitis, there is far more danger from the latter than from
the batteries of the disciples of Geist outside. It is not worse to die
by a bomb than of a cold. Indeed I am by no means sure that of two evils
the latter is not the least; yet a person being suddenly struck down in
the streets of a capital by a piece of iron from a cannon will always
produce a more startling effect upon the mind than a rise in the bills
of mortality from natural causes. Those who are out of the reach of the
Prussian guns are becoming accustomed to the bombardment. "You naughty
child," I heard a woman who was walking before me say to her daughter,
"if you do not behave better I will not take you to see the
bombardment." "It is better than a vaudeville," said a girl near me on
the Trocadero, and she clapped her hands. A man at Point-du-Jour showed
me two great holes wh