ascent of a balloon with its car containing one or
two, sometimes three, wicker cages of carrier-pigeons, becomes a
favourite spectacle with the Parisians, who would willingly see the
departure of a dozen per day. For each departure means not only the
conveyance of a budget of news from the besieged city to the provinces,
it means the return of the winged messengers with perhaps hopeful
tidings that the provinces are marching to the rescue. I am bound to
say, at the same time, that the terrible anxiety for such rescue did not
arise solely from a wish to escape further physical sufferings and
privations. Three-fourths of the Parisians would have been willing to
put up with worse for the sake of one terrible defeat inflicted upon the
Germans by their levies or by those in the provinces.

But though the gas companies did wonders, fifty-two balloons having been
inflated by them during the siege, they could do no more. Nevertheless,
the experiments continue: the brothers Goddard have established their
head-quarters at the Orleans Railway; MM. Dartois and Yon at the
Northern; Admiral Labrousse, who has already invented an ingenious
gun-carriage, is now busy upon a navigable balloon; the Government
grants a subsidy of forty thousand francs to M. Dupuy de Lome to assist
him in his research; and at the Grande Hotel there is a permanent
exhibition of appliances for navigating the air under the direction of
MM. Horeau and Saint-Felix. The public flock to them, and for a moment
there is the hope that if we ourselves cannot come and go as free as
birds, there will be at least a means of permanent communication with
the outer world that way. M. Granier has proposed to make an aerial
telegraph without the support of poles. The wire is to be enclosed in a
gutta-percha tube filled with hydrogen gas, which will enable it to keep
its altitude a thousand or fifteen hundred meters above the earth. The
cable is to be paid out by balloons. M. Gaston Tissandier, a well-known
authority in such matters, looks favourably upon the experiment; but,
alas, it comes to nothing, and we have to fall back upon less ingenious,
more commonplace means.

In other words, we are offering tempting fees to plucky individuals who
will attempt to cross the Prussian lines. Several do make the attempt,
and for a week or so the newspapers and the walls swarm with
advertisements of a private firm who will forward and receive despatches
at the rate of ten francs per