He informed me that he woman. We devised a beautifully constructed little plan, quite within our small powers of realization, and of the invention of which we felt very proud;

suffering. had been acquainted with the woman for some years, and that her story was perfectly exact so far as it went, but that there was a good deal more be-but, alas! we were unable to carry it hind. First, that she had a drag upon into execution. The poor creature beher in the shape of a paralyzed old came too ill to leave Paris; she dragged aunt, who was finishing her days some-on through the Commune, and died of where in Auvergne, and to whom she exhaustion in July. At all events her had paid a pension of a franc a day. latter days were calm, and not poisoned Secondly, that, although she managed by money worries. We two, with a to lay by money, she had always some group of her own friends and that good to give to those who were poorer than priest, saw the last of her in the Montherself, and that, during the siege, she martre Cemetery. Often did Oliphant had shared her savings and the product and I talk of her afterwards, for we of her sales with any one who needed remembered her as a patient, brave, help. Thirdly, that her health had be- good woman. Yet neither of us ever come so weakened, and the moral told her story; somehow we both impression on her of the events that shrank from speaking of it. Now, had passed around her had been so however, that a quarter of a century damaging, that he feared she would has passed, I think I may venture, with have great difficulty in recovering deep respect for the memory of the strength, and that he was trying to get poor flower-maker, to put the tale in money from charitable persons in order here, because, as I have already said, to send her (and others) to the seaside, it supplies a reliable illustration of the for change and rest. worst consequences of the siege.

He told me also a good deal of detail about the sufferings of which he had been a spectator during the siege, and added strength to the impression I had already begun to form, that there had been no general starvation. He told

me,

of course, of many people who were, more or less, in want, and asked me to take a list of women to whom food could be given privately, with the certainty that it was both needed and deserved; and then, when I begged to be allowed to contribute my mite to the necessities around him, refused to accept anything from me, saying that the English had done quite enough in organizing the food gifts.

By the time our conversation came to an end, I had pretty nearly got over my sheepishness, and was beginning, with the sudden ardor of a neophyte, to be immensely interested in "good works," which, like many others, I had regarded until then from the top of my indifference. So, in my new enthusiasm, I went back to the Hôtel Chatham, told Oliphant in secrecy the story of my morning's work, and consulted him as to what we should do about the

The experience of a few days, and the rapid multiplication of the demands for private assistance, irrespective of the public distributions at the depots, decided Colonel Wortley and the committee to open a special store for the issue of provisions by ticket, so as to free the better class of poor from the strain and shame of waiting in the streets. A convenient place was obtained for the purpose in a quiet corner near the Boulevard Malesherbes, and I suspect that much more real good was done there, and more true suffering soothed, than by all the indiscriminate public givings. It was, of course, extremely difficult to obtain information about the people who went there, for in most cases the tickets were placed by other persons, and we had no more means of following out the work we were doing than in the ordinary universal distributions; but I was able occasionally to lift up a corner of the veil, and to get a glimpse of what was passing underneath.

Most of the cases of this category about which I managed to collect information were of the ordinary kind,

and are not worth describing; clerks | ter with her uselessness, and a quarrel and employés of all sorts, and high- ensued, whereon the daughter ran out class workmen and workwomen, had and threw herself into the Seine. At found their pay stopped, had exhausted this point of the tale my information their slender resources, and had strug- became incomplete, and I did not learn gled with the usual difficulties. In a how the girl was saved; but saved she few instances, however, the circum- was, and was taken in somewhere by stances were special and grave, only I some one; so her mother, hearing no was rarely able to learn the whole more of her, and believing her to be truth, so as to have an entire story dead, lost the little reason she had, and before me, and can therefore say noth- was put into a lunatic asylum. A few ing interesting about the majority of weeks later the daughter reappeared at them. So far as I can recollect, there her home, found it empty, and was told were but two of which, by accident, I her mother was insane. Thereon she heard full details, and which were suffi- too grew demented, and, returning to ciently outside the ordinary types of the river, drowned herself for good. distress for it to be worth while to tell Soon afterwards the son disappeared, them here. and it was never known what became The first concerned a retired artillery of him. So, when the father came officer, with a wife, a son, and a daugh- out of hospital, at the beginning of ter, who lived together in a little apart- February, he found his wife mad, his ment near the Place the Place de l'Europe. daughter dead, and his son missing. Until the war came they got on fairly The poor man's sorrow was terrible, well; they were very poor, but they and as he had no means of subsistence, managed to subsist without running his material distress also was extreme. into debt; the father gave lessons in Happily, when he was absolutely withmathematics, the son was clerk in a out food, his case became known to bank, the daughter taught the piano. some one who was in communication The siege stopped their various in- with the English committee; tickets comes; the father's little pension con- were obtained for him, and so long as tinued, perhaps, to be paid to him, but the distribution continued (that is to of that I am not certain; all the rest say, till about the end of February, I disappeared. The father, old and think), he received a daily allowance. feeble as he was, offered his services I heard the story from one of the men on the ramparts; but on the second employed at the private depot, and he day, in getting a gun into an embra-informed me some months later that sure, his leg was broken in two places, the poor man had been removed into and he was carried to a hospital, where he remained until the capitulation. The son became a National Guard, and rarely showed himself to his mother and sister, who, from the very beginning of the investment, found themselves alone. In their case, as in so many others, it was on the women that the burden fell. The daughter got into an ambulance as nurse; but she was a weakly creature, of little courage, with susceptible nerves, and when some wounded men were brought in after the first skirmish, she had a hysterical attack, and was turned out by the doctors. The mother, who also was a weak woman, became utterly upset by her misfortunes, reproached the daugh

the country by kind people, and that he was to live on his pension, such as it was. But he was alone; his home and family were gone. Decidedly the siege had been hard upon him.

In the second case a designer in a manufactory of bronze figures, a man who counted rather as an artist than an artisan, and who earned easily from seventy to a hundred fraucs a week (but who had lived largely and had laid by nothing), lost his eyes six months before the war, by an accident in casting a statue, and became incapable of earning his bread. His wife was dead, but he had two sons and a daughter, all good workers and doing well, and they undertook to pay him, between them,

an allowance of three francs a day until were, the blind father and the shathe could be got into the Blind Asylum. tered daughter, alone in their two When the siege came on, the sons en- rooms, from which, happily, as I have tered the National Guard, and one of already explained, they could not be them was killed though seemingly turned out while the siege lasted out of range-by a lost bullet in the waiting for death to put an end to their first skirmish. As the other son had distress. About the same time, the no longer any income other than his second son, weakened by intoxication, pay as a temporary soldier, and as the caught typhoid fever and died. Suddaughter-who, being tall and slight, denly, unexpected aid appeared. A had been a lay-figure for the exhibition girl who had been employed by the of mantles and fashions in the rooms same dressmaker as the daughter, had of one of the great dressmakers been sheltered by a fairly rich old lady, had of course lost her place by the clos- to whom her mother had been maid, ing of the establishment, the father and who, having a generous heart, was and daughter were left, from Septem-looking about for deserving people to ber, without means of subsistence. assist. The girl bethought herself of For a time, nevertheless, they man- the "tryer-on," of whose deplorable aged to exist; their former employers situation she was vaguely aware, and gave them small sums; other people went to look for her. She found her, helped them somewhat; and during the and told her story to the old lady, who first few weeks they scraped on. But went at once to see her, and undertook by the end of October these aids came to provide for her. A period of relief to an end, and they found themselves followed; food, fire, and medicines face to face with destitution. Further- were supplied to them, and they began more, the daughter fell ill; and to to look with some hope to the future. make the situation still worse, the sur-But in December the old lady got a viving son, who until then had been a chill, and died in three days; whereon steady fellow, took to drink, like so the situation of the father and daughmany others during the siege-time, and instead of being a help, became an additional source of affliction to the two poor people. As none of them had any religion, they had never made acquaintance with the clergy of their parish, and could not apply to them for assistance. At last they were reduced to the humiliation of putting down their names at the Bureau de Bienfaisance at the mairie of their arrondissement- and those who are acquainted with the pride of most of the skilled workmen of Paris, and with the horror ommending cases. At first I tried to they have of public charity, will know make some examination for myself, that they must indeed have been in but very soon I was beaten by the deep distress to have resigned them- accumulation of demands, and, after selves to that step. Between hunger, consulting Colonel Wortley, told my anxiety, and shame, the daughter (who friends they must assume the responsihad been a very smart, almost elegant, bility of their suggestions, and placed young woman, discharging in perfec- tickets at their disposal. In this way I tion her function of wearing clothes so was asked for help for the father and skilfully as to tempt buyers with them) daughter by a connection, as I discovfell into a condition of nervous pros- ered afterwards, of the deceased old tration, which, at last, rendered her lady, to whom the other girl had incapable of walking. And there they spoken about them. One morning I

ter became even worse than before, because of the fierce cold, against which they could not battle. The other girl (who continued to be cared for by the relatives of the old lady) behaved well, shared with the two the little she had, went to the baker for their bread allowance, and kept them both just alive till the capitulation. Then came the public announcement of the "English gifts," whereon some of my friends, knowing that I was concerned in the distribution, came or wrote to me rec

I

was in the private-distribution depot, | other very distressing examples. looking on, when that very girl came heard, of course, in general terms, of in. I spoke to her, asked whether she many more; but I had no means of was there for herself or for others, and testing them, and therefore, though I got from her in minute details (rather in no way pretend that there were not too minute indeed, for she was an hour hundreds quite as sad as the few I have over them) the story I have just told. narrated, I hold nevertheless to the I did not visit the poor people, for by conviction that the siege did not prothat time I had too much to do, and duce anything approaching to the staralso was growing a little hardened; but vation that was gratuitously attributed I inquired often about them during two to it. If evidence cannot be found or three years from the friend who had when it is carefully sought for (and I first spoken of them to me, and was did seek it carefully), it does not seem pleased to hear that the father was unjust to infer that it scarcely existed alive, and that the daughter (who was in any abundance. The effect of the maintaining him) had returned to her siege was, as I have said and shown, place, where she continued to be as to kindle much disease and much moral elegant as before, and displayed the and physical distress; its consequences, apparel she was commissioned to put for years afterwards, showed themon with a seductively languid new selves in many cases of enfeebled grace, which she was supposed to owe health and of damaged constitutions; to her sufferings during the siege, and but those consequences were generwhich the others envied. I thought sometimes of going to look at her; but my curiosity seemed to me somewhat indiscreet, and, besides, I fancied that to behold her all over satin and lace might damage the keenness of my sympathy with her sad story.

The case was illustrative. The blindness of the father had nothing to do with the war; but the deaths of the two sons were due to it, one directly, the other indirectly, and the miseries of the daughter were caused by it alone. A better example could scarcely be found of mischief brought about by the siege; yet here again the damage did not assume entirely the shape of starvation want of food certainly played a part in it, but the deaths of the brothers were not caused by famine, and both the father and daughter lived on and got well.

ated, I believe, by cold, by anxiety, by gloomy surroundings, and by unwholesome nourishment, far more than by positive absence of any food whatever. If the siege had occurred in the summer, instead of the winter, the larger part of those consequences would not, in all probability, have come about at all.

I am therefore disposed to doubt whether the " English gifts "' did all the good that was intended and expected by their promoters. That they did some good is certain; that they enabled a good many people to make the first fair meal they had eaten for a long while, is equally certain; that, here and there, in a few cases, they supplied food just at the last moment, when it seemed to be unobtainable elsewhere, is, I think, proved by the stories I have told; but, as there was no genAnd there ends my personal knowl-eral absolute starvation, their influence edge of remarkable sorrows resulting went no further. It was a satisfaction from the investment. I was in a posi- to every one concerned to feel that tion to look somewhat behind the scenes; I was exceptionally placed, as a member of the English committee, for hearing of particularly bad examples; I listened to the talk and the experiences of a large number of persons, with many priests amongst them, and yet I cannot call to mind any

those results were attained; but the hope was to do much more, and more was not done, for the decisive reason that it was not there to do.

Furthermore, though it pleased the English to send the food, I doubt strongly that it pleased the French to receive it. The circumstances were

delicate; the French were at that mo- I wish to practise the policy of "hands ment, most naturally, in a condition off." By the mere force of events, of nerve-tension, of rage, of humilia- Russia will succeed partially to the intion, which led them to look at every-heritance of her Asiatic neighbor; for thing with a fiercely embittered eye; China will no longer be able to hold and a good many of them imagined, in her northern territories, which are their rankling susceptibility, that the inhabited by populations of different object of England was to humiliate origin, language, and manners. The them rather than to assist them. And, vast zone of Mongolia, which until now honestly, considering what their state has separated the Russians from the of mind was at that time; considering Chinese, gravitates more and more that they were writhing under defeat towards the sphere of Slavonic influand pain; considering how unprepared ence. By a strange turn of the historic they had been, both by their national balance, the Muscovites are to have character and by the previous condi- their revenge for the Tartar domination tions of their national life, to stand of six centuries ago, and to subjugate, up under the fearful blow that fell or, better still, to assimilate the nationupon them, I admit that they had alities which once were their conquermuch excuse for their impression. ors. However amicable may be the The question was not whether the impression itself was true or false, but whether those who formed it were led to it by what appeared to them, in their excitement, to be a reasonable feeling. Their irritation was such that, in many cases, it was almost unsafe for a foreigner to speak to them. That irritation was, if not justifiable, at all events comprehensible, and it influenced every thought they had. Even long afterwards I heard the "English gifts" referred to with resentment. The government of the period professed, officially, to be very grateful, and to be much touched by the sympathy exhibited by England; and of course the people who got the food were glad to profit by it; but I am convinced that the nation, as a whole, disliked our interference, and would have preferred to see us "stop in our island."

official relations of the two conterminous empires, however explicit the terms in which each power has bound itself forever to respect the territories of the other, the forces of political attraction will draw on the government of the czar to put itself in the place of the government of the "Son of Heaven" in all the external provinces of China, even if the movement be not strong enough to determine Russia to attack at once some vital part of the Chinese Empire.

The successive encroachments of the Slav Empire upon the domain of the "Hundred Families 99 are well known. The boundary of Russia marches with that of China for about five thousand miles, and of this line much more than half is traced through districts once subject to the "August Sovereign." Towards the end of the seventeenth century, in 1689, the Chinese government, by the Treaty of Nertchinsk, obtained the recall of the Cossack adventurers, sable-hunters, who had established themselves at various points on the banks of the Amur, and even found itself strong enough to IF the political disintegration of attack and recover fortified factories China, which seems to be imminent in such as that of Albazin. At that time, all parts of the country beyond the indeed, Russia had no colonies properly limits of the "Flowery Kingdom," so called, in eastern Siberia, beyond should actually come to pass, it will certainly lead to Russian intervention, even if the Russian government should

From The Contemporary Review. RUSSIA, MONGOLIA, AND CHINA.

BY ELISEE RECLUS.

the Altaï. But after the historic rights of China over the whole basin of the Amur were formally recognized, many