Ingratitude Of Nations

A pathetic story of national ingratitude has been going the rouiids of the London papers, which is interesting enough to bo repeated, especially as it concerns those days of intense interest during which Paris was last in siege. Publicity bas been given it by the fact that the hero of the incident has just gone into a Freuch hospital in poverty, there to die. The Pall Mali Gazerte thus tells the tale: ' ' When the Germau lines in the autnmn of 1870 were gradually closing their boa coustrictor grasp round the doomed capital, Durnof was the hero of the hour. An experienced aeronaut, who had three times been dashed into the sea and had rtm many other uarrow escapes, he proposed.with his bal loon, Neptune, to carry a mail out of Paris and to run the gantlet of the belenguering armies. At daybreak on Sept. 23 be set out on his adventurous jouruey, the director of the posts assuring him as he handed in the dispatches and the pigeons that his courage and devotion would meet with a splendid reward. Durnof succeeded in his task and landed safe and sound at Evreux, but the poor old Neptune was never fit for another ascent. " Twenty-two years elapsed, but the unhappy aeronaut ijever received a penny from successive governinents. Even his claim for the valuo of his balloon, which had been used till it was destroyed by the military anthorities, failed to obtain tho slightest recognition. After a couple of decades he got the bronze medal accorded to all who carried dispatches by balloou, and last year a small monthly grant was made, which barely sufficed to keep him from starvatiou. Swindlers and impostora of all kinds laid the foundation of future fame and fortune in the siege of Paris, but the first man who opeued up communications between the imprisoned inhabitants and the outer world seems likely to die in dishonor and despair.