26 SEPTEMBER 1874, Page 15

A CORRECTION CORRECTED.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:1 5111,—In reply to "A. R. W.," I beg leave to say that I have stated nothing in my letters as fact that rested on rumour. In speaking of recruits being hunted for during the Commune, I had specially in view the case of two young men, nephews of an old friend, who were thus hunted for repeatedly at their home, and had to sleep away for three weeks, now at one friend's, now at another's.

It was, indeed, pointed out to me, as a special reason why the rank and file of the Commune's Army ought to have been merci- fully dealt with, that there was really no other means for a work- man to maintain his wife and family than to enlist at three francs a day. Hence, I was told, the frightful gaps which the wholesale shootings and imprisonings of the " Versaillais " had made in the working population, among the best workmen and fathers of families. In some small ramifications of Paris trade, I was assured that all the workers had disappeared.

May I take this opportunity of requesting the correction of a misprint? It is the " Vanne," not the Verne, which is to fill the Montsouris reservoir.—I am, Sir, &c., J. M. L.