CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, | CHAPTER I. Anglophobia—Insult to Lord Lyons—The ‘‘ Voltaire’s "’ Short Memory—Scene in the French Chamber—An English Criticism—French Republic—Une Na- tion des Singes a Larynx de Perroquets. : CHAPTER I. Horrible Paris—St. Denis—Rue des Cascades—Menilmontant—“ Le Cri du Peu- ple ’’ and the Students—An English Writer on Paris. CHAPTER Ii. -Englishand French Heroism contrasted—Some Historical Reminiscences— Crécy—Poitiers—Agincourt—The Fiends of the Revolution—The Imbecility of the Republic—Bismarck’s Opinion of French Soldiers, CHAPTER IV. A Challenge to M. Hector France—La Femme des Rats—A Bull-fight at Aix- en-Provence—Les Sculptres Vivants—Bal Bullier in Paris—The Can-can —How Young France takes its Pleasure, CHAPTER V. M. Jules Ferry’s Little Joke—French Morality—French Hypocrisy—French Crime of Vitriol Throwing. ‘ CHAPTER. VI. The Deformed Feet of the French—French Vanity—The use of English things in France—A Frenchman Cousin to the Virgin Mary—The Spread of the English Language and the Decline of the French—Marseilles, a Sodom and cansar gees get of French Peasantry—The French Budget—Position of rance, CHAPTER YIl. French Dueling and its Absurdity—The Valor of M. Jules Valles—The Decora- tion of the Legion of Honor—French Officialism: its Arroganee and Im- pertinence—The Paris ‘‘ Figaro ”’ on Official Jobbery and Dishonesty—* Lib- erté, Kgalité, Fraternité "—The Brotherhood of Cain—‘* Be my Brother or Iwill Kill you”—The French Police—The Spy System—The Torture in French Prisons, Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates https://archive.org/details/johnbullsneighboOOunse vi -OONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. Justice in France, how it is Mocked and Burlesqued—The Marquis de Ray— The Charenton Murder—The Sentimentality of French Jurors—A Shame- ful Case in Nice—Napoleon’s Mot—‘ The French have no Civic Courage” —The Bad Drainage of Paris—Failure of the Water Supply—Absinthe and Eau-de-Vie—The Awful Drunkenness of France—The Suicides. CHAPTER IX. A French Bedroom. Salle & Manger, Cuisineé—Home Life—The Lady and her ’ Daughters—A French Idea of Pleasure—Late Hours—Chicory—Coffee— French Wine: How it is Adulterated—The French Habit of Spitting into a Tumbler at the Dinner Table—French Politeness: Where is it? In a Frenchman’s Hat! CHAPTER X. French Soldiers—Officers: their Ignorance and Brutality—Barracks: their Un- wholesomeness and Dirt—The Morale of the Army—The Duke of Welling- ton’s Reply to Louis XVIII.—The Franco-Prussian War—The French scared by Bogus Soldiers—The Disgrace of Sedan. CHAPTER Xi. The French Press: its Venality—‘‘ Le Temps” and L7ndon “ Telegraph” con- trasted—** Des Debats ’—** Le Figaro ’’—“ Le Clarion ’’—Press Laws—Fear of Actions for Libel—Want of Freedom. CHAPTER X11. French Cooking and English Compared—French Soups—Bouillon: How it is Made—Horseflesh. CHAPTER XIItI. The Frenchman in London—His Cat-like Love for his Haunts—His Dislike to * fravel—Paris Municipal Council and the Hospitals—Social Life—How - Children are brought up—The Dot—French Courting—The Treatment of Infants—The general Unhealthiness of French Children—Illegitimacy— French Theaters—The English Flag and Liberty. INTRODUCTION. ®-. For a long time our dear and generous neighbors overt the water have been delving and grubbing in verbal dust-heaps, in search of garbage to fling at ** ces bétes Anglais.’”’ Perhaps there is nothing in this that need cause astonishment, for no one nowadays, except old ladies and weak-minded people, hopes to discover that unknown quantity in human composition—gratitude; but, nevertheless, one does occasionally expect to meet with something like respect. Per- fide Albion has many sins, no doubt, lying at her door, and there are some pretty big blots on her escutcheon. She has also a goodly number of social ulcers that it would become her to use every en- deavor to heal; but as a leading actress in the World's great drama, to say nothing of her having played—and played successfully, too— the role of the Destiny-maker of other nations, it is not unreasonable to think that she is deserving of better fate in her tolerably respect- able old age than to be pelted with verbal mud, especially when it is remembered by whom the mud is flung. But when did conspicuous success not engender virulent jealousy on the part of those who, be- ing deficient in the tact and ability necessary to gain success them- selves, display their smallness of mind by snapping and snarling like ill-bred puppy-dogs? lt was more than probable that the French gentlemen who have lately been amusing themselves by scratching the pachydermatous hide of John Bull have but scant knowledge of two characters who figure in sacred history. Therefore, 1 would humbly and deferentially beg to direct their earnest attention to a little moral episode, having reference to these personages, who were known as Ananias and Sapphira, 1 think it is Mark Twain who is accredited with having once said of somebody, that he had such a sacred regard for truth that he never used it. The twu historical persons alluded to would seem to have had the same regard, and it is sad to relate that owing to this they made a painfully sud- den exit from the vale of tears. If this too true story were taken to .. heart more by Madame La France, it is safe to predict that the. moral standard of her volatile and eccentric children would be con- - siderably raised. At any rate, such statements as that put torth re- cently by M. Hector France, in ‘*‘ Va-nu-Pieds de Londres,’’ would scarcely have found their way into print. This gentleman, in a very wonderful book indeed, asserts, in sober seriousness, that there are a class of men in London who get their living by having their heads ea at the rate of from sixpence to eighteenpence per punch, e all know that it is necessary to go abroad to learn news of home; and M. France will possibly now have the kindness to tell us where and when these interesting peopleare to be found, and what their net ayy 4 ee “ * om ra * ¢ J , Me “a latin any ty 4 pride "Alte OR oe U ¥ » 7 4) yan lagi ee ak “ou i ek we aa aot ite ; uy Ae rer eae i" Cwia aan Canih oS Tuts eae . Poh ica Be party] pashan Be COS pi Retna G | ae ee Oe ee eee) ne } 7 iF its a> Pe) fin FRA ve’ 2 ’ - t ® : ’ CH Lui rg) % LANE ee hd i. y a ee ger “41 > »% ’ } Ue : a . Gee Galle 9) Soe oy : <7, 4 ~* i Bt Ge he. AD ip er ae? . q °% 7 + > ‘is AG Fath sj te Mi ‘ec “ ¥ al : , 2 ‘ | ytd $5 ee >. ; : L ) thy ra * ny ae Taal, ary ¢ aren ; *% ‘ .* es v ae wr ’ ’ 9.5 at ' ivy y , , i : ‘ dt 4 4 oe bP ay ¢ «* Nan un. y yy ‘ a8 ah arah oA . ay y ry a ds wy ‘ : wr . ree ee) eee em ap Ce BS ha | Py Pi v Wags a 9 . ‘ one ‘ ie *) Lee ¢ fe t ’ - ‘> .: ‘ he i { ba . . 3 oy i ’ * « ‘ 1 eens rm | ied Pay aA, he ot iv? athe er cr oo oy + =e an) ® of s. @ é P | rag 1s ‘ aie fay a ; "y A ay ay : esutt ,, Wha 4 } ari 12.1. -7 : ; * A a? % ; te ako. > “iT aig is - 4 qiah ‘ fe re ® w oe} 4 bo 7 : is . ahd 7 re ee Py oa iain me PP) o> Oe a Vill : INTRODUCTION, earnings are per week? Having made this marvelous discovery in our midst, and of which we ourselves were entirely ignorant, the author proceeds in the same serious vein to state that he saw a Sal- vation Army captain, after preaching eloquently, slip away from his companions and drink half a pint of gin at a publie-house bar. It would add to the value of this statement if M. France told us where he was stationed when he saw ne astounding spectacle. He is cer- tainly gifted with a. marvelously penetrating vision, even for a Frenchman; but 1 trust he will not feel hurt if I venture on the re- mark that the ‘‘ half-pint of gin ”’ isa /eetletoo much. This is topped. hgwever, by the description of *‘a man and dog fight,’’ which M. France saw at ‘‘ Wapping.’’ It is foolish to expect that Frenchmen who have so much to engage their attention in their own beloved country should know anything of the contemporary history of their neighbors—excepting what it pleases them to know. Otherwise, the talented M. France might have remembered that not a decade ago a certain Mr. Greenwood contributed a very startling story, @ propos ot the same subject, to a London daily paper. ‘The scene of the story was not laid in Wapping; however, but Hanley. But though the Mayor of Hanley and the Corporation, assisted by sundry policemen, several detectives, and by Mr. James Greenwood himself, used every endeavor to authenticate the story, no trace whatever of the scene of the novel combat could be discovered; and after long and earnest in- vestigation the conclusion arrived at was, that a pork-chop supper had seriously disagreed with the distinguished journalist, and he had dreamed a dream. May I beg of M. France that in revising his book si a new edition he should remember the above well-authenticated act? However, as we, @.c., nous bétes Anglais, say, ‘‘ What is bred in the bone won’t come out.’’ Therefore, it is perhaps a somewhat hopeless task to look for truth in the scribbling gentlemen who hail from the other side of the Channel. The word was long ago expur- gated from their vocabulary, for they felt that while it remained _ they were too heavily handicapped. Of course the gentle Gaul perversely closes his eyes to the possi- bility of the ‘‘ Brutal Saxon ’”’ being in possession of any virtues: But, as we remember this, it naturally suggests to us the very fool- ish ostrich, who, when pursued by its enemies, buries its poor little head in the sand, thinking that thereby its whole body is hidden. So also, to use.a simile, ‘* Mossoo’’ imagines that by closing his eyes to the good qualities of his neighbors, the world quite fails to detect his own numerous faults. If it were necessary to classify these faults, they might be arranged under the respective headings of (1) an utter disregard for the truth; (2) the most consummate vanity; (3) a repulsive immorality; (4) Godlessness; (5) faithlessness; (6) un- cleanliness, moral and physical. 1 am aware that these would, in the aggregate, form a very heavy indictment, but then the most voluminous evidence is at hand to amply substantiate it. In venturing in my capacity of a ‘‘ Brutal Saxon,”’ on the forego- ing remarks, I do not forget the pretty story of the pot and the ket- tle; but nations, like individuals, while having many faults, may also be in possession of some virtues; though, us viewed through the spectacles of our charming Gallic friends, we are utterly virtueless. INTRODUCTION. ix It is terribly sad to reflect on this state of things, which, of course, must be true since Frenchmen tell us so. But, while bowing humbl to the charge, [ intend, with John Bullish obstinacy, to bring for into the light of publicity some of the little weaknesses and failings of our too kind neighbors. And in doing this, I shall endeavor to avoid exaggeration in the slightest degree. Nor must I forget to say that I am not unmindtul that there are many ennobling chatacter- istics which distinguish the French nation. In fact, I think 1 may go so far as to assert that, of all the nations of the earth, none have a higher appreciation of the French as a people than we unfortunate and brutal Saxons. Bat it may be as well to remind our neighbors that, as they live in a structure built of exceedingly transparent material, it might be more becoming if they displayed less readiness to throw stones. nl eos au? "i ns Sic abu Py hae sEa3 34 #91 John Bull's Neighbor in Her True Light. ~ CHAPTER I. Anglophobia—Insult to Lord Lyons—The ‘‘ Voltaire’s”” Short Memory—Scene in the French Chamber—An English Criticism--French Republic—Une Na- tion des Singes a Larynx de Perroquets. EvEeRryBopy knows that there is a disease in France called Anglo- phobia ; that it isa little worse than hydrophobia, and just as incura- ble. lt lies dorinant for some time, and then breaks out with terri- ble virulence, This disease during the last two years has been epidemic across the water and, from the gamins in the gutter to tho President of the Great Republic, it has run a very violent course. During these two years, the writersin the French Press have worked themselves into a perfect frenzy about poor o!d Johu Bull; and as French people, owing to their unbounded egotism, never rend any- thing but French papers and Irench books, they have naturally come to believe all that has been written about les Anglais. When one makes a strong statement, it is always wcll to be in a position to give indisputable proof in support of what is stated; and so, as evidence of the frenzy mentioned, 1 will citc on ably-edited pauper, over which M. Jules Ferry is said to exerciso some influence, namely, the ‘‘ Vol- taire,’’ which, in its icsue a fe\7 doys ago, wrote thus about our Em- bassador at Paris: “‘In reply to the letter in which Victor Hugo did Queen Victoria the honor of asking her to pardon O'Donnell, the English embassa- dor addressed Victor [lugo as Monsieur Je Senateur. As regards the refusal of the pardon, that will be a matter for the queen’s children and grandchildren, and those of her beloved eas aes The future ‘has functions of its own. As to the incivility—I was going to sa the insult—of greeting Victor Hugo by the title of Senateur, I find it strong, albeit Iinglish. Why did not Lord Lyons, while he had the embassadorial pen in hand, describe the grand homme Irangais as Monsieur |’Academicien, since Victor Hugo is. quite as much an Academicien as a Senateur? It is probable, however, that when he wrote to the queen, Victor Huo did not call her cher confrére, but addressed her as ‘ Majesty.’ To describe Victor Hugo as M., le Sena- teur is a blunder. It is possible that in England the title of baronet is more highly prized than that of poet, hut in France it is quite the contrary. 1f Lord Lyons was selected as Embassador to Paris, it was solely because he had read the works of Victor Hugo, because he was capable of seeing the difference betwoen that immortal man and & mere senateur. If it were not so, the choice of Lord Lyons would Lae t) ya 1 mar. Pe : zn a ¥ ' De wlan. Om > ciate oh ae bs are pone ; Bo ah? aries, Lan Ws Seat Ws be ‘ i” a ae mh vs " Got ie eae Coe k 2) rege yeas a “ee Ma bs Gyre a i Pay 4 Ae. hatiwiuy 7 i ite tee Pal 84 foe: a oho ns ae % at tore pe” ry! & bs er iia! 7 “air map : oa “ JT) . “a = ia} > | b | A, , i ; _" : orn. » ‘ 74) bh =f, ir & Tat s * 1” i ¢'e ~$ Gey s A ~& a) uy * We ‘ :* » = | om q ay) “A Ae v n ’ ‘J \q + ) ‘ P f aN - tay ai" ‘7 tis — Si % os ae aot.) me ct a digas, 8, , Le: Ps : 7 1, 2 & mer f Q = wth a Le ie ee een Al, AA, ' fh! ‘7 7 a ; erat ld N " Pp eA tay y te fs am ay Ate , } ’ ~ Lee iu tel a ¥e ' ‘ vey, ; 4% P neo we 44 >." ba ‘ is yt oll ye Py , + ? A y \ ‘ ° é aN Te 7 t ‘ fe x ray weep sh ee ht re mika a. nots “ap ‘ = , tsi »@ by, Le ' 7’ pt Ri Os os i ad pa ¥ a * j a (ra a) a 4 rhe ’ } ee oh 4 fe Op ® ; ha ; Ae fepi: ‘te Es ~ Som am fr. * Oe. ay fiat, s oe LEO ihe Ep a a { he .; 5 >in [ Vy ait pe ee dad . vert- . au ¢ i me 7 ; Le f ‘t, . 5 ; Bi a a a ” t 4 ie a ? é i peer e ; 4 ee ee ey a © 8 Lae es a My ea BAA © iy) Om 4 ne 4) , - ~] of’ : \ * PS i ry (iy e" 149 \ 7 ; > om ‘ ¥ ‘ ‘ aS ae "La? chy ine $ oh, dob pit Gane? : i ‘y im bf core (gee oes e wey fall ? * Hy ét i ed a. ed La Ve N hd ere aie ng p : ys » ut ‘, iat . “Bi'y = wa : » , i ay is ' by a ay GS =e a ie a og Me he ts i Ww : ; , “8 » ie tie vre i) ores ox | *') Prue =y ¢ Taner my ' F : - ut ’ ee » aadiake pi eas Pe Ras vi) +" Nes a ¥ + “8 . ; 4 Mh vy =m hay v - 7 j eye f, 7] ti: : + ks ; ’ PY : . “a ry pe ‘ Ls H rie a j 7 f i J Ti i p ie y , if a ; "4 ~ © ign = ie Ao wy pir - ' grt eee nie 4, Ra ee Ny ie ris 7 P a _ . + : “a é , e xi ad var - vX, Ati Dear ny ATS -_< a * > ; ee ee - ) ; wes Veders! er eth a FL chee a kG tnt Mate th CORNERS he) a4 spi ce oe wy > iv = Pi. Tie ¥y i he ig Pea’ o i Py pas ‘; ie » 7 7 ’ pt beak Add Aa a's, ? stevie is ey es i. hs SSR Race ca amoeba pe 4" se theaiau ina esharsetieal tego Misty red Fel SF sn \ an a agit pe igh? wer’: awake ah + Bayh way nee mh 5 iain ia po dices Ant net Seve tothe he " pan ae, “7 “i on rt fies ie Pwr a Dae —— a - cS 14 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. scene and smiled, as he saw how true his prediction had come. But, as an English Liberal newspaper* said the other day: ‘“The French. Republic is more arrogant, more violent, morte ag- gressive, more energetic in demanding from the weak what the strong should never ask, than any empire or kingdom in the world. Democracy, we see now, can be as wicked as emperors and kings, whatever the Democratic Federation may say. The demand upon China for money is ridiculously tyrannical, But it is nothing like the demand upon Madagascar for the cost of the destruction of the — Sakalava seaboard. ‘I'he latter is barbarously cruel, and represents France in the very worst light,’’ | Distinguished Frenchmen themselves have not hesitated to freely lash their countrymen, and never have their national. weaknesses been more forcibly expressed than they were by #»« celebruted Abbé Sieyes, a French politician and publicist, and at one time Embassador to Berlin.+ .In a letter to Mirabeau he spoke of the French as ‘* Une nation de singes 4 Jarynx de perroquets.’’ This, however, is but.a paraphrase of Voltaire’s celebrated remark in a letter which he addressed to Madame du Deffand, November 21st, 1766:—‘‘ Your nation is. divided into two species: the one of idle monkeys who mock at everything; and the other tigers, who tear.’’?. Nothing that any foreigner has ever written against France has been so terribly stinging and bitter as this—all the more stinging on account of. its tremendous truth. Any onc who knows Paris at the present day will not. need to he told that the idle monkeys are very conspicuous; while the tigers are lying perdu, thirsting for blood, and panting for the moment when they can commence again to tear and rend. Some recent returns state that there are-about 250,000 persons in ‘Paris who have no visibic means of obtaining a livelihood. These figurcs represent an oxtraordinary percentage, when it is remem- bered that the population of the French capital is only a little more than 2,000,000. And these 250,000 blackguards—male and female ~—hide their shameless heads in the dens and rookeries, the equal of which the worst parts of London cannot show. Eugene Sue’s ** Mysteries of Paris’’ is us applicable now as it was when it was first written. It is true Paris has been extensively ‘* Haussmann- ized,’’ and during the Second Empire a great deul more gilt was added to the city, but the rookeries and the horrors remain, even though they have been edged closer.together. In the lurid year of 1870, as all the world knows, the tigers came forth to take part in and gloat over the carnage and senseless «nd idiotic destruction. If hell had poured ‘orth its worst fiends, they could not have been move horrible, more cruel, more inhuman, more devilish, than were those devilish people. The hideous cruelty of the women and the insensate tury of the men could not be adequately described. lf MM. Jules Valles and A. Lancon, who have just published a * “ Mastern Morning News.” + Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes, known as the Abbé Sieves, was born at Frejus, May, 1748, He was Vicar-General and Chancellor of,Chartres, and a member of the States-General ofthe National Assembly. of the Convention, of the eg Five Hundred, He lived in exile from 1815 to 1830, and died at aris : —-) 2 JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. 1b book entitled ‘‘ La Rue a Londres,’’* instead of crossing the Chan- nel to lay bare the ulcers of the World’s City, had only dived into theirown reeking and repulsive slums, they would have got more startling subjects for their clever pen and pencil than the greatest city in the world, with its population of nearly 5,000,000, could pos- set) furnish them with, But here again the Chauvinism asserts itself. The Anglophobia is running its course in Paris, and so these two gentlemen—clever writer and clever artist—cross to London, and shutting their eyes to its unequaled grandeur and magnificence, dive into its worst slums, and, dragging to light festering evils, give them pictorial and verbal images. Then they return to Paris trium- phantly, and say to their countrymen: ‘* Behold these English easts; these are ire types of our neighbors.”’ | In this same book, ‘‘ La Rue a Londres,’’ we are told that we do not know what comfort is. Oh, Messicurs, Messieurs, why, when you wrote that, did you not bear jn mind the terrible fate of Ananias and his wife? It was unworthy of such clever men as you to put such a shameless falsehood into print for the sake of pandering to the Anglophobic tastes of your countrymen It was my proud privilege to once hear your late lamented and distinguished confrére, Gustave Dore, say that no other people on the face of the earth knew what onc was as the English know it. I should like to ask you, MM. Julcs Valles and A. Lancon, if you know what comfort is? That is, when I saw you, I mean, of course, your country. If so, who taught it to you? Try for once and overcome that national trait of which 1 have spoken, and honestly confess that we brutal Saxons gave you the lessons. I intend, however, in the course of this work, to depict some of your own home-life, such as | under- stand it after long residence among you. And I shall defy you to contradict my statement, that of all the hations of the earth the French are the least versed in the art of making their homes com- fortable. M.: Jules Valles further informs us in his work that we are o nation of ‘‘ gloomy, melancholy hypocrites.’’ This is a very typical sample of the real French politeness—a subject 1 deal with further on. For nine years this gentleman was an exile in our midst, and among his compatriots in the neighborhood of Le-ces- ter-square, managed to pass away the time pretty pleasantly. But while partaking of our hospitality for these nine years, he was un+- able to discover anything more startling about us than that we are gloomy, melancholy hypocrites. I find, according to the best. dic- tionary authorities, that a hypocrite is ‘‘ one who assumes an ap- pearance of virtuc and piety.’’ Now, it has generally been under- stood by the rest of the world that French people were peculiarly liable to this assumption, so possibly M. Valles has made a mistake, But, whether or no, -we will do our best to survive theterrible ver- dict.. In dealing with us, however, he is mild—possibly in return for our nine years’ hospitality—as compared to what he is with his own countrymen, M, Jules Valles happens to be the editor and proprietor of a journal called *‘ Le Cri du Peuple,’’ and these are * Charpentier et Cie. Price 100 franes. This work is splendidly got up, and in an artistic and typographical seuse is the most magnificent volume that has been issued in Paris for years. Its great price, however, will prevent its being generally read, eae, Ea , od A a ‘4 W pete: ort Bree 9 bal ree” 1 Se aie : id Fah 16 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. some of the terms he applied to the students of the Latin Quartier the other day. He churges them with ‘* cynicism, imbecility, cor- ruption, debauchery, empty-headedness, and general rottenness.’’ M. Valles was a student himself once, and the young men of whom he now speaks in so feeling a manner will by and by take their places as French citizens. They will go to the Senate, the Church, the Bar; they will paint pictures and write books; so that young France now knows the class of men who will Jead it later on. | Possibly M, Valles has again made a mistuke, and he meant these pretty epithets for the present rulers of his country, and not for the poor students. Under any circumstances, it would appear as if the ‘‘ tiger’’ was very ferocious indeed in M. Jules Valles; and it is safe to assert, loo ing at the class of paper he now edits, and to the fact that he found it necessary to retire into obscurity for nine years, that should the late M. Thiers’ prediction be again fully realized, and the blood stage be reached, M. Valles’ fangs would drip pretty freely. In addition to the figures | have already quoted of the black- guardism in Paris must be added 151,000 indigents. 1 give this number from the recent article of M. d Haussonville. Now, tor every 2,000,000 of population i-London, we have only 125,000 in- digents, The same authority also staes that ‘‘ Paris. misery is stationary; while London misery .has been reduced in thirty years from six to three per cent.’” What do you think of that, gentle- men? Now, if to your 250,000 blackguards and 151,000 indigents we add your 100,000 prostitutes, we get a startling total, in very truth; such as ought to make you seriously reflect whether, after all, your pen and pencil might not be more profitably employed at home in revealing to an astonished world the rottenness of your ** Horrible Paris.’’ We are fully aware of the mote in our eye, and, according to the lights that are given us, we will use our best en- deavors to clean out our Augean stable; but pray, good gentlemen, do not forget your own. ee ; CHAPTER Il. Horrible Paris—St. Denis—Rue des Cascades—Menilmontant—" Le Cri du Peu- ple’ and the Students—An English Writer on Paris. So much has been made of ‘‘ Horrible London ’’ by French writers recently, that one can scarcely help a certain satisfaction that there is a Horrible Paris. Not the Paris of the Boulevards, with their gilt and gaud, and which most Englishmen only know; but the greater Paris, lying to the north and south, east ana west.. Suppose we. select the region of St. Denis, one of the most dreadful in Paris. Here the houses are six and seven stories in height. They are narrow, dark, reeking, ae filthy. The average rent for one room is two and a halt francs a week, and in many of these rooms are huddled six, seven, and eight human beings, Sisters and brothers, fathers and daughters sleep together. Young men and young women shamelessly expose their nakedness to each other. There are absolutely no sanitary regulations. The old cry of Garde . ad vous / may be heard at any hour of the evening by any one who has the boldness to penetrate into this vile quarter. In the dark, | JOUN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. 1? rotting staircases are open privies, from which the filth is seldom teinoved. The floors of the rooms are black with trodden-in nasti- ness. The walls reek with mildew and festering damp... The air of these places is absolutely overpowering. In the streets, heaps ot offal collect and are the debating-ground for thousands of rats and gaunt, starving dogs and cats, who rend and tear each otber, and dispute the moldering garbage. In hot weather this quarter is.the birthplace ot cholera, typhoid, typhus, and almost every disease under the sun. In cold and wet weather, the iwisery is appalling; The people who eke out their poisonous existence here are human ghouls, The women, by dissipation, are bloated out of. all sem- blance to womanhood; while the men are hideous in their skulking, hang-dog, villainous expressions. The children grow old long before their time: they are utterly without any sense of decency, morality, or religion. They are born like dogs, and they die and are buried like dogs. Suicides are of every day occurrence, and murders. are frequent. Passing from St. Denis to Belleville, we find Brealey the same thing, though, if anything, worse. And lest it might be thought that [ am drawing an exaggerated picture, [ will quote the Paris. correspondent of the “‘ Daily News,’’ who, in the issue of that paper: for December 26, 1883, says about these very places I allude to: “*8t. Denis is a suburban Alsatia of want. Misery shifts just as. * fashion shifts. St. Antoine is now nothing to Belleville, and Belle-, ville is rapidly yielding to St. Denis. There is the new misery and the old iniséry; the old misery in some of the central arrondissements is almost genteel; the people are ashamed to be seen to suffer, they dress decently, and hide the eleemosynary morsel in their sleeve, Belleville and St. Denis have no scruples of the kind; it is all. squalor there, and no wian dreads the eye of his neighbors. . The houses, both of the old misery and of the new, are simply awtul; . the former affront the sky with their six and seven stories of narrow and dark dirty humes; the latter, as in the Rue de Cascades and at Menilmontant, are often mere huts built on the spongy soil. The lowest rent here is two and a half francs a week for one room. In the older quarters nothing is to be had much under two hundred — and tifty francs, or ten pounds a year, and that no more than a kitchen, oraroom under the roof. At Menilmontant, as we see, it hardly ex- ceeds five pounds a year, but this is absolutely the worst accommo- 7 dation in Paris, if not in the world. Only the lowest and most destitute wretches lodge at this rate; they pay in advance, and are consequently under no obligation to have furniture to secure the » rent. ‘hey often 1uove in with nothing but a truss of straw. The — for the landlord is at least twenty-five per cent. Such build- . ngs are generally found in what the French call c7éés, often streets with only one opening. They are shut out from the world, and | their population, half rag-pickers and half thieves, live and die there. The vice, owing to the overcrowding, is inconceivably revolt- ing; there are cases in which all the restraints of what we like to consider as a very law of nature in decency are set at naught, Whole families Jive in absolute promiscuity. The walls are often covered with vile drawings, and the rooms are in astate of indescrib- | able ruin, their floorboards and doors are often torn away for fire- ee ih, Py ae eS Ph be Margy; Sa he se or soke:- ay ; as ea hee ae acon “At iw iG Z a 7 Vee : cs eee ae ae ini Pe far § ata a o aenT 3) io ry i. a Sapiens i j a ea ie oA ‘yg hel 7 pin . as iy ae: y A | : se ; Eee key art # pd nueva oe divin ware ude” 8 at we, ’ oa) 7 ‘aa Hii ae rie | i CS: wiles ag 4 vig Nee" a, a sa hi ee he < ges ape She, we Bias ‘iia ahs / 7 ene 5 cy i, 7 i bi bts th rie ne ¥ t Oe Seo, ea ee ae ee: ~~ Se : an ing A A aor ae ‘ ‘lk Ve ‘, eg ia i Ps i i ae eM ie Pelt 1" “i? i) a e , by te F a © a % i! ‘> « weit 7] bs od : x ~~ x ¥ a ’ er" $" " are om a : ¢ \ Pe! mas wi i es et ee | i ae fe Ba | PRS AHA ee wy ‘ht P Bi Ae f ye ar , ’ ip jemi: ey S , Sap se , . af 7 “1. L, ir moe bt = 08 AS ay Mh ot ' 7 ee ee dy sarels yells yc bho / x rs. ' ; ey — P » a mr’ 7) - ’ + f {/ . : : & a a P 7 Ce | prnrs te? ¥ “a> "y=. —respey & 8? ga ui ry oh ) | a ee 7S eel ba pit te ae j > .¢, “9 a P \é “le agi | J] SAS ee vis Ee pi Sei ae th * eet I \ ai . wo A : : af + ; < a J ait ye hig rr Aa : ‘ 5° 'o « i , = a o in il Pal ee ; a a >» - aif is ; i= e oh 4 aie Pe) ee ee ™ | Peet ye get, » . ag a} in year : wn” Seer See Tyee" Te : ) we? 4 . , ' “hehe § # 7) 4 a a 4 ‘ 3 my iad : i@ 4 7s j iz “er "j v=, iy ul ‘ . ' ee ee ee ‘ein Ca eles ath bet SM eed ee, ° et or ra eat edit: Milet NMA, 1090 TANG ee war 452 ak we = i © ; ‘ yt ; feo) 4 a he ue ft ee as wan de Be ais te RG aM, dee) ® ar Adi Ae sags Lt MOR Se Rides ad F2 7AM AK NY a0 4) (ORR a Te i te re "ees eae tal de ig Th pane eds eel: ; i ~~. = -_~ . wt ms) ap entice a ne = Me eS é To ~ a ee | & — = ¥: can PL LY _ ; i. rN e ae ¥. ek fi! 7 ds i iy R 7 2 ‘ oe Pa wer mi” e i=} 7 iT vd amt F ha y ig Jn AL r DB ’ Oak ‘ a - - ou yuh i -: , ous 5 Hay spe nant iyieo bt! fe ae Fab =e 7 _ iti: a re hs bea Penis rey 7 . Le ire ee inal if aU ces gown 4 na) é Sieh et eA ae er Atha Wel. Phe bee ! ped ore ai ’ i ay) sk A ee * 7 a {~ gray a . oa Ee OP Gar Pl met van Pedant -egae 18 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. wood, and the pattern of the wall paper obliterated with the accu- mulation of every kind of filth. Of forty-six thousand odd lodgings like this in Paris, eighteen thousand odd were let for Jess than a hundred francs (£4) a year, twenty-four thousand at from one to two hundred, six thousand at from two hundred to three hundred, Three thousand were entirely without any heating apparatus what- ever, chimney or stove; five thousand were Jit only by a small sky- light; and fifteen hundred took their light and air from a passage or corridor. No wonder that while only fifteen per thousand die in the neizhborhood of the Elysée, thirty-five per thousand die in such quarters as these.’’ Have we anything in our great and grand London that can com- pare with this for ghastly horror? Nor must it be supposed that the. above-mentioned districts are the only ones of their ! ‘nd in Par>—~ They are, perhaps, the worst; but there are others nearly as bad. Look at the Moulffetard district, for instance, and the awful rookeries of the Plain of Clichy and Saint Ouen, where the repulsive chiffonniers drag out their existence. Nor must we torget the squalid neighborhoods round Notre Dame; or the nest of rookerics lying behind the Jardin des Plantes; or those that abut on the Boulevard St. Germain and St. Michel, or the Avenue des Gobelins. Paris, in fact, is a city of shams and frauds, of rottenness and gimcrackery. The foreigner goes on to the Boulevards and stares into the gayly- dressed shop-windows. But let him confine himself strictly to the Boulevards, otherwise, if he be a man of taste, he will be discusted. What, for instance, can be said of the Avenue de ]’Opera, that cost many millions of francs to build? Here, among the grand shops, are hideously ugly protruding stalls, with their heaps of cheap trash. Is there any other city in the world that. could show such an incon- gruily? A recent writer,* speaking of Paris, thus criticises it: : ‘* Wach house is exactly the same height as the next, the windows ure of the same pattern, the wooden outer blinds the same shape, the line of the Jevcl roof runs along straight and unbroken, the chimneys are either invisible or insignificant. Nothing projects, no bow-window, balcony, or gable; the surface is as flat as well can be. From parapet to pavement the wall descends plumb, and the glance slips along it unchecked, Each house is exactly the same color as the next, white; the wooden outer blinds are all the same color, a dull gray; in the windows there are no visible red, or green, or tapestry curtains, mere sashes. There are no flowers in the windows to catch the sunlight. The upper stories have the air of being uninhabited, as the windows have no curtains. whatever, and the wooden blinds are frequently closed. Two flat vertical sur- faces, one on cach side of the street, each white and gray, extend onward and approach in mathematica! ratio. That is a Parisian street. ‘Turning round a corner one comes suddenly on a pillar of a dingy, dull hue, whose outline bulges unpleasantly. In London you would shrug your shoulders, mutter * hideous,’ and pass on. This is the famous Vendéme Column. As for the Column of July, it is so insignificant, so silly (no other word expresses it so well), that a second glance is carefully avoided. The H6tel de Ville, a * Richard Jefferies in the ‘‘ Pall Mall Gazette.” ———n JOHN BULL'S NETGITROR. 19 vast white building, is past description, it is so plain and so répel- lent in its naked glaring assertion, From about old Notre Dame they have removed every mediteval outwork which had grown up around and rendered it lifelike, it now rises perpendicular and ab- rupt from the while surface of the square. Uniess you have been told that it was the Notre Dame of Victor Hugo, you would not look at its exterior twice. The barrack like Hétel des Invalides, the tomb of Napoleun—was ever a tomb so miserably lacking in all that should inspire a reverential feeling? The marble tub in which the ufn is sunk, the gilded chapel, and the yeilow windows, could any- thing be more artificial and less appropriate? They jar on the senses, they insult the torn flags which were carried by the veterans at Austerlitz, and which now droop, never again to be unfurled to the wind of battle. The tiny Seine might as well flow in a tunnel, being bridged so much, _There remains but the Arc de ‘Triomphe, the only piece of architecture in all modern Paris worth a second look, Even this is spoiled by the same intolerable artificiality. The ridiculous sculpture on the face, dhe figures blowing trumpets, and, above all, the group on the summit, which is quite beyond the tongue of man to describe, so utterly hideous is it, destrov tue noble lines of the arch, if any one is so imprudent a8 to approach near it. For the most part, the vaunted Boulevards are but planted with planes, the | least pleasing of trees, whose leaves present an unvurying green, till they drop a dead brown; and the horse-chestauts in the Champs Elysées are set in straight lines, to repeat the geometry of the streets, Thus, central Paris has no character. It is without individuality, and expressionless. Suppose you said—‘ The human face is really very irrezular; it requires shaping. This nose projects; here, let us flatten it to the level of the cheek. This mouth curves at the corners} let us cut it straight. These eyebrows arch; make them straight. This color is too flesh-like; bring white paint. Besides, the features move, they laugh, they assume sadness; this is wrong Here, divide the muscles, that they may henceforth remain in unvarying rigid- ity.’ That is what has been done to Paris, It is made straight, it is idealized atter Euclid, it is stiff, wearisome, and feeble. Lastly, it has no expression.”’ | The toregoing is neither a prejudiced nor exaggerated aspect of this much-vaunted Paris; it is absolutely and indisputably true. oe CHAPTER IT. Englishand French Heroism contrasted—Some Historical Reminiscences— Crécy—Poitiers—Agincourt—The Fiends of the Revolution—The Imbecility of the Republic—Bismarck’s Opinion of French Soldiers, ; In the recent work, ‘“ John Bull et Son De,”’ the author says that, “8 a nation, we are wanting in heroism. ‘This is certainly a very untortunate slatement for a Frenchman to make, for it instantly conjures up to the Englishman an endless array of historical events upon which the world has long since passed its verd:ct; and that verdict has pronounced the English race, individually and collect: . ively, one of the most heroic nations of the earth. With Sedan and Metz fresh in his memory, Mr. Max O’Rell should have hesi- Teor ame ek re - rs: =>, - “© & a 4a oS cae a) Vs S TD SER ayo! ME oe Bae a se aC. us ver x F Wi q ' sf ~ y . au t Be Ni pbe eg he wah eae by it oe Ll ave i oY Nee SAME A tees pa an i ee : ha. ? <3 - . i Da ©), ey tee ne ; , wy a9 1 ae ve - ; : Wel dare ad el 4 +4 i ‘ Pee ha, eh ee \ on i] ots a | A hoe FY pv = L Pr . & > i E TA y' ” c= r \ ‘ oP, ia . _-s ea ee os. a oan > ¥ 7 Kr ae " Le | a) ba x Ay i ie + a vis anes ayy ert ae i Abe ae bar >. “ be ~, —_ y aul ( Pia “id Se/.° abi 7 a, 4 pn, ‘ Lae » ‘ A : Pocabe a a Lae _ ies t ee a + i wt A prs a —- » ‘ ey aeeeies = Se ween ld ie rs wiih J ch i yd oP 4 ‘ . eT . ‘ é i ’ i. | i i. ore aid ta Lae ,) PAL, Le ey é Hees o > s 7 ic e* w+ : ry r a Sg ; ' > F ws ‘ * 7 j “ ‘ jd wv Lind Fi ny F ‘7 y 4 ; . 9 ; a i 7 4 7. io j o¥ : ory rF3 7 ‘ ee 7 Nou? : i iT c , P ? > (v " > \ : thi 17 i. wii > 4 - s 7. J : wv fl Se 7 r a -e A ” P . é <9 Teeth rt. o , iba +e 4 , da? r iy 4 a 0 : oT rts iat 4 J 7 * sy by uA 4 hi oasis sith ee sian Alot ire , » ‘ f Ly ‘ meat P a 4s r { +! i » yA i’ a i 7 i« Pet] ra aig : ; : ne « 7T"e@ 3 4 “oe ‘ by ries ; ay al a » a ; ri % ae i ma at as ‘ a PL Pes | FEE Ae Sse eda So Lion Tah Cn eee aye ri an pie Ling! hae a | Ny ae | oP Ne ih robth 30) JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR, tated Before venturin # to bring such a serious charge against his neigh- bors. Can he ever have heard, for instance, of the Indian Mutiny of 1857? If so, will he deny that during that awful period we showed such heroisin, both as a nation and as individuals, that it alone might fairly entitle us to rank as a heroic people. But, pos- sibly, Mr. O’ Rell dves not read history, not even that appertainmg to his own country. Otherwise, he would have known that in work of exploration—in the ghastly, frozen North—in burning, equatorial. Africa—in every region of the earth—Englishmen have always been. in tli van. He should also know that among a very long list of ancestors whom we are pleased to think were essentially heroic, there are three for whom we brutal Saxons have an especial venera- tion. They are Sir Francis Drake, Lord Nelson, and the Duke of Wellington. Of these two latter Frenchmen surely cannot be tin- mindful. Will Mr. O’Rell deny that we displayed heroism during the Peninsular War? lt is a somewhat remarkable circumstance, that in all! our struggles with France we have always crushed France; and it has been generally admitted by impartial historians that the sacrifices we were called upon as a nation to make during these struggles have fairly entitled us to the bays for heroism and valor. 1am quite aware that Waterloo hus an ugly sound to French- men’s ears, and when uttered in their presence, it causes the fever of Anglophobia to rage with burning intensity. It is, therefore, with considerable reluctance 1 mention: it; nor would 1 do so, save that I feel impelled to it by a stern sense of duty. And I put Mr. O’Rell upon his hunor now—French honor is a dric-d-brac thing we know; but it cannot be helped—and I ask him solemnly, whether Waterloo was not the crowning of a long series of heroic deeds such ag any nation might envy? . But, I may venture to go back very much further than Waterloo, and mention another name that 1s equally objectionable to Frenchmen—Crécy. Was not that glorious assage of arms also the culmination of a campaign that has added uster to the English dag? And, coming a little further along on the Road to Time, we reach Poitiers. Perhaps Mr. O’ Rell will, in time, recover from the shock it will have upon him to be told that. at Poitiers our Edward the Black Prince, with only 8,000 men, op- posed himself to Mr. O’Rell’s countrymen, who were in force as eight. to one, aud, smiting them hip and thigh, routed and all but annihilated them. But—and I mention this with, as I hope, be- coming modesty—the crowning act of that great fight even put into the shade the valor of England’s soldiers; and I venture to believe that my good friend Mr. O’ Rell] will admit that it was heroic when the Black Prince, flushed and excited with victory, received his prisoner foe —the king of France—with every mark of distinguished honor, even waiting upon him ¢n. propria persond at table—an honor and courtesy that were not reluxed when the captive king was con- veyed to England and lodged in the Palace of the Savoy in Lon- don. Now, do, my dear and gifted O’ Rell, just blush ever so little as you read this, for it will serve to show that you really are sorry for having been so sparing of the truth. Perhaps,.as 1 am citing evidence against your charge, 1 may as well mention Agincourt, which we Saxons are not a little proud of. And, coming to our time, I would respectfully request to be allowed to put en evidence ory JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. 91 our wars against the Sikhs, one of the most powerful races of fight- ing nien on the earth. Mooltan is a name which thrills an English- man. .Mooltan was besieged by English troops under the command of General Whish, the enemy being under Moolraj Dewan. During the siege a great powder magazine, which contained 16,000 lbs. of powder within the fort, blew up, killing about 800 men, and shatter- ing most of the principal houses. As showing the force of the ex- plosion, it may be stated that bottles were knocked off tables at a distance of two miles away. No better illustration of the desperate courage of the Sikhs can be afforded than their conduct on this oc- casion. Instead of being disheartened at their loss, the Moolraj sent word that he had still enough powder and shot to last for twelve months, and that he would hold out as Jong as a single stone of the fort would stand. The British General sent a summons to him to surrender, which, writes one of the British soldiers, ‘‘ he quietly rammed down bis longest gun and fired back at us.’’ \Among the gallant soldiers who fell was Lieut.-Colonel Wm. Havelock, whilst leading a body of 450 horse against 15,000 of the enemy. «The Colonel led the first and second syuadrons at a gallop, dashing through the whole of the Sikh army, and sabering hundreds of the Sikhs under the most frighttul shower of missiles from their guns and matchlocks. A second charge was made, when the bullets tell among the troops like hail. Colonel Havelock’s left Jez and arm were cut off, and his right arm wounded, when he fell dead upon ~ the field. Eleven of his men fought by his side until every one was destroyed. The war continued during 1849, and ended in the sur- render of the whole of the Sikh army and the annexation of the Punjaub to the British dominions. ras And then, again, what about General Wheeler’s defense of the — sand-hills at Cawnpore; of Gordon Thomson and his seven com- panions, who for hours held their own against legions of natives; of the brave Scully and Lieutenant Willoughby, who, together with seven others, kept thousands of their foes at bay, and then, when no longer able to defend it, blew up the tremendous magazine of Delhi, involving all in a common ruin; of the grand old man, General Havelock, and his handful of devoted men, during that awful march to relieve Lucknow? But there, the list might be extended al- most ad tnfindium. 1 have said enough, though it is a motal cer- tainty Mr. O’Rell and his compatriots will not be convinced. And now lL may fairly claim the right to inquire if France has ever particularly distinguisehd herself as a heroic nation? History herself answers in a stern and hoarse voice, and says—No. It is not necessary to travel any further back than the reign of your Charles 1X. Have we anything in our history to compare with that ghastly and unheroic crime, the massacre of St. Bartholomew? Then, if we take your next Rega erwwta 111.—once Duke of Anjou, do we not find his whole reign a shameless chapter of blood and de- bauchery? In tact, is not the whole Valois dynasty a pitiable story of hypocrisy, crime, and cowardice? From 1610 to 1643 have you anything better toshow? All the events of that period of thirty- three years are still marked with crime, treachery, and craven deeds, and there is not a single gleam of heroism to relieve the horrible gloom. Pass me on now to your lurid years of Revolution, thet ra bey oe im is = ae - hd PES civ ie le a c- a Fibs! ; =e 7 ‘s5 © " ae : 73 Ly tay «y'ag ap as he adh 4.6% bs ted Wald 4 HL re aide 2 mi A. = Saar ay ab papcigeun heey, 4. al a - | baa r oo ve. v. i ee - of Mga! BAR LIAM. Sere on ia Salh mH ye aloes i ip Z ’ a oF avy e 4, Ta, Mer oe a = Wi Pg La i, Pel / My i i) ee Seal ys & we at 4 ia : : ‘ : ¥ 7 v rk id a ‘ " on 7 “* “ie L Aa Ful : Ay Py Ae ey : poe eae) ) % bees ay he a ees tea A yeas wae) ah ey GAN he a Rano - — i 4 y « ; > ig Mev se * ry okey in. Tyk i} ( ae 4 ‘ ‘. ya : » Oe ee “ey? pt Gate et MT TE Sir ay i eae eters 7 Kv ’) Pr - ss 4 » - RH 7 hae’ ‘an ’ 4 ‘oa an ® r . . ‘ i . . : > ‘ rp ote vs eX pT ee SE, eal a Ta ee NS Pee on eek ee ee ene 2 sore. he Bs of Fe rene, oe Sf WY rhe OFS ; ai A ee ot? Py {Hh am a) on hale an mptinn 7 es ites micWia (ae Cen ae May ees! Nn ta ee ie Eh Spo hes) ORAS” 7 ve 475i, saat Soe i tre rey ee ae al Sesh’ | ‘ pat gery Pye mere a Why ae JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR, Does not the very utterance of the ghastly cry ‘* A Ja Lanterne!’’ send back an echo of ‘‘no heroism, no heroism ’’?* Does not the following read like the distorted ravings of some maniac ro- mance writer; and yet it is sober Alison, the historian, who writes . it. It relates to the frightful atrocities perpetrated at Nantes by the human fend Carrier: ‘* While Thurreau was pursuing with varied success the system of extermination in La Vendee, the scaffold was erected at Nantes, and those infernal executions commenced which have affixed a stain upon the French Revolution unequaled since the beginning of the world. “A revolutionary tribunal was formed there. under the direction of Carrier, and it soon outstripped even the rapid progress of atrocity of Danton and Robespierre. ‘ Their principle,’ says the Republican historian, ‘ was that it was nevessary to destroy en m-38¢ all the prisoners. At theircommand was formed a corps called the Legion of Marat, composeed of the most determined and blood- thirsty of the revolutionists, the members of which were entitled of their own authority to incarcerate any person whom they chose. The number of their prisoners was soon between three and four thou- sand, and they divided among themselves all their property. When- ever a fresh supply of captives was wanted, the alarm was spread of a counter-revolution, the générale beat, the cannon planted; and this was immediately followed by numerous arrests. Nor were they long in disposing of the captives. The miserable wretches were either slain with poniards in the prisons, or carried out in a vessel and drowned by wholesale in the Loire. On one occasion a hun- dred * fanatical priests,’ as they are termed, were taken out together, stripped of their clothes, and precipitated into the waves. The same vessel served for many of these novades, and the horror expressed by many of the citizens for that mode of execution formed the ground for tresh arrests and increased murders, Women big with child, infants, eight, nine, and ten years old, were thrown together into the stream, on the sides of which man armed with sabers were placed to cut off their hends if the waves should throw them undrowned on the shore. The citizens, with loud shrieks, implored the lives of the little innocents, and numbers offered to adopt them as their own; but though a few were granted to their urgent entreaty, the greater part were doomed to destruction. Thus were consigned to the grave whole generations at once—the ornament of the present, the hope of the fnture. So immense were the numbers of those who were cut off by the guillotine, or mowed down by fussilades, that three hundred men were occupied for six weeks in covering with earth the vast multitude of corpses which filled the trenches which had been cut in the Place ot the Department at Nantes to receive the dead bodies. Ten thousand died of disease, pestilence, and horror, in the prisons of that. department alone. On one occasion, by orders of Carrier, twenty-three of the Royalists, on another twenty-four, were guillo- tined together without any trial. The executioner remonstrated, but in vain. Among them were many children of seven or eight years of age and seven women, the executioner died two or three days * Ala Lanterne/ the ery of the brutal, bloodthirsty mob, as they burried their victims to the street corners and hung them from the lamp brackets, JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. 23 after with horror at what he himself had done. At another time one hundred and forty women, incarcerated as suspected, were drowned together, though actively engaged in making bandages and shirts for the Republican soldiers, ct ‘* So great was the multitude of captives who were brought in on all sides that the execntioners as well as the company of Marat, de- clared themselves exhausted with fatigue; and anew method of disposing of them was adopted, borrowed from Nero, but improved on the pian of that tyrant.. A hundred or a hundred and fifty vic- tims, for the most part. women and children, were crowded together in a boat with a concealed trap-door in the bottom, which was con- ducted into the middle of the Loire;, at a given signal, the crew leaped into another boat, the bolts were withdrawn, and the shrink- ing victims precipitated into the waves, amidst the laughter of the company of Marat, who stood on the banks to cut down any who approached them. This was what Carrier called his Republican baptism. The Republican marriages were, if possible, a still greater refinement in cruelty. Two persons of different sexes, generally an’ old man and an old woman, or a young man and a young woman, bereft’ of every species of dress, were bound together, and after being left in that torture for half an hour were thrown into the river. ““The scenes in the prisons which preceded these horrid execu- tions exceeded all that romance has figured of the terrible. Many women died of terror the moment a man entered their cells, con- ceiving that they were about to be led out to the noyades ; the floors were vovered with the bodies of their infants, numbers of whom were yet quivering in the agonies of death. On one occasion, the inspector entered the prison to seek for a child where the evening betore he had left above three hundred infants; but they were all. gone in the morning, having been drowned in the preceding night, To every representation of the citizens in fuvor of these innocent victims, Carrier answered, ‘ They are all vipers, let them be stifled.” Three hundred young women of Nantes were drowned by him in | one night; so far from having had any share in political discussions, | they were of the unfortunate class who live by the pleasures. of others’ Several hundred persons were thrown every night for some months into the river; their shrieks at being led. out of the entrepét, on board the barks, wakened all the inhabitants of the town, and froze every heart with horror. Early in the noyades, Lamberty, at - a party at Carrier’s, pointing to the Loire, said, ‘It has already passed two thousand eight hundred.’ ‘ Yes,’ said Carrier, ‘they are in the national bath.’ Fouquet boasted that he had dispatched Snine thousand in other quarters on the same rivet, From Saumur to Nantes, a distance of sixty miles, the Loire was tor several weeks red with human blood; the ensanguined stream divided the blue waves of the deep. The multitude of corpses it bore to the ocean was 80 prodigious that the adjacent coast was strewed with them, and a violent west wind and high tide having brought part of them back to Nantes was followed by a train of. sharks and marine animals of prey, attracted by so prodigious an accumulation of human bodies. They were thrown ashore in vast numbers, Fifteen thousand persons perished there, under the hand of the executioner, Q4 JOHN BULLS NEICHBOR. or of diseases in prison in one month; the total victims of the Reign ‘of Terror, at that place, exceeded 30,000.” Can a people with a hideous page in their history, such as: that I have quoted, claim to be heroic? Did France earn any lesson by those horrors? Again history answers, No. We will hurry along and come to 48. Was there anything heroic during that time of horror? Was there anything heroic at Sedan, at Metz? Was there anything heroic in Frenchmen cowardl insulting the defenseless emptess, when the sun of the Second Wanpte had set in a sea of blood? Was there anything heroic when, still later, the town of Marseilles endeavored to wrest from the forlorn widow the gift _ they themselves had given her husband at a time when, with char- acteristic French fawning, they would have licked the dust from his shoes? Was there anything heroic in scuttling away from Egypt, and leaving us to do the fighting? Was it a heroic act to so basely jsult your guest, the Spanish King? And did you display heroism when, the other day, in Tonquin, French sailors and marines bar- barously and ruthlessly massacred three thousand helpless natives —butchered them in cold blood, ede China correspondent of Paris “ Figaro.’’ And, lastly, have you shown a scintilla of heroism in the pitiable Madagascar affair? Has not your conduct there been a scandal and a burning disgrace? Little towns absolutely devoid of the slightest. fortifications have been shelled, out of wanton and petty spite, and hundreds of defenseless and unarmed natives have been cruelly sleghtered. | In all the incidents I have mentioned the tiger has been conspicu- ous, and to-morrow, or the next day, or the day after that, its fangs will be again dripping with gore.* ' History is a terrible denouncer, and in the eyes of the civilized world it indelibly brands the French people as the most brutal and bloodthirsty when aroused—the most arrogant and despotic on the face of the earth. It is historically recorded of Prince Bismarck, that he remarked, when referring to the bloodthirsty brutality of French soldiers, Zeht man einem sol- chen Gallier die weisse Haut ab, so hat man einen Turco vor sich.t CHAPTER Iy. A Challenge to M. Hector France—La Femme des Rats—A Bull-ficht at Aix- en-Provence—Les Sculptres Vivants—Bal Bullier in Paris—The Can-can —How Young France takes its Pleasure. . _ I the extraordinary work ‘‘ Va-nu-Pieds de Londres,’’ which has been referred to once or twice in the preceding pages, the author states that he witnsesed in London (1) a man and-dog fight at Wap- ping; (2) a fight between two women stripped, and fought accord- ing to rules that had been drawn up. The book in which these two * On Sunday, January 13 of the present year, a meeting of 4.000 unemployed workmen and many women was held in the Salle Levis at Paris. Speeches of @ most violent and inflammatory character were delivered, and all the speak- ers declared that an “ armed revolution’ was the sole remedy for their grievances. When the speeches were over, the horrible Carmagnole was danced by a hundred couples,— Vide Paris Press, January 14, t Trans.—Strip off the white skin of the Gaul and you will find a Turco. ” JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. 25 statements appear is a réchauffage of a series of articles this enter- prising journalist, who actually ventured across the Channel in search ot the wonderful, contributed to a Paris paper. In their newspaper form they could well be allowed to pass unnoticed, but since M. Hector France has given them a more enduring place, I publicly challenge him to produce some distinct proof that his state- ments are true. In what part of Wapping did the man-and-dog fight «take place? and where did the fight between the women come off? T await M. France’s answer. In order to gain some idea of the value that may be attached to this. gentleman’s book, it is only necessary to read the conversation which he says he held with an ‘‘ undertaker ’’ in the metropolis. ‘The un- dertaker’s name is ‘‘ Joyce,’’ and the author gravely informs his readers that Joyce in English ‘‘ signifies joy.’’ Oh! M. France, M. France, what a pitfall you dug for yourself. when you ventured on that unhappy translation. With a little more authenticity than marks M. France’s statements I will now call at- tention to some of the elevating spectacles which ‘* Paris the Beau-- tiful ’’ ofters to its inhabitants and foreigners alike. Here is one as_ desribed by a correspondent of the *‘ Daily News.’’* ec: ‘**T read with much interest your review on M. France’s remark. able satire on English’ manners and customs of the present day. The sole object of the book apparently is to expose the innate ferocity | and brutality of ‘Ces bétes Anglais.” Keeping this purpose steadily in view, M. France no doubt congratulates himself at having been able to assist, in company with the lowest riff-raff (va-nu-pied) of - the London streets, those highly-sensational exhibitions of a ‘ man- and-dog fight’ and an Amazonian cncounter between an Irish and an English harridan. This exhibition is undoubtedly revolting and degrading—what Mr. Mantalini would have called ‘a demmed un- pleasant spectacle ’—but what shall we say of an entertainment. which was one of the chief attractions of the grand téte at the Tuileries last September, in aid of the victims of the Ischia disaster, compared to which the Amazonian combat, which M. France ex- - ecrates so strongly, was almost a refined and elevating spectacle? This entertainment, which, judging from the attendance, was one of the most successful in the whole .féte, had for its pééce de resistance — a wrestling match between a young fellow of 25 and a girl of about® 20 or 21, but apparently younger. Wrestling, of course, it- could hardly be called, and a Cornishman or North-countryman would — have laughed the thing to scorn; but that did not lessen, but, if any- thing, rather increased its indecency. The encounter, which lasted — five or six minutes, was a confused struggle, the two wrestlers hugging, grappling, and tumbling about in every conceivable post- ure, and this was varied occasionally by the girl being thrown to the ground and almost literatly biting the dust. 1 must admit that the. male wrestler did his best not to hurt his fair antagonist, and in thé end she came off victorious, as was no doubt arranged beforehand, - Yet, in order to keep up the delusion, the woman got considerably marked, and even apparently hurt once or twice. The spectators: were composed for the most part, not of the oft-scourings of the Lon-— * Mr, E, A. B, Ball. ‘‘ Daily News,’ December 27, 1883. oy ia wet —_ de Np Fo at. Seg tn hee 24 + i ae os 4 ¥ : : an : he yo ib, . « Mele tee, Msg, Loa Pea” ae gt ore - ; ; 4 ‘Aue P : a 2 au % era? im ‘ f i . ee 4 : i ” re ’ bts i] eri , ee ‘ PY; teh } at? a r aL} une Y a - ? « ¥ iy ‘ 1 Ay@ P at. i aba i Aa j f 7, a u iste . , a wine, ps “y - 4) » te gy As ie y in o t 4 eM N ge . oe et oy tA ako ‘ AP! a a0 ry al mp y of CA) ~) Vets a ° wl hd , ‘@ j whit ° e ‘ se”. - bai “9-46 ' Oe ti i, rf @ 7 : hay ‘ PA bea diy eT se Be a ae é . Hy i tatew m 5 4 th ; vy ae tee Piel aus PO 2" 44 a Ai >a Wy ¥ 4 ys: : : a ; a eras A 4 > ; A Ab, { ; Bs Pe aaa 4 Lr We tye a nada valde he Pe : at s¢ ‘1 Ley Raw i pay si = - ‘ : j ' ‘ ; ree Mg “¥ Wx ip hvd: (peel te ag i . f ‘ , ‘ ; } A: i. . Lowa OW? aie oe : i : ‘ a he G4 é pay fp dee ¥E: y / 4% a it >a . “eK? | uy a i“ ay’ >- SM - n . i = at “a AN lied = oe } ‘va’ a Ps. y as ff mei) Sa ae Wer ot a! ow a ' ® . : a : q wie 7 ee ai uaa ripe os 7 é | PY ae ’ : 7 7 eS ‘we? ' i ie we we ‘a Wa 4 F wi, fs * rey ie f ’ - 0) a , wt i . Ail yee sae Was te <4 « o_o % am F pe ray | oa } > aw ee ‘s ee ah 7) Ue) lame chet eA oe \ f y , : 4 Lui p20 20". SOR HBEL Ss RIGHRGRS don slums, as was the case in the remarkable combat related by’ M. - France, but of the respectable bourgeois class with their wives and familics, with a sprinkling of a few of higher rank. On reading, then, this violent tirade of M. France against English brutality, one _ is inclined to remind him of the English proverb, of which there is - doubtless a French equivalent, that ‘ Those’ who live in glass houses should not throw stones.’ ”’ The write: of the foregoing is perhaps not aware that the exhibi- tion ot a sham wrestling match between a man and woman is com- mon all over France at country fairs; und often, in out-of-the-way places, the woman is half naked, in order to add a zest to the refin- ing exhibition. ’ Tt happened that quite a few years agol was lodging in the Avenue des Gobelins, in the house of a Professor at the Lycee. One evening my landlord said if I liked to accompany him he would take me to a very interesting entertainment. I did like; and so we made our way into the Boulevard d’Italie, and from thence to a small street running off it, where we entered a duveite. After passing through a very dirty room, where a number of hideously ugly half- - drunken and half-naked girls were seated playing cards .and ‘dominoes, we found ourselves in a yard that was roofed over with a canvas awning. In the center of the yard was a ring formed by boards about three teet high. The floor of the ring was covered ~~with a Jayer ot sawdust. Every inch of ground outside of the ring was filled with a drunken, leering crowd of men and women, with frightful and repulsive countenunces. Several of the women had “young children in thei: arms, and sips of absinthe, and what: the rench call ea2-de-vie, were frequently given to these infants. The air of the place was thick with toul tobacco-smmoke nd reeked with effluvia arising from this unwashed crowd; while the. ble of ~ their voices was deafening, their conversation for the most part being ~- coarse, lewd, and blasphemous. Up to this moment 1 had not the remotest idea what I had come to see; but 1 was soon to learn. A humpbacked man with a bloated face suddenly called out, ‘* Adien- tion, Messieurs et Mesdanies! La #emme des Rats.”? At the same moment a tall, herculean woman entered the saw-dust ring from a _ doorway in the wall of the yard. At the first glance I thought she ‘was a man in disguise, for she had a coarse, masculine type of face, _ that was scarred all over, and about her mouth was a thin growth ’ of scraggy hair. The glaring oil-lamps enabled me, however, to dis- cover that she was unmistakably of the female sex. + She was dressed in flesh-colored stockings, and wore high-heeled - shoes. A loose, flowing petticoat of sray flannel came down to her _ knees, and the upper purt of ber body was clothed ina loosely-fitting bodice without sleeves; so that, save for tanned leather gluves coming ~ up to the elbows, her arms were bare to the shoulders, the armpits and the breast being visible. Round her waist she had a broad ** Champion belt,’’ with a massive silver, or imitation silver, buckle, while pinned to her breast were three or tour medals. She brought into the ring with her a large wire cage, containing a dozen big and ferocious-looking rats.. This cage she deposited on the floor, and then, addressing the audience, described herself as the champion ¥at-killer of the world. She said that the half-franc we had paid to a JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. 27 come in went for the good of the house, and therefore she hoped ~that, when her performance was over, we should be liberal in.our ivings. Cate . net Her performance ”’ consisted in killing the dozeu rats with her teeth in ten minutes, as timed by the humpbacked man, who was the landlord, or possibly ‘* her agent,”’ The conditions were, ‘‘ La Femme des Rats ’’ was not to touch the vermin with ber hands, but going down on all fours she was to seize them with her teeth as they issued trom the small doorway of the cage. The humpbacked man opened the door of the cage by means of a hooked stick, and instantly ‘‘ La Femme des Rats ’’ dropped on to all fours. Ina few moments a big rat ventured to come torth from the cage, and with a quick, sudden, agile movement, evidently the result of long practice, the womun dashed at it, seized the animai with her powerful teeth, then shook it off as would a terrier, and it lay writhing in the agonies of death in the sawdust. The cheering of the brutal and excited audience evidently frightened the rats, so that they huddled im a mass in one corner ot the cage, and it became necessary for the humpbacked tan to poke them out with his stick, The second that ventured to come out was seized and killed instant- ly. Then two came out together. One was seized and disabled, and the other for a moment escaped, though the boards were too high to enable it to get out of the ring. The cage was now lifted up by the hovked stick, and the rest of the rats shaken out. Then, with all the snaps and snarls and movements of a dog, the woman darted at the terrified animals, many of which flew at the bare parts of her arms and at her face, inflicting wounds from which the blood streamed, . I sickened with horror at the revolting sight, for any- thing more hideously indecent it had never been my lot to behold. With half a minute to spare the creature accomplished her disgust- ing task, and every one of the twelve rats was stretched in the saw- dust. Then, panting, bleeding, covered with dust »nd sawdust, the woman rose, and the drunken, brutal crowd chee ~-shouted themselves hoarse. When ‘‘ La Femme%es Rats omewhat recovered her breath, she handed round a little tin pla.s, and col- lected about ten francs. The ‘‘ entertainment ’’ I have here described did not take place, remember, among the brutal Saxons, but in the midst of the gentle Gauls; and | think 1 may venture to remark that all the brutality is not guzte on our side. But here is another picture: A litile more than a year ago a bull-fight was advertised to take place at Aix-en-Provence, eighteen miles from Marseilles. The entertainment was under the patronage and presence of the Mayor and Municipal Council. It was a féte day, and a tremendous crowd of men, women, and children assembld to witness the edifying and refining spectacle. The man who opposed himself to the animal was an old, gray-headed Frenchman, and after he had gored and tortured the animal into fury, it madea furious onslaught upon him and nearly trampled him to death. The Muyor hereupon rose in his seat, and ordered the exhibition to be stopped; but the gentle, lamb-like © Gauls had come to enjoy themselves, and what mattered it though an old gray-haired man was butchered to make them a holiday? 28 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. They had brought their wives and children, their sweethearts and | relations, out for pleasure, and they were not going to be balked.” So they demanded that the entertainment should proceed. The Mayor objected, and this objection aroused the lurking tiger. Men and women rose en masse, and shouted, screamed, gesticulated, fran- - tically aud swore horribly, threatening if the show was not continued, that they would burn the place down. So the mangled old man was dragsed out of the ring by means of ropes, and his son continued the - fight, and succeeded at Jast in slaying the bull. This revolting spectacle did not take place in Spain, nor even in London, but in La Belle France. Suppose we could read for ** France’? England. What world our dear neighbors say of us? They might tee] that their language was too poor in condemnatory phrases to enable them to express their full measure of disgust and ‘contempt. Really we- ought to be very thankful that our country so far has been satisfied with man-and-dog fights and Amazonian encounters between half-naked temales, and has not yet aspired to such displays as the mangling of an old man and the fiendish tort- uring of a bull, Coming back to the ‘‘ gay capital,’’ I was the eye-witness of an- other exhibition such as I am fain to believe has no counterpart amongst us brutal Saxons. It was a display of what was described as Des Scutptres Vivants, and this is what I saw in a house not ten minutes’ walk from the Boulevard des Italiens:—In a large room a stage was fitted, and at a given signal the painted curtain was drawn up, revealing a revolving table, on which were posed four girls, two brunettes and two blondes. In respect to their attire, they were in exactly that state which we are informed was peculiar to our first parents before the little incident of the apple, with the exception of a gauze scarf that each cazried and draped about her body, in ac- cordance with the statue she represented. The limelight threw its _ searching rays over the tableaux, which were highly appreciated by _ a large audience, consisting mainly of boys and young men. That this exhibition was indecent, as viewed from our Saxon point of view, I think will be réadily admitted; but there was a certain race about it that lifted it above the demoralizing and disgusting Bal Bullier, which may be witnessed any Sunday evening in the - Boulevard St. Michel, in the Latin Quartier. Here young Paris takes its fling with unrestrained license. Girls extremely young in - years, but exceedingly old in vice, come in company with young men who are conspicuous by their great expanse ot: shirt-tront, cut ~ Jow iu the neck so as to expose the collar-bones, massive cuffs which fall over the coarse, red hands, and bell-shaped trousers that almost hide their cramped-up feet. The ball begins about ten o’clock, and is opened by the can-can, danced by paid professionals, men und women. I doubt very much if any capital in Europe can show a more revoltingly disgusting display than this. But young Paris enjoys it immensely, and enters into the spirit of the fun with great heartiness, The shop-girls, catching the fever of excitement, cast modesty and bashfulness to the winds. By midnight the ball bas degenerated into a hellish revel, and in sorrow and shame I draw the curtain over it. As iurther evidence that we are not entitled to claim all the bru- JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. 29 tality, I may refer to the ‘‘ Salles,” where L’Art de la Saoate is practiced. No doubt comparatively few of my fellow-Saxons will ever have heard of L’ Art de_la Savate, theretore I may explain that it means kicking, and the ‘‘ savatay’’ is a kicker, pure and simple. This science holds much the same place amongst the French that boxing does with us. . A. boxing-match is generally a degradiny and demoralizing spectacle, but. it is a play compared, with the French — art of kicking. In the worst parts of Paris,-where it is practiced amongst the lower lasses, it is ferocious brutality of the very worst kind. The object of the two men opposed to-each other is to ki¢k each other’s shins; and if what is known as the cowp sec happens to — fall with full force on the sbin-bone, the leg is invariably broken, Then there is the coup de poing en avant, by which the jaw is kicked out of shape; and the coup de pi d en arriere, by which a man, having dropped on to his hands, by a quick, sudden movement, darts out one of his legs, and delivers a tremendous lunge in the abdomen of his opponent, with the frequent result of the production — of intense agony or death. These encounters are not rare, but very — frequent; and, as compared with the brutes who take part in them, I think we ought to be proud of our fellows who accept punches on | the head at from sixpence to eighteenpence a punch, CHAPTER V._ M. Jules Ferry’s Little Joke—French Morality—French Hypocrisy—Frenth Crime of Vitriol Throwing. M. Jutns Frrry, in a long circular, which he recently issued to the French schoolmasters, on moral teaching, tells them that the have to teach nothing ‘* but what is familiar to them, as to all honest people—namely, the ‘ good old morality we have received from our fathers.’’’ They are to speak with emphasis and aun- thority on all unquestioned truths and moral precepts, but to be very guarded whenever there is a risk of touching a religious sentiment —of which they are not the judges. M. Ferry conciudes by giving alist ot the books which have already been used by schoolmusters to assist them in this teaching; but he leaves them free to choose any text-book they please. The list contains some books which the clergy have declared objectionable. | M. Jules Ferry must have been in a grimly satirical mood when - he drafted that circular. On reading it one scarcely knows whether to laugh or blush. Fancy the good old morality we have received from our fathers! It sounds like a ghastly joke. Is there—I ask the question in sober earnestness—is there a more immoral people amongst the civilized nations of the earth than the French? To be French is to be immoral: the terms are synonymous. There — is only one other thing that is stronger in them, and that is vanity, With which ] shall deal a little later. Even the listless summer visitor to Paris, who sauntcrs leisurely » along the Boulevards staring into the shop-windows, is suddenly disgusted as his eyes light on some photograph or picture flaunted with brazen impudence in the public gaze. . But these are only the ae Vy ot. <* is aay ae 30 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. ‘ straws which show how the current flows. There is in the French mind a morbid craving for the beastly, and this craving is never al- lowed to go unsatisfied: The Bullier ball, the living sculpture, the sham wrestling between men and women, and other disgusting things that cannot be touched on here, are evidence of this; but if one takes a peacl literature, we find there a total disregard of even instinctive ecency. It a ago passed into a proverb, that French literature was coarse and immoral; but one must live in France and read French to thoroughly understand the degrading depths of filth that French writers descend to. As soon as ever gitls and boys commence to read they fly instinctively to this class ot literature, which renders them prurient almost before they have cast off their bibs. It is pitiable to hear how girls of tender age will talk of things that shock sensilive ears, and to see how youths, while yet the down is on their cheeks, are debased and debauched. This national immorality is, as it were, a pestilential blast that sweeps through the land and blights. : I once heard a distinguished Russian nobleman say, that if would be difficult to find an honest man or virtuous woman in all France, I am not quite prepared to indorse that, but 1 fearlessly assert that immorality is a national vice. You see it staring you in the face on the Boulevards at night; you see it in the cafés; in the Brasseries, where women are waiters instead of men; in sculpture galleries, in picture galleries, in illustrated papers, in shop-windows, in the theaters; it displays itself in the talk of the people and the acts of the people. It is howled forth from the painted lips of the raddled cancaneuse; it is heard in the dulcet tones of the lady in the salon, and it finds its culmination in the licensed houses—the “ Big Num- bers,’’ as they are called—where nightly thousands of unhappy and shameless women are actors in scenes that would make the very angels weep. ‘i Perhaps one could hardly expect to find even a mediocre standard ot morality in a country where marriage is purely a question of money. From the poorest peasants to the highest in the land, this question is zie question, and the only one, considered when mar- riage is concerned. ‘‘If there happens to be love between the con- tracting parties, well and good; but if there is not, it is not of the slightest consequence if the necessary ‘‘ Dot’? is there. ‘That is the great thing—the Dot/ How much has he or she got? It will readily be understood from this how it has come to bea saying that ‘a woman in France has only one husband, but many lovers.’’ In ten cases out of every twelve, the invariable result of these mercenary marriages is, that a few months, often a few weeks, after the cere- mony, th2 lover or lovers put in an appearance. The wife goes her way, the husband goes his, which is to his mistress; and this in- fidelity is the cause of the frighttul domestic misery common throughout France. This misery does not gain so much publicity as it occasionally does with us because there is no law of divorce in France; but it is there, nevertheless, as every one knows who has ever lived in the country, and frequently it displays itself in those hastly tragedies which make the world shudder—to wit, the Jharenton murder case the other day, which is a fair type, | ae aeyeae ca ina : cg | JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. a eee, ' 18) me in went for the ood of the house, and iieretore she hoped that, when her performance was over, we should be liberal in our ivings, ae Her performance ”’ consisted in killing the dozen rats with her teeth in ten minutes, as timed by the humpbacked man, who was — the landlord, or possibly ** her agent.’’ The conditions were, ‘‘ La Femme des Rats ’’ was not to touch the vermin with her hands, but going down on all fours she was to seize 3 them with her teeth as they issued from the small doorway of the tery \ Cage. The humpbacked man opened the door of the cage by. means of a 100ked stick, and instantly ‘‘ La Femme des Rats ’’ dropped on to all fours. Ina few moments a big rat ventured to come forth from | the cage, and with a quick, sudden , agile movement, evidently the result of long practice, the woman “dashed at it, seized the animai - with her powerful teeth, then shook it off as would a terrier, and it lay writhing in the agonies of death in the sawdust. The cheering of the brutal and excited audience evidently frightened the rats, so that they huddled m a mass in one corner of the cage, and it became _ \necessary for the humpbacked inan to poke them out with his stick, The second that ventured to come out was seized and killed instant- - ly. Then two came out together. One was seized and disabled, and the other for a moment escaped, though the boards were too thigh to enable it to get.out of the ring. The cage was now lifted up by the hovked stick, and the rest of the rats shaken out. Then, with all the snaps and snarls and movements of a dog, the woman darted at the terrified animals, many of which flew at. the bare parts of her arms and at her face, inflicting wounds from which the blood streamed. I sickened with horror at the revolting sight, for any- thing more hideously indecent it had never been my lot to beholi. With half a minute to spare the creature accomplished her disgust- )ing task, and every one of the twelve rats was stretched in the saw- dust. Then, panting, bleeding, covered with dust and sawdust, the woman rose, and the drunken; brutal crowd cheered and shouted themselves hoarse. When ‘‘ La Femme des Rats’’ had somewhat recovered her breath, she handed round a little tin plate, and col- ected about ten francs. The ‘ entertainment ’’ I have here described did not take place, emember, among the brutal Saxons, but in the midst of the gentle auls; and I think 1 may venture to remark that all the brutality is not quite on our side. But bere is another picture: A little more than a year ago a bull-fight was advertised to take place at Aix-en-Provence, eighteen miles from Marseilles. The ntertainment was under the patronage and presence of the Mayor [om Municipal Council. It was a fete. day, and a tremendous crowd ot men, women, and children assembld to witness the edifying and refining spectacle. ‘The man who opposed himself to the animal was— an old, gray-headed Frenchman, and after he had gored and tortured — } the animal into fury, it made a furious onslaught upon him and { nearly trampled him to death. The Mayor hereupon rose in his seat, } and ordered the exhibition to be stopped; but the gentle, lamb- like. Gauls had come to enjoy themselves, and what mattered it though an old gray-haired man was butchered to ne them a holiday? 28 ares SOHN BUL’S “NEIGHBOR, They had brought their wives and ‘children, their a eath orth eae relations, out for pleasure, and they were not going to be balked. i So they demanded that the entertainment should proceed. The Mayor objected, and this objection aroused the lurking tiger. ; - and women rose en masse, and shouted, screamed, gesticulated, fran-_ tically aud-swore hor ribly, threatening if the show was not continued, thai they would burn the place down. So the mangled oldman was. dragged out of the ring by means of ropes, and his son Cone. the fight, and succeeded at last in slaying the bull. This revolting spectacle did not take place in Spain, nor even in London, but in La Belle France. Suppose we could read for ‘“ Brance ” England. What would our dear neighbors say of us? They might teel that their language was too poor in condemnatory phrases to enable them to express their full measure of disgust and contempt. Really we ought to be very thankful that our country so far has been satisfied with man-and-dog fights and Amazonian encounters between. half-naked temales; and has not yet aspired to such displays as the mangling of an old man and the fiendish tort- uring of a bull. Coming back to the ‘‘ gay capital,’’ I was the eye- -witness of an- other exhibition such as I'am fain to believe has n0 counterpart — amongst us brutal Saxons. It was a display of what was described as Des Scuiptres Vivants, and this is what J] saw in a house not ten minutes’ walk from the Boulevard des Italiens:—In a large room a stage was fitted, and at a given signal the painted curtain was drawn up, revealing a revolving table, on which were posed four girls, two brunettes and two blondes. In respect to their attire, they were in exactly that state which we, are informed was peculiar to our first parents before the little incident of the apple, with the exception of — a gauze scarf that each carried and draped about her body, in ac- cordance with the statue she represented. ‘The limelight threw its_ searching rays over the tableau, which were highly appreciated by” a large anidience, consisting mainly of boys and young men, ; That this exhibition was “indecent, as viewed from our Saxon point of view, 1 think will be readily admitted; but there was a certain grace about it that lifted it above the demoralizing and disgusting | Bal Buliier, which may be witnessed any Sunday evening in the Boulevard St. Michel, in the Latin Quartier. Here young Paris takes its fling with unrestrained license. Girls extremely young in years, but exceedingly old in vice, come in company with young men who are conspicuous by their great expanse of shirt-front, cut low in the neck so as to expose the collar-bones, massive cuffs which fall over the coarse, red hands, and bell-shaped trousers that almost hide their cramped-up feet. The ball begins about ten o’clock, and is opened by the can-can, | danced by paid professionals, men and women, I doubt very much if any capital in Europe can show a more revoltingly disgusting display than this. But young Paris enjoys it immensely, and enters” into the spirit of the fun with great heartiness. The shop-girls, — catching the fever of excitement, cast modesty and bashfulness to— the winds. By midnight the ball has degenerated into a hellish. revel, and in sorrow and shame I draw the cuitain over it. As iurther evidence that we are not entitled to claim bas the bru art rams ce Sf br Sy ety 37 > JOHN BULL'S NHIGHBOR. ‘<2. |: 29 he ine) =e < : mi ‘ * tality, I may refer to the ‘‘Salles,”’ where L’ Art de la Savate is practiced. No doubt comparatively few of my fellow-Saxons will —ewet have heard of L’ Art de la Savate, therefore I may explain that it; means, kicking, and the ‘‘ savatar’’ is a kicker, pure and simple. - IYhis science holds much the same place amongst the French that hoxing does with us. A boxing-match is generally a degrading and demoralizing spectacle, but it is a play compared with the French a on, age A a NG TEP ee Ol) Ae a ees Se a Nee he a Okey oe BESET FINE cL tag Ra Les TM pene gh) ele ongst the lower -lasses, it is ferocious brutality of the very. worst. ni of kicking. In the worst parts of Paris, where it is practiced an i kind. The object of the two men opposed to each other is to kick each other’s shins; and if what is known as the coup see happens to fall with full force on the sbin-bone, the leg is invariably broken, _ Then there is the coup de poing en avant, by which the jaw is kicked omt of shape; and the coup de pi d en arriére, by which a man, Daving dropped on to his hands, by a quick, sudden movement, darts out one ot his legs, and delivers a tremendous lunge in the aly)domen of his opponent, with the frequent result of the production ol intense agony or death. These encounters are not rare, but very requent; and, as compared with the brutes who take part in them, _ IL think we ought to be proud of our fellows who accept punches on _ the head at from sixpence to eighteenpence a punch. cae - OHAPTER V. ? M) Jules Ferry’s Little Joke—French Morality—French Hypocrisy—French ae Crime of Vitriol Throwing. > | “hye JuLes Ferry, in a long circular, which he recently issued to thle French schoolmasters, on moral teaching, tells them that they have to teach nothing ‘* but what is familiar to them, as to all honest people—namely, the ‘good old morality we have received — 3% from our fathers. They are to speak with emphasis and au- thority on all unquestioned truths and moral precepts, but to be very guarded whenever there is a risk of touching a religious sentiment —of which they are not the judges. M. Ferry concludes by giving _ alist of the books which have already been used by schoolmasters to’ assist them in this teaching; but he leaves them free to choose any text-book they please. The list contains some books which the clergy have declared objectionable. ... M. Jules Ferry must have been in a vrimly satirical mood when he; drafted that circular. On reading it one scarcely knows whether to laugh or blush. Fancy the good old morality we have received from our fathers! It sounds like a ghastly joke. ils there—I ask the question in sober earnestness—is there a more * immoral people amongst the civilized nations of the earth than the French? _ To be French is to be immoral: the terms are synonymous. There 18s/only one other thing that is stronger in them, and that is vanity, with which J shall deal a little later. \Even the listless summer visitor to Paris, who sauntcrs leisurely ~ a’ong the Boulevards staring into the shop-windows, is suddenly disgusted as his eyes light on some photograph or piclure flaunted With brazen impudence in the public gaze. But these are only the at 80 | JORN ‘BULL'S NEIGHBOR. s straws which show how the ‘current flows. “There is i the F mind a morbid craving for the beastly, and this craving is never al lowed to go unsatisfied. The Bullier ball, the living. sculpture, thi sham wrestling between men and women, and other disgusting thip that caunOl be touched on here, are evidence of this; butif onet Seeeney: ; It long ago passed into a proverb, that French literature was coal : and immoral; but one must live in France and read French to thoroughly understand the degrading depths of filth that French writers descend to. As soon as ever girls and boys commence to read they fly instinctively to this class of literature, which renders _ them prurient almost before they have cast off their bibs. It > pitiable to hear how girls of tender age will talk of things that shoc ‘sensitive ears, and to see how youths, while yet the down is on their ' cheeks, are debased and debauched. This national immorality is, as it were, a pestilential blast that sweeps through the land ancl blights. ‘ T once heard a distinguished Russian nobleman say, that it would A be difficult to find an honest man or virtuous woman in al! 1 France. Tam not quite prepared to indorse that, but 1 fearlessly assert that immorality is a national vice. You see it staring you in the faceom the Boulevards at night; you see it in the cafés; in the Brasseries, where women are waiters instead of men; in sculpture galleries, im picture galleries, in illustrated papers, in shop-windows, in the theaters; “it displays itself in the talk of the people and the acts of © i the people. It is howled forth from the painted lips of the raddled = cancaneuse,; it is heard in the dulcet tones of the lady in the salon); be and it finds its culmination in the licensed houses—the *‘ Big Num-)) 9% bers,’’ as they are called—where nightly thousands of unhappy anid shameless women are actors in scenes that would. make the very angels weep. Perbaps one could hardly expect to find even a mediocre standard of morality in a country where marriage is purely a question of ae money From the poorest peasants to the highgst in the land, this 214 question is the question, and the only one, considered when malt- riage is concerned. ‘‘If-there happens to be love between the com- tracting parties, well and good; but if there is not, it is not of the slichtest consequence if the necessary ** Dot ’’ is there. That is the . ereat thing—the Dot! How much has he or she got? It willreadily ~~ be understood from this how it has come to bea saying | thats oes woman in France has only one husband, but many lovers.’ In ten cases out of every twelve, the invariable result, of these mercenar’ Marriages is, that a few months, often a few weeks, after the cere mony, ‘the lover or lovers put in an appearance. The wite goes her way, the husband goes his, which is to his mistress; and this im- fidelity is the cause of the frightiul domestic misery commof throughout Fiance. This misery does not gain so much publicity ARO as it occasionally does with us because there is no law of divorce ih . eee France; but it. is there, nevertheless, as every one knows who has _ ever lived in the country, and frequently it displays itself in thos ghastly tragedies which make the world shudder—to wit, the . Charenton murder case the other day, which is a fair type. a ‘ a & Ne Y are \ errata) te SOHN MRULW SH RIGHBOR.: *.,¢8 00) BL Of course, where there is so little regard for the sacredness of the marriage bond, it follows as a natural thing that the virtue which the French are so fond of talking about is only assumed, and, like French religion, is only the shadow of the substance. For it is cer- tain that if there is no virtue in France there is no religion, and yet a@ man or woman would rather die than not go to church on Sunday > morning. If the dictionary definition of the word hypocrisy is cor- rect, this is surely hypocrisy of a very repulsive kind. At any rate, I recommend it to the notice of M. Jules Valles. Perhaps he will set me right, if 1 am wrong. When parents have so little regard for morality, what can be ex- pected from the children? Young minds take their tone from their surroundings, and so it would be difficult to point to another coun- try where there is more juvenile depravity than in France. English © parents would do well to remember this when they contemplate sending their children to school there. When morality is lacking, a disregard for decency comes in its place, and this may account tor the many things that are allowed to shock foreigners who visit French towns. It accounts, also, for the filthy habits of the men and the shamelessness of the women. I am aware that this subject is not a pleasant one, and 1 would rather have avoided it, but niy liltle book would hardly have been com- plete unless I had touched upon it. It has been my lot to visit most of the big towns in France, and I most solemnly affirm that in any one of these towns there is more glaring immorality and indecency than our great, teeming London, © with its 5,000,000, could possibly show. We may be hypocritical, ’ gloomy, melancholy; we may correct our wives by thrashing them, instead of strangling them, shooting them, poisoning them, setting them on fire by pouring lighted mineral} oil over them, as was done a few days ago in Paris, and all of which modes of correction seem to be peculiar to Frenchmen; but we do, at least, hide away certain things in order that the sense of decency may not be too much out- raged. But amongst our gay and pleasant Gallic friends these things are managed differently. If the men in France have their own peculiar little ways for deal- ing with their wives and mistresses, the women are not behind them in the treatment of their faithless lovers, as witness the following, which I quote from a London daily paper*: ' ** A whole series of those remarkable crimes of female vengeance Which from time to time disturb the serenity of French society has recently occurred at Paris, and has directed attention for the hun- dredth time to the alarming prevalence of this class of offenses. ‘Two bad cases of disfigurement by vitriol-throwing were followed by two assassinations, the assailants being in each case a woman, and the cause of the crime being invariably the jealousy of a mistress ‘who had been abandoned or threatened with abundonment, In oie instance, the crowded and popular emporium of the Louvre was the cene of the outrage. A woinan was observed to go up to one of the _ shopmen in charge of an important department, and suddenly draw- + Ph Oe NG . * “ Morning Post,’’ December, 1883, aa —inga hottle oe vitriol, endeavor to drench the infor tunate 1 man with she only succeeded in inflicting comparatively slight injuries. As -she had been noticed. Her miserable victim was taken up from the — _or desertion as the motive of her crime need fear nothing from a SO oc ARIE TSE ECT tn meee LODO 39 | JOHN BULL'S. NEIGHBOR. — the horrible fiuid. Her hand being arrested, however, by bystanders, her excuse, she declared that she had been betrayed, and that she had only sought 1o obtain revenge, | *‘ A couple of days afterward a more frightful affair took place. S A man who was about to be married was suddenly attacked in the eli street by a young woman, who, rushing toward him with a bottleof —=s— vitriol, succeeded in emptying almost the whole of the contents over his face and neck before she could be prevented, and almost before — ground and carried to a hospitalin a condition impossible todescribe in adequate terms. The semblance of the human countenance was gone. The festering corrosive had eaten to the very bone likealiv- ing fire, and the pain of the sufferer was expressed in the most ter- rifying ‘shouts and yells of mortal agony. The woman was seized, and a couple of days later was, according to the usual proceeding in —’ French law, to be confronted ‘with her victim. When told of his _ awful state, she exhibited no signs of contrition, but, onthecontrary, — declared that if she could get near enough she would tear off the bandages in which his frightful wounds were swathed in order to increase his tortures it she could. sane ‘* What is called the drama of the Rue de Turenne only took ~ ee : place on Thursday last. ‘ v9 rey « ¥* * % ‘ *- _ JOHN BUIL’s NEIGHBOR. =i of railway engineers came to London to study our Underground. Railway, in order that they may make one in Paris like it; that for a long time a project has been before the Paris public for building a place of recreation exactly like our Crystal Palace, on the same model and plan. (By the way, perhaps M. Valles will admit that we in- vented international exhibitions.) Nor is this all: there is a perfect rage in France just now for articles Anglais. English biscuits are consumed by hundreds and thousands of tons; English pale ale is esteemed far above any of the choice French brews; special Christmas literature and illustrated papers, @ /’ Anglaise, have recently come into yogue; English cuulery takes precedence over French, and En- glish electro-plate is regarded as infinitely superior to anything France can turn out. English plum-puddings are also looked upon as dainty bonne bouche, and are eagerly coveted, and a chef who can- not concoct a plum-pudding in the English manner is not considered to be perfect in his art. An English razor is said to be worth half a dozen French ones; and English soaps are much prized; while no fashionable house is considered to be properly furnished unless the floors of its best rooms are covered with English carpets. English flannels find a ready sale in preference tv French ones; English car- riages, dog-carts, saddlery, and small things of that kind, are the rage. And next to being dressed well, a fashionable French lady’s ambition is to learn to ride like an English miss or madam; and will French men or women deny that we have taught them to ride? And so I might go on almost ad infinitum, but 1 have said enough to show that M. Valles, in his haste to pass a verdict upon us, did not judge us fairly. Stop!—I must not forget to mention that English agricultural implements and machinery, English bicycles and _ tri- cycles, English ink, pens, and sealing-wax, are to be found every- where in France now. But, as I have said, French vanity is a very real thing. It yields to nothing or nobody. And could this be bet- ter exemplified than by citing the case of the French Duke of Levis, who used to show an old painting, which represented one or his an- cestors, a Prince oi Judah, bowing to the Virgin Mary, who says, ** Couvrez-vous, mon cousin?’? ‘Then the well-known family of _Croy possessed a no less silly picture, which showed Noah entering. the ark, and exclaiming, ‘‘ Sauvez les papiers de la maison de Croy.”’ But this is quite in keeping with the expression of Madame de la Meilleraye, a cousin of Cardinal Richelieu, who, speaking of the Chevalier de Savoie, a man of high birth but most dissolute habits, who had been rebuked, said, ‘* Depend upon it, God will think twice before damning a gentleman of his quality.’’* The Duc de Clermont-Sonnerre also said, in speaking of himself, “God will never dare to damn a duke and peer.’’+ _ A people who can be guilty of such silly vanity as this may almost be pardoned for thinking all other nations inferior to themselves. And yet French vanity is a very objectionable thing, as it quite pre- vents our dear neighbors from seeing aught good in any one else. Even the English language is not studied in France because the ” *® Quand il s’agit des gens de cette qualite, Dieu y regarde bien a deux fois pous les damner. "on + Le bon Dieu nara jamais le coeur de damner un due et pair, rs = 2 ve a. r ‘ Se Ps a ey ee be f 7” . TA, oy fe yn PAN See fa tel . French believe that their own is to become the universal language ‘still picks up English words with far more ease than French ones, ee ah on 4 Fe eo ea tof Che WHS ‘s B61 71 JOR BUUINS NMIGR BOR Hue aaa DAW of the world. And this in spite of recently-published figures, which — show that French speaking people are declining, and French is not — now spoken by more than 50,000,000. Whereas, English is rapidly spreading, and is spoken by upward of 150,000,000. Infact, ithas — halt-century the English tongue will have spread all over the earth. ~ This is quite understood by our kinsmen the Germans; and some of ‘their writers have actually published their principal works in En- glish first, in order to secure that attention which it is the pardona- — ble vanity of all authors to think themselves entitled to; and, sec- ondly, to Jay the best foundation for immortality. German writers are justified in this, for they know that their own countrymen go forth as emigrants by thousands to English and American colonies, __ and their children help to swell the great English-speaking races, Nor is the decline of French to be at all wondered at, for in no way will it compare with the grand, resonant, vigorous, sturdy English | tongue, every word of which. nearly has a value. Whereas, in French, out of about 40,000 words of which it is composed, 20,000 are said to be almost useless, and 10,000 more so pedantic as to be seldom uttered; consequently, the French tongue is reduced to about 10,000.* The above remarks, which are based on statistical returns, — ought to have some tendency to check French Chauvinism. But it will do nothing of the sort. If the author of *‘ Va-nu-Pieds de Lon- dres ’’ were writing a new edition of his work to-morrow, and had the above facts before him, he would still describe London asa place of ‘‘ a quarter of a million prostitutes; where there is frightful de- bauchery of the young; and miles of gloomy public-houses filled with besotted wretches.’’ As 1 have attempted to show, all these things have their counterpart in every part of France. Look at Marseilles, for instance. Surely some day the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah will overtake that superlatively wicked city. Look at Lyons, Bordeaux, Macon. 1 have always thought, in common with a large portion ot the world, that ‘* the debauchery of the young ”’ was an institution very peculiar to France. This would really seem to be true, if we may judge from the fact that in Paris alone there are said to be 5,000 girls under thirteen years of age leading immoral lives; 7,000 under fifteen; and 85,000 under eighteen. This seems to be debauchery of the young with a vengeance; and it is well to * In an article which he has just contributed to the “‘ Revue Scientifique,” General Faidherbe, the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, has given expression to an opinion which is already attracting a good deal of attention. In examining the measures which it would be best to employ with a view to the propagation of the French language throughout the colonies, the General, who is no mean authority on the subject of which he treats, as he “has so- journed long in Algeria, Senegal, and other French possessions, positively de- clares that native populations take far more readily to English than to the tongue of the conquering race. This he ascribes to the difficulties which the barbarian encounters in his efforts to conjugate the French verbs, and so forth. General Faidherbe recommends the formation of classes, in which the French names for ordinary objects should be taught. Most of the tenses ‘ should be removed from the grammar, and as for the genders, the less said. _ about them the better. Some critics have already taken exception to these — suggestions. It is at least instructive to learn that even in Algeria the Arab » been calculated, on the basis of fairly accurate data, that in another 2 JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. pan ys remember that these 47,000 young girls of tender years have a license. from the Government to ply their hideous trade, and the figures do not include many thousands of wretched outcasts who have no license at all.* — Again, French vanity—if it were not an incurable disease—ought to receive a wholesome shock in the statement made at a recent meet- ing of the *‘ Trades Confraternity’’ at Paris. The speaker, M. Martin Nadaud, the deputy for Creuse, told his hearers that, accord- ing to official statistics presented to the French Chamber, there are no fewer than ‘* 140,000 houses in France unprovided with the ele- mentary convenience of windows, and which have no other flooring than the soil; that are utterly without even the most rudimentary sanitary conveniences; that are without chimneys and without light; and that whole families live in them, together with the domestic animals and pigs for guests.”’ Such a statement as this, coming from so authentic a source, will certainly shock our dense Saxon minds, and we shall no doubt won- der to ourselves what is likely to be the fate of the young of these families. Any one who knows anything of the French peasantry of the small villages, especially in Dauphine, must be horrified at their besotted brutishness, their gross superstition, their filthy habits, their utter ignorance, and the debauchery of their children. For how can the young, reared amidst such surrouudings,.be otherwise than debauched? It is, indeed, a sickening picture, and one almost weeps over it; and I would pray to M. France, if 1 thought that he would heed my ptayer, to kindly turn his attention to his own debased country, and in his own small way do his endeavor to raise these thousands and thousands of his countrymen, and women, and chil- dren, who are sunk in a Stygian slough of body and soul destroying moral filth. In fact, the present condition of France is such that the efforts of every Frenchman are seriously needed, if they would Save their suffering country frum horrors that will totally eclipse those of the past. Speaking of the present condition of France, a recent well-informed writert draws a very gloomy picture of the country. He says: ** The past year has been for France serious, yet indecisive; gloomy as regards events; meager in results. In politics, industry, and finance, it does not leave a single bright spot on the horizon. It has created gaps, and left them unfilled; it has raised questions without Solving them. It is oneof the most anxious and least glorious years _ which have elapsed since the fall of the Empire. At its very outset it was marked by the deaths of Gambetta and Chanzy; not to speak of the tragical end of De Wimpften, the Austrian Embassador. *“'The void caused by Gambetta’s death can now be gauged, and its effects. may be summed up in the phrase, ‘ As he was not to com- plete his work, it would have been better had he not appeared.’ He has left no doctrine or disciple, no principle or solution; and in all his utterances there is not. one of those truths which survive the speaker, and are a beacon for the bewildered. He had, however, +i . _* The latter class come under the heading in French of Prostituees clandes- tines, and Filles libres. These last are said to be as 1 to every 341 inhabitants, Paris Correspondent of the “‘ Times.” a 3 PRET re Me OY Od LE ne SU ION ont: REAR en ae EE Re ae JOHN. - pontts NEIGHEOR. — rs that breadth of mind and readiness of conception which Jeads aman cy, suddenly to retrace his steps. — ‘Long prior to his death he had pe ceived the injury he had inflicted on French moral interests, dome tic peace, and the development of Republicanism, by the thoughtless ery of Le Cléricalisme voila Vennemt/ He was quite prepared to call back the mob, and to remedy the blunders caused by his rally-_ ing cry; but his ‘professed followers, once on the scent, continue — blindly to follow it, deaf to those who tell them they have jong gone _ too far and should hark back. They indulge in tactics both ridicu- lous and odious, and damage their master’s reputation by citing his : i long-past cry in fustification of their stupidity. The Governnient ‘will be forced in January or February to raise a loan to cover the deficit, sf “That the Shien is too true, every Frenchman must admit. Even ’ M. Paul Leroy, a rabid Republican, has openly declared that “‘ sel- dom in the whole course of history has the situation of iv rance been, © from an international point of view, more precarious,’ Her people are worse paid, harder worked, infinitely more heavily taxed, worse clothed, worse fed, and more ‘debased than the same classes are in our Own country. "hey. are subject to an inquisitorial system of espionage by a ruffian and corrupt police, every man of whom has his price; they are badgered by government officials; they . . are ground down by an iron law of conscription, and political Libs Sy erty there is none. And the potent cause of this misery and decay is the want of continuity of an honest government. ‘The budget drawn up for the present year reaches the enormous sum of £160,- 000,000, or nearly double what our own is; and that £160,000, 000 represents an annual taxation of upward ot “£4 10s, per head of the population. On this very subject our own *‘ Pall Mall Guzette,”’ which is strongly French in its sympathies, writes: “The enormous budget for 1884 is being successfully hustled through the French Senate, which resigns itself to indorsing the votes of the Chamber. This impotence of the Senate is all the more to be regretted as the expenditure’ of the Republic stands sadly in need of overhauling. But to astill greater extent it is attributable — to the deplorable carelessness of the Chamber of Deputies about the public money. ‘Their collective interest, as a Chamber, in keeping _ down expenditure is nothing like so strong as the individual interest | - of the majority of members in multiplying small places, which will enable them to purchase local popularity and so keep their seats.”’ - Another able authority, and a Frenchman to boot, says: *‘ Paris is not prospering, or France either; but Paris is far worse off than France. The working classes earn their bread, as arule, from two _ | - branches of industry, namely, the manutacture of articles de luve » and bouse-building. ‘rhe latter class still finds a fair amount of © employment, but in a very short time this will be no longer the case. ‘There are now whole streets of ney and untenanted houses. We ; _ may be quite sure that a year hence there will be no more building ~ In Paris. 1 attribute the present state of things to the marked de- preciation in the fortunes and incomes of the wealthier classes dur-_ Ing the past two years. This also accounts for the fact that the isa far smaller demand tor olyets de luxe. Then, too, the diminu. tion of France’s prestige has reacted on ae Success of any kind a PED a Aa ee J0nN BULLS: NEIGHBOR. dated 89 ‘ eh that. won on the battle-field, benefits the trade et a country. 3 The strikes and exaggerated pretensions of some of the workmen | have also lost some of its markets to Parisian industry. I deeply regret the blunders made by those who have directed France’s econ- omic and financial policy during the past five years. If the State gives up prodigality, such as no other nation has ever been guilty of; if it adopts a conciliator y and conservative policy; and if it tries. to win the confidence of the public, instead of disquieting interests — with plans of new taxes on incomes and luxuries, and with projects of State socialism—then what is incorrectly termed the crisis. may . gradually diminish. But if the State perseveres in the financial de- bauch inaugurated some years ago, | really do not know what the position of Paris, and even France, will be in 1885 and 1886,’?* Although 1 know it will not, I still fain would hope that the fore- going startling facts might exercise some salutary influence upon French vanity, but it isa plant of too strong a growth. Its roots go down into the earth and are nourished with ‘blood, and its branches tower up into the clouds. CHAPTER VII. French Dueling and its Absurdity—The Valor of M. Jules Valles—The Decora- tion of the Legion of Honor—French Officialism: its Arrogance and Im- - pertinence—The Paris “‘ Figaro ”’ on Official Jobbery and Dishonesty—* Lib- erté, Egalité, Fraternité ’’—The Brotherhood of Cain-«‘‘ Be my Brother Orsi I will Kill you’’—The French Police—The Spy System—The Torture in - French Prisons. 1 pwELT at some length in He preceding chapter on the extraor- 'dinary vanity of our good neighbors: a vanity so overpowering that: it blinds them to any little good qualities other nations may possess. lt has generally been supposed that this human weakness was one - peculiar to women, but in France it affects both sexes alike. In the women it displays itself in an inordinate love for finery and dress, and in the men in a desire to have small feet, some jewelry, and to be thought handsome; while in both sexes, it leads them to look upon everything that is not French as utterly beneath contempt. _ French women, however, are far superior to the men. Not only do they possess courage, but they occasionally display heroism. lt was Voltaire, ia} think, who said, ‘* Frenchmen are the women of Europe.” A Frenchman has no real courage, The tiger in his _ nature can always be aroused, and then he becomes daringly fero- cious, but without this he is a tame, morbidly-sentimental creature. + If a Frenchman of the middle class happens to be struck in a dis- pute or quarrel, he falls to and weeps to think that such an indig- nity should have been put upon him. If he belongs to the lower _ class, he resents a blow by slashing his opponent with his knife or viciously kicking him like a mad bull. The foreigner who lives in _ France grows weary and sick at hearing the eternal cry about French - honor—-the honor that, being only veneer, is satisfied with the eet scratch. Could anything be more ridiculous, more child- AY » more pitiable than the so-called *‘ encounters ”’ that one hears as | 3 - * M, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, ** Journal Des Debats,”’ J anuary 25, 1884, Ne) FAN RENE DD. Strat Fs Ae FS ate 4 LE .t ee | 40 JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR, = “having taken place between two Frenchmen whose honor and pride have been wounded; though it is generaliy the pride and not the honor, as that is only a very flimsy thing in France. Well, two of — these women of Europe, having heaped vile abuse upon each other’s . heads, agree to ‘‘ meet.’’ The hour comes, and, havin one g & 8s through a good deal of farcical ceremony, put on their cleanest shirts, and well-primed themselves with absinthe, they start oft with their friends, and the ‘‘ encounter ’’ takes place. There is generally a good deal of terrific sparring, just for the look of the thing, you know; then one of them receives a little scratch—sometimes, per- haps, he carries a pin in the band of his trousers, and scratches him- self; the doctor rushes forward at the sight of two or three beads of blood; declares thut the much-damaged honor is now quite well again; the two combatants, the seconds, the doctor, and their friends fall upon each other’s necks and weep, and, putting on their clothes, repair to the nearest café tor some more absinthe.* Sometimes it happens that the weapons chosen for these dreadful meetings are pis- tols, in which case the seconds are very careful to impress upon the principals to hold their weapons pointing upward at an angle of forty- five degrees, so that the bullets may pass harmlessly toward the clouds. Of course, it occasionally comes about that accidents occur, owing to these gentlemen of wounded honor handling their weapons carelessly ; then, very Jikely, one of them gets run through the body or shot through the lungs, and, as a natural consequence, dies. There is a great deal of weeping then, and much absinthe is consumed. If the slain one happens to have had a wife or mistress, a sum of money is given to her, and she hastens to get a new husband or lover, as the case - May be. . | ne Now, even we gloomy and melancholy Saxons think all this very funny and droll; for, when our fogs and our gloom permit us, we are capable of discerning the ludicrous side of a thing. No doubt, also, M. Jules Valles takes much the same view as ourselves. At any rate, that doughty gentleman displayed almost grim humor the other day, aiter he had applied so many pretty terms to the students of the Quartier Latin. ‘The denizens of that scholastic Alsatia did not like being accused of empty-headedness, of rottenness, and im- becility. Consequently, they sent a deputation to wait upon the somewhat too irascible editor of ‘* Le Cri du Peuple.’’ The stud- ents, no doubt, were very much in earnest, so M. Jules Valles showed his redoubtable valor by refusing to see them, fearing possibly that he might get too deeply scratched. But he gave them this answer in his paper: ‘‘ I will only meet you behind a barricade.”’ It is not very clear what this meant; though, no doubt, some of M. Valles’ * On Tuesday, January 29, present year, M. Jules Gros, chief editor of the ** Petit Comtois,’’ conceived himself to be offended by something that was said in the ‘*‘ Democratic Franc-Comtois,’’ of which M. Viette, Deputy of the Doubs, is considered to be one of the inspirers. A challenge was sent and a duel decided upon, it was fought (sic) on the date named on the Plateau of Chatillon. The weapons were pistols, and the distance thirty-five paces, at which most people would find a difficulty even in hitting a hay-stack. M. Viette fired first, and his bullet lodged in the lining of his antagonist’s coat ; M. Gros then discharg- _ ed his weapon in the air. Honor was then declared to be satisfied: both men | shook hands, and the whole party adjourned to a café to breakfast. Vide — Paris Press, J anwary 30, 1884. wr RR Creat ar On iy eer Fi EV ar ee PRO a gee AN heen 4? Minis ids Cog ie eA Ba ae SAE Nat at eT Ao ad atl "de! | a £ } , : , } - Communistic memories of 1870-71 were uppermost at that moment. The disappointed students consequently have not yet had the satis- faction of scratching the brave editor. If, instead of French stud- ents they had been English, they would have horsewhipped M. Valles or have thrown him into a horse-pond; possibly have done both. But then they manage these things very much better in France. Next to this, what we are pleased to think in our insular stupidity, ridiculous system of dueling for the satisfaction of an honor. that re- quires a microscope to discover it, is the absurd craving ina French- man’s mind for a ‘‘ decoration.’’ Here, again, that powerful na- tional vanity displays itself, and if a Frenchman can only get a bit of tinsel round his cap, or the tiny scrap of red ribbon at his button- hole, he is supremely happy. lf we Saxons have decorations, we generally stow them away, but a Frenchman flaunts his on every possible occasion. Only give one.of our worthy friends a tin medal for something or other, and he will strut about as proud as a pea- cock. It is within the power of nearly every. Frenchman to become a ‘* Chevalier of the Legion of Honor,’’ and as they all get the dec- - oration, it may account for their freedom from the gloom and mel- ancholy that affects us. Now it does not matter in France whether you are a butcher, a baker, or hotel-keeper, or dust contractor, or chimney-sweeper, that little morsel of red ribbon, denoting the Chevaliership, is within your reach. 1 fancy that no more senseless decoration exists in Europe or the world. Following this craving comes the one to hold some official ap- pointment. It doesn’t matter what it isso long as it is ‘* Officiel.”’ To be a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and to be an official, are the summum bonum of a Frenchman’s ambition. Throughout France officialism is its curse. 1t is at once insolent, arrogant, overbearing, insulting. Every foreigner who has ever visited the country knows this to his bitter cost. Officialism is a bugbear and incubus that you cannot shake off. It meets you at every step. Do you want to get a letter registered, go into a bureau de poste, and see how you will be insulted by the jackanapish officialism there, as it puffs its villainous tobacco-smoke into your face; and if you happen to be a defenseless woman, depend on it it will be more insolent. Do you want to claim a piece of luggage from the dowane, go to the window of the cadsse, and as officialism, _ with a savage glare, opens the tiny pigeon-hole, letting a stream of tobacco-smoke and carbonic-acid gas flow into your nostrils, note how overbearing it is, though possibly it has only been just raised from the gutter. Do you want to take a journey somewhere by train, behold how officialism tramples upon you, and, still half- asphyxiuling you with smoke, it shuts you up ina pen as if you were cattle. ‘Then when you are released, approach officialism on the plaiform with a view to making some inquiry, and you will start back in horror, especially if you be a woman or young girl, as offi- cialism turns and half-blinds you with its cigarette smoke, and half- chokes you with its garlic-reeking breath, as itroars; Je ne sais pas. _If you go to a theater, officialism confronts you; always smoking, ind, for smoke is its badge. If you ride in an omnibus, you meet: ; if you visit the Invalides, it rises up and crushes you. It is, in act, an “‘old man of the sea,’’ that you cannot by any possibility i") JOHN, BULL'S NEIGHBOR. 41 JOHN ‘BULL'S. | NEIGHROR, area" (eh ar shake off. And thou gh sanelinies you. are tempted to take official. a ism by the nose and tweak it, and thrash some of the insolence out — of it, it is better that you do not, for then you would be confronted. Ses . with officialism in an infinitely more terrible form. ‘Here are some few particulars as to what officialism means in Sars, These particulars are taken from the Paris *‘ Figaro, ”” and consequently are not evolved out of the inner consciousness of a bruta] Saxon. The writer in the ‘‘ Figaro ’’ waxes indignant at the | scandalous jobbery and waste of public money in providing the “idle monkeys ’’ with positions. He asserts that at the Ministry of ery alone there are 159 employes living rent free. At the Minis- of Commerce the ‘‘ housekeeping expenses ’’ were, in 1875, 6 000,000 francs perannum. In the Budget for 1884 these expenses are put down 21,000,000. It seems incredible, but it is true. The cost of lighting that same Ministry in 1875 was only 2,500 francs; now it is 23, 000. Fuel was charged for in 1875, 20,000 francs; now it is 40,000. Postage and telegraphs in the same perioa have risen from 2. 500 francs to 40,000, and linen from 600 francs to 11,500. ‘These figures are startling, and this drain of the taxes, which are ground out of the peasantry, goes to support an immense army of useless, idle nincompoops, whose vanily has led them to lick the dust off somebody’ s shoes, in order to get into official positions. It is well we known that French official salaries are ridiculously low, but it is — made up for by perquisites, such as lighting, fuel, free quarters, furnishing; and there are ten men to do the work of one. It is the same in the post office, telegraph, custom-house—in short, in every public department. Goethe wrote in the second volume of his ‘‘ Aphorisms,”’ and re- ferring to the French: ‘‘ What sort ot liberality is that which every- body talks about, but will hinder his neighbor from practicing.’ That is peculiarly a French state of matters, Liberality is dinned into your ears until you sicken, but it is never, never practiced. On church doors, on the public buildings, on the bridges, every where in France is carved the Republican motto: ‘* Liberty, Equality, Fra- ternity.’’ Never before, save in France, has such a grim and ghast- ly satire been perpetuated in stone. Liberty there is none, as I will prove; equality consists of the rich looking down with contempt on the ourgeots, and ot the bourgeois hating with venomous hatred the canatle. ‘The fraternity is what Sebastian Chamfort called a Brotherhood of Cain ’’—that is, ‘‘ Be my brother, or 1 will kill thee.’’* So much for Luberté, Fraternité, Hgalité, in France. And now for the vaunted liberty of free and civilized France. Let us see what it is. “There is not a French deputy or prefect who has not his doings reported from day to day. The £80,000 voted for ‘‘ sectet service money ’’ annually must be accounted for somehow; not to the au- thorities, because no such account is eve1 given or expected, but to the ‘outside world, who protest, but still allow the system to con- tinue. An English journalist not many weeks ago told a garde — municipal that “he was an idiot. He was arrested there and then, _ The thing happened in a theater. The commissary began by bully- * Sois mon frere, ou je te tue, Me gO, Sep Pee Pe te PONT Ae: JOHN ‘BULL'S NEIGHBOR. i 4 a ‘and ‘ghabd by letting the journalist go, on his promise to appear the next morning. A proces-verbal was drawn up. ‘I'he commis- sary, who saw the merits of the case, recommended the journalist to see the substitute of the Procureur de la Republique to explain the matter. The journalist went for three successive days, and came away with a flea in his ear. He decided to let the matter rest; for four weeks he did not hear of it. At last he received a summons to appear at the Police Correctionelle. Meanwhile every inquiry had been made in almost every place where he was, known, including the various apartments he had occupied during his several years’ stay in Paris. The political shades of the various journals: he represented - were ascertained; his friends were watched; also the company they frequented. The matter came before the court; he was tined fifty francs and costs, and another fifty francs for having callea a police- man an idiot. This is but an infinitesimal part of the system. You cannot live in Paris tor a day but what it is known who you are, where you have come from, what you are going todo. Hear what a Frenchman himself has to say on the subject. * ** There are in the Paris police at the present time 7,756, exclusive of officiel and gendarmes. ‘These men are divided into two distinct classes—Gardwens de la Patz and the mouchards or spies. ‘They are both paid alike, that is, from 2,000 francs a year. But there is this difference, that the spies get a reward of 200 francs for capturing a murderer. Besides the two classes here named, there is a third class known as Indicateuwrs. This class is as secret and mysterious as the Inguisition, and its special functions are to keep an eye on the upper classes. When a crime has been committed, the mouchards are put on the trail to ferret out all that is to be learned.”? M. Guyot de- scribes these men as being for the most part former officers of low grade in the army. They are, he says, crafty and unscrupulous, and walk into a, room with the ‘ ‘ sidelong motion of a crab.’’ These de- lighiful creatures are also employed to watch political ‘* suspects,”’ and they send in reports of all the gossip and slanders about them, which they can pick up at the wine shops and doubtful places of resort. M. Guyot says that he himself has often been watched, and that he has read the reports that have been sent in about him. In these reports he is surprised to find that he has visited cafés that he ey i’ ee knows nothing of, a language has been put into his mouth such as — the mouchards use in the horrible slang they bandy between them- selves. The author of this entertaining book goes on to relate that on one occasion he was defendant in some legal proceedings institut- ed against him for libel, he having stated in the press that torture was practiced in the prisons. ‘These statements on the trial were sub- stantiated and corroborated by fourteen of the mouchards, who said that “‘ there existed a custom of torturing prisoners awaiting trial in the police cells, in order to extort from them confessions of guilt,’’ The torture consisted ‘‘ in tying twine round the wrists of the vic- tims, and drawing it tightly, so as to cut the flesh and draw blood.”’ The torture is technically known as ‘‘ Passer au tabac, ” the origin of which is not given. x, * M, Yves Guyot, Journalist, member of the Paris yar Seay and Orator, i in “ La Police,” published by Charpentier et Cie, Paris, 1 40 o. ” ehas SPSS PRR Eee BEE Ih Sti ty es ee ih st be ee RUT en Ee Meal oe ee 44 ‘a JOHN “BULL'S NEIGHBOR. Reader, pray do not forget that you are not reading a page of a. work on Russia, but an extract from a book published i in and hav- ing reference to highly-civilized France. I, for one, thank God that I can boast of being a brutal Saxon. “ - Proceeding with extracts from M. Guyot’s work. What do my countrymen think of this? ‘‘On the 2ist of December, 1879, a poor woman named Ninus, the wife of a mason, was arrested by one of ‘these human vampires on a false charge of begging. For three days she was kept in close confinement, without being even allowed to state her case, or to represent to the Commissary of Police of the dis- trict that her infant child was dying at home for want of nourish- ment; and the child did die. ‘The police authorities did not deny that the poor woman was unjustly accused, or that she was kept in prison for three days; but they sent their police surgeon down to the © woman’s house to examine the body of the child, and he reported that the infant had died of disease.” One would like to know how much he was paid for that report. M. Guyot goes on to cite hundreds of other cases in which per- sons have been arrested and subjected to indignities without the slightest apparent excuse, at the will of the horrible mouchards. During 1882, 46,457 arrests were made by the police in Paris, and of this vast number only 1,502 were made by virtue of wartants regu- larly obtained. No fewer than 5,618 were arrested for ‘‘ rebellion,”’’ which means resistance to the police. If a policeman knocks you — down in Paris, and you get up again before he tells you, you would be resisting him, and he would arrest you. Any one who livesin “‘ garnis ’’ (furnished apartments) may be vis- ited by the mouchards at any hour of the night, and without any prior warning. Think of it mothers who have daughters. All the hotels are under the abominable system of espionage, and a landlord who doesn’t render an account of all his visitors every night to the bureau of the police, is heavily fined. The common lodging-houses are the happy hunting-grounds of the mouchards. They make raids upon these places, capture whole bands of people, and drag them before the Commissary at the police-station. Here they are scrutinized, and those who are wanted are detained; whilst the others are released after some inquiry has been made about them. The mouchards get five francs for every previous offender who is convicted of fresh offense, however trivial; and so it will be under- stood why they throw such a large net. M. Guyot, who was for- merly a Prefect of Police, states that in no city in Europe is there so large a number of arrests as in Paris, for the reason that in no other city is there so little scruple in making them. So much for the mouchards. Here is another interesting little extract, also taken from ‘* La Po- lice,’’ *‘ On the 17th August, 1883,’’ M. Guyot says that the follow- ing details appeared in the columns of * La Lanterne’:—‘* An Amer- ican famiiy,-consisting of Mr. Theodore Heine, an American, his ~ wife, and a friend, had been residing for some days at the Hotel i Mars, in the Rue de Croissant. One day, at noon, Mr. Heine, who — ‘was an invalid, went out for a stroll to purchase some cigars ata. shop in the neighborhood. He did not return, and, despite the en- ergetic researches and inquiries immediately instituted by his family — aa 35) ‘JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. | 45 to ascertain what had become of him, no trace of the missing man could be found. Suddenly, after an absence of many days, Mr. Heine walked into the room occupied by his almost frantic wife, and had a marvelous tale to tell. . When he had purchased his cigars, he en- deavored to find his way back to his hotel. Becoming perplexed among the labyrinth of streets, and unable tospeak a word ot French, he found himself in the Avenue de St. Quen. Worn out by fatigue, he tried to get information from some passers-by as to the situation of his hotel. The first man whom he addressed vouchsafed no reply. His repeated endeavors to find some one who could speak English— rather a hopeless task, by the bye, when French ouvriers have to be dealt with—ended by making him the center and butt of a group of grinning dadauds, who regarded him as a madman, simply because he could not speak French. Presently two Gardiens de la Paix came along, and noticing a crowd round the unfortunate American, indo- lently set themselves to inquire what was the matter. The police- men had no more idea of the language Mr. Heine was talking than the rest of the crowd; and believing, with ready alacrity that he was -@ madman or an imbecile, they arrested him, and carried him to the nearest police-station. ‘Thence he was conducted, notwithstanding his protests in English, to the Prefecture de Police, when, incredible as it may appear, not a single man could be found who could speak any language but French. No one thought of procuring an inter- preter, and Mr. Heine was not allowed to send a note away to his wife. From the Prefecture he was taken to the lunatic asylum at Sainte Anne, where he was treated as a madman, until at last his name was published in the list of insane persons maintained at pub- lic expense, and this led to his release.”’ The above reads almost like a romance, but remember it happened not a year ago, andin highly-civilized Paris. M. Guyot, who quotes this case in extenso in his book, waxes very indignant, proving that there is at least one honest and one honorable man in France. And he says: ‘‘ Here was an American gentleman, who spoke in a lan- guage that was neither Chinese nor Corean—which any one may be pardoned for being ignorant of—but English, a tongue widely diffused over the whole surface of the globe. Passing through the hands of hundreds of people, Mr. Heine could not find any one to understand De cot ald adlh iybebsins SUM had we analy dE RARE al AV ule DUO A ARGS Nata viride aa bien Aid gi Ale Gia mi Sv ae, Nb at Ay »* r 4 ’ ne oP : : i 4 him. ‘There are medical men of eminence attached to the Prefecture — de Police. These eminent men had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion that the man was mad. When he was discovered by his friends, instead of hastening to make apologies to a maltreated - foreigner, the police authorities refused at first to give him up. In- tellectually, the police showed thut they were on an equality with M. Camescasse, their chief. A powerful London journal,* commenting upon the above case, says: . *‘ The mora\ of this startling narrative is that nothing can be more dangerous than for a foreigner to visit Paris at present, unless he can speak French. The gay city upon the Seine, according to an interesting article which has just appeared in the new number of the ‘ Edinburgh Review,’ on a book called ‘ The Anarchy of Paris,’ a Daily Telegraph,” January 16, 1884, ¥ one, whether foreigner or habitual inhabitant, who makes his way — 46 ss JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR, by Maxime du Camp, is far from a safe or agreeable residence to any — ix late at night through the Champs Elysées, or even along the boule- vards. An Englishman, named Grisewood, has good reasons to remember the rough treatment he experienced, not long since, at ~— the hands of the Parisian police, because he interfered on behalf of an old woman who was being hustled and maltreated by the gendarmes. Mr. Grisewood, like many of his compatriots, could not speak French; the result being that he was locked up in a cell in at their hands.’’ company with some of the greatest vagabonds and scoundrels in | Paris, and detained tor thirty hours before he was released. So arbitrary and high-handed, indeed, are the proceedings habitually resorted to at present by the employés of M. Camiescasse, that, if we are to believe M. Guyot, it is doubtful whether a fair ac- quaintance with the French language would rescue any foreigner from their clutches without his experiencing all sorts of indignities Of the gardiens de la paix, I do not hesitate to say they are the _ most brutal and cowardly police in the civilized world. They are never seen alone, but always in pairs. If there is a row or a fight, they never show up until it is all over. At night they skulk in doorways, and smoke and sleep. Occasionally they outrage women and arrest men, only letting them go on the payment of a sum of “money. Such is Paris—dear, delightful gay, pleasure-loving Paris! ae Ua ae As one reads of these things he is disposed to say that with such toul blots as these upon her face, it would be well for France to draw a veil over herself and assume a modesty and honesty, though she had them not, instead of rising up, .with the effrontery and ¥ hypocrisy of a brazen harlot, to cry “‘ shame ’’ against her neighbor’s sins, when her own sins are as scarlet wool. CHAPTER VIIL ae Justice in France, how it is Mocked and Burlesqued—The Marquis de Ray— The Charenton Murder—The Sentimentality of French Jurors—A Shame- ful Case in Nice—Napoleon’s Mot—‘: The French have no Civie Courage ” —The Bad Drainage of Paris—Failure of the Water Supply—Absinthe and Eau-de-Vie—The Awful Drunkenness of France—The Suicides. \ JUSTICE in France, when it is not a burlesque, is generally a mockery, while equity would seem to be a thing unknown; at any rate, so far as foreigners are concerned. lt would almost seem as if this was a natural result of the barbarous police system. Forthere can hardly be justice when any number of the horrible mouchards =~ can be bought tor a few francs to swear away a person’s life or liberty. 1t seems almost beyond credence, and yet it is nevertheless _ true that these creatures have been known to enter into a conspiracy = to extort money from respectable women by threatening to bring charges against them of having committed acts contre les mmurs. And scores of women of stainless character have to submit tothis . — system of blackmailing. ‘That such a monstrous state of mattersas this should exist is not at all surprising when it is remembered that = ate Pee Jo A ii a better class of men was procured, a law being passed that no felon should be eligible for service. This law would now seem to have fallen into desuetude, and it is certain that a discharged prisoner may obtain employment as a mouchard. The idea of being a spy is — looked upon with such repugnance by most people, that no man, who was not entirely dead to honor, would accept such a post as that of mouchard. In addition to the recognized mouchards, every concierge in France is a paid agent of the police, and added to them, ' again, is the large body of gendarmerie, numbering many thousands. So what with gendarmes, mouchards, indicateurs, gardiens de la paix, and the concierges, one may form some idea how much liberty there is in that boasted land of freedom. And, then, when we con- | _ sider the venal magistracy, and the low class from which jurors are generally drawn, it is not difficult to understand how the purity of justice may be coriupted, Ido not mean to assert that there are not - honest and upright judges on the bench; but the small fry of mag- istrates who generally obtain their posts by nepotism and who are generally ill-paid, are corrupt and partial, and one has only to study _ French law cases for a little while to know how frequently justice is mocked and burlesqued. In proof of this 1 will cite a very recent, - case—the tria] of the Marquisde Ray. ‘This old, hypocritical scoun- - drel announced that for the honor and glory of God he was going to forma French Colony at Port Breton, on one of the South Sea Islands. By mixing with his circulars and advertisements any num-— ber of pious expressions he succeeded in entrapping thousands of his luckless countrymen and women, who subscribed enormous sums of | money. ‘These poor people were sent awuy in rotten ships, with - scarcely any provisions; and those who survived the horrors of the voyage were landed on acannibalisland. Scores of them were killed and eaten by the savages: many went raving mad, and others died ~ of horrible diseases. Whole families, representing two and three generations were swept off; and the few who did survive were utterly ‘ruined. The Marquis de Ray did all this in the name and to the honor and glory of God. ‘The trial of the villain who was the author _ of these fearful horrors lasted several days, and resulted in a verdict __of five years’ imprisonment, and as the sentence did not carry with _ it the penalty of travaux forces the Marquis de Ray will be able to do much as he likes as long as he does not break the prison rules; _ but even these will always yield to golden keys, and as the delight- | ful old gepntieman has, no doubt, feathered his nest pretty well out of the millions of francs his dupes subscribed, he will find no diffi- - culty in making himselt very comfortable. _ Any lawyer, who is an eloquent pleader and a good actor, and pari knows: how to make frequent and skillful reference to the ** Bon , ee be JOHN ‘BULYs 3 NEIGHBOR. | o Tih vi ‘may, to a et succeed either i in ean his client off or ve having ‘* extenuating circumstances ’’ tacked on to the verdict, which es) sometimes means an 1 acquittal, and at all times a mitigation of pun- viet -ishment. A fiendish woman, who has poured a bottle of vitriol — _ over the face of her faithless lover, has only to fall to weeping be- fore the jury, who weep in response and let her off. Apropos of this one will reruember the good story of the young man who was put upon his trial for having brutally killed his father and mother. When asked if he had any extenuating circumstances to offer against his being condemned to death, he immediately broke into tears and appealed ‘to the jury to pity him as he was a poor orphan. ‘This was too much for thesentimental jury, who fell upon each other’s necks and wept, and appended a rider to their verdict of ‘‘ extenuating circumstances,’’ and the good young man was let This morbid sentimentality of the French nature is, as everybody. knows, a reality, and frequently causes justice to be burlesqued. A - Case in evidence is the trial Jast year of Madame Fenreyon and her husband for the so-called Charenton murder. For depravity, for cold-bloodedness, and ghastly horror, this murder stands out as one of the most diabolical in the annals of crime. ' Madame Fenreyon, in common with her countrywomen, had a lover in addition to her husband. For along time she carried ona disgraceful intrigue with the lover until, growing tired of him, she resolved to murder him, and, to that end, took her husband and his brother into her confidence. A plot was hatched. A lonely house at Charenton was hired near the river, and, on an appointed night, the unsuspecting lover was invited by his mistress to a café in Paris to supper; and from thence they proceeded to Charenton, though, before starting, the female fiend went to a church and prayed for half-au-hour. This was strong hypocrisy, albeit it was French. On entering the lonely house, where her husband and the brother were in wailing, and to which whe wretched woman had lured her victim, she actually held him while her husband beat his brains out with a hammer; and, as he lay upon the floor in the agonies of death, the brother stabbed him several times witha knife. The body was then stripped, doubled up, bound round with a quantity of leaden ~ piping, placed in a wheelbarrow, and trundled to the river close at hand, and pitched in, to be fished out some weeks later by chance by some boatmen. The crime was traced to the two men and the woman. ‘They were put upon their trial, which lasted several days, and they engaged the best of counsel to ‘defend them. The whole tragedy was unraveled in all its hideous details; the men confessed their crime in open court, and so did the woman, telling every atom of the shameful story. The trial resulted in a verdict of guilty. The husband was condemned to death; the woman—owing to the feelings of the jury being wrought upon’ through the artfulness of counsel—got life imprisonment; and the brother, “‘on account of- his youth,’’ poor boy! only got a short term. Counsel, however, ‘Was not satisfied, and he set to work to find a flaw in the indictment. It is never difficult to find flaws in French indictments, if you have — money and influence enough. So the necessary fiaw was found; eh Hs prisoners were re-tried; the death sentence was reversed; ‘the Liye tf K ra senary ; cms ey { aS aye JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. - ... 49 brother was acquitted; but the sentence on the woman was allowed to remain undisturbed. bn er Now, if this was not a burlesque of justice, then justice was never | builesqued in this world, The crime was ghastly even for France; and all Paris, used as it is to such things, was a little shocked, and everybody expected that both husband and wife would have been executed, as they ought to have been. But the result was as I have stated. The man has been sent to New Caledonia, where, I believe, his wife will be allowed to join him. Ina year or two, when their friends have sent them enough money, they will distribute it amongst the sentries, a boat will be placed ready for them, and they will make their way to Australia, and 1 wish our kinsmen there joy of them. ih About a year and a half ago, an English gentleman of the highest respectability was living at Nice, occupying a villa on the Promen- | ade des Anglais. His house was surrounded with a garden that was shut off from the road by a railing and an iron gate. One afternoon, _as he was walking in his garden enjoying a cigar, some men came to the gate and demanded admission. He asked who they were and what they wanted. They refused to give him any particulars of themselves, and he very properly refused to admit them. Where- upon they forced the gate and entered his grounds. With the spirit of atrue Brilon, he turned the blackguards out again; but again they forced themselves in, and then announcing theinselves agents de police, dragged the astonished Englishman off to prison. Reader, you don’t happen to know, perhaps, what a loathsome, - repulsive black hole the prison of Nice is. If you did you would not be surprised that the English gentleman, in spite of protests and offers to deposit any amount of money as bail—his numerous friends making the same offers—who passed the night there, spoke of that night as one that could not have been endured a second time. He - ‘was subsequently put upon his trial, and after any amount, of false swearing, in which our dear neighbors are adepts, he was fined five hundred francs (£20), besides all the costs of the trial. If this was not a mockery of justice, then there never was a mockery in this world.* But here is another piece of evidence as to how justice is bur- lesqued in I'rance. A woman named Amelie Sangle had married a young wood-turner last June, but had since separated from him. She afterward met one of her husband’s companions, named Deli- . non, and asked him the former’s address, as she wished to return to him. Delinon refused to give it, whereupon Madame Sangle bought a bottle of vitriol, and again urged him to acquaint her where she could find her husband. On his still refusing, she threw the con- tents of the bottle over him, covering his face with vitriol, and dis- figuring his features in a horrible manner, causing him to lose both sight and hearing. At the trial, the woman avowed that she adored her husband, and being jealous of Delinon’s influence over him, * The case here alluded to was fully reported in the English Journal pub- lished at Nice, the ‘‘ Anglo-American,” edited by Mr. Lemercier. It was also mentioned by many English papers, including, I believe, the ‘*World.”’ It caused a great scandal in Nice, and many good families left through it; while every one pronounced it disgraceful even for France, , Pe this chapter, | beg to refer them to M. Guyot’s book, ‘‘ Lu Police.”’ | tonishing fearlessness, thereby proving the exception to ‘Napoleon and when a murder is committed in the World’s Metropolis “the daily. It is-facetiously called the ** Murderer’s Chronicle.” It makes i “pinteers the other day, and referring to the gigantic size and marvel- oe outer ring as well, or that vast province of houses known as ae ve meee ag se did 3 in afit of “ungoverna ble | ’ a the brutal character of the crime, the jury acquitted the prisor | Should any one think that I have been guilty of exaggeration ns Me _. This pentleman is a credit and honor to his country, and, with as-_ ‘the First’s mot: ‘‘The French have no ciric courage,”’+ he has dragged the mask from the French police system, and proved Lt 19 ee be as relentless, as cruel, as barbarous and unjust as that of Russia. Our good neighbors are never tired of denouncing the crimes and government of London, 1t seems to give them an especial delight; French Press shrieks itself into hysterics, and the ‘‘ innate and ferocious brutality ’’ of the English is harped upon until the string ‘is threadbare. But we in England do not hear of French murders _ unless they happen to be unusually atrocious, such as the Tropp- | man and Charenton cases. This is no doubt due to the fact that _ the French Press generally does not publish police and murder cases as our own Press does. There is no daily ** Police Column ’’ ina _ French paper. But there happens to be published in Paris a sheet called ‘* Le Petit Journal.’’ Few Englishmen, probably, unless liy- ing in Paris, have ever heard of it. It has been in existence twenty- two years, its price is one sou, and it is said to circulate 600,000 ‘a specialty of reporting crime, and its columns daily team with the most revolting and ghastly details ot murder, vitriol-throwing, and certain other crimes which must be nameless here, but in which the _ French are, par excellence, adepts. These sort ot crimes are politely ‘called in France Contre les Mawurs. Verb. Sap. . Since our good friends cannot manage their own poor little gim- ~ erack city, with only 2, 000,000 inhabitants, what would they do ‘with London? J give here the Registrar- General’s report on the last — -census. He points out that the ‘population of London has almost exactly doubled itself in the course of forty-one years, whereas the population of the rest of England has taken fifty-seven years to ; Multiply in an equal degree. At the beginning of the present cent- “ury, out of every nine inhabitants of England and Wales one only lived in London. Now the proportion has risen to one-out of seven. = In the outer ring of suburbs and environs not included within the = limits of inner London, yet only separated from it by an arbitrary = line, the growth has been still more rapid—its population having in- -ereased 50 1-2 in the last decennial period, and even a fraction more than that in the preceding one. _ Again, Sir Joseph Bazalygette said, at the Institution of Civil En- -ous growth of London, that the British Metropolis has the area of a small German State, and a population equal to that of Holland, greater than that of Scotland, double that of Denmark. Taking the A * This case was tried in Paris, January 25, present year. ‘ + In the instructions to his Ministers at the time of the Waletora is bate Th Liers: * * Consulate and ean Book By ae ers pte ‘a - JoRN “nuns NEIGHBOR. deny 81 a Grektee Tegont We have) a population not much loss en that - of Ireland or Bel cium, which is being increased every year by large numbers of human beings trom other cities, foreign and English. This eminent engineer further said that the healthiness of the Me-. _ tropolis was increasing and its death-rate falling, This is very sig- - nificant; and it is an undeniable fact, as borne out by statistics, that the English capital far surpasses Paris in every respect—as a resort of fashion, as a center of commerce, politics and fame. Even out- wardly, Paris is dwarfed by London in splendor as in size, Paris is . poor and flimsy as compared with our capital, and the glorious © dream of the late Lord Beaconsfield to make London the center point, the very heart of Europe, is fully realized. Now let us look at Paris. Its veneering of gilt is so thin that you have only to scratch it to get at the rottenness beneath. Of all the great capitals of Europe it is one of the worst drained, and it isa notorious fact that two or three weeks of hot weather is suflicient to raise the death-rate to an appalling height. The mean average death- rate under any circumstances is always higher than London, Itis true that beneath Paris is an elaborate system of drainage-works, through which a small car is run with curious sight-seers, but the system is confessedly defective. Then again, nothing could be worse than the water-supply. The water itself 1s bad and the supply deficient. After three weeks of hot weather in the summer of 1880 the supply almost entirely failed. The whole population was put — on half measure, the streets were left unwatered and the drains | were unflushed. As a natural consequence, the atmosphere was un- bearable, the mortality was frightful, and everybody who could, fled from the pestilential city. At the present day crime in Paris is also higher than in London, when the total population is considered. Outrages even on the Boulevards are very frequent; while it is ab- solutely dangerous to pass along the Champs Elysées, or, in fact, any quiet and secluded place after a certain time. Fora long time, up toa few weeks ago, the Bois de Boulogne was infested by a gang of roughs, who robbed and murdered every one they could Jay hands on. §o frequent were these crimes that a little army of gen- darmes were one night marched to the Bois, round which they drew a cordon, and succeeded in capturing about twelve desperadoes, But notwithstanding this, the Bois is so unsafe, that it is now nightly -patroled by a large body of gendarmes, Tn the low quarters of Paris crimes of the most frightful nature are committed daily. The amount of drunkenness is awful; so bad has it become, that alaw was recently passed making it a punishable offense, in the hope that it might operate as a check, though statis- tics prove that as yet it has not done so. Absinthe and eau-de-ole are the-common drinks. The former is the most villainous stuff that can be drunk. It maddens and kills quickly by bringing on softening of the brain, and it also produces a form of madness called in French folie paralytique. * This complaint is peculiar to drunk- ards, and increases at a fearful rate.+ The eau-de-vie is made from * “ Annuaire de sce nme Politique es de la. Rtatistique,” Paris: Guil laume et Cie. 1878, PALO SEO TL PODER CTP CUEINT RY RMS HERE aE Re ee ihe: he F a ‘ %) x ¢ ‘i an re a Yh ; Sa Ah oh Swe’: i 2 ‘ 59 Cv CORN BULIAS* NEIGHBORS O50) oi Koo te ‘the commonest of methylated spirits. lt is a fiery, ‘maddening spirit, ‘ and is sold at from forty to eighty centimes the liter (a little more than _ a pint), Our London gin is a mild and pleasant drink compared with this ewu-de-vie. Go into the poor quarters of Paris; peep into alow café, a buvette, a cabaret, a guingette, an estaminet, a bras- serie—look at the awful bloated faces, sodden and distorted out of all semblance to God’s image by absinthe and eau-de-cte ; look at ‘the half-naked women and the young children soaking themselves — with these cursed drinks—if you are a brutal Saxon, you will shud- der and come away with an aching heart, and thank your God that London, with all its appalling horrors, is not so bad as Paris. At the present time, when France has so much to say about our own crime, she is pouring into New Caledonia 5,000 criminals a year. In Paris the jails are overcrowded, and the madhouses teem with the victims of drink. Then as to the suicides—another favor- ite theme for our eighbors to taunt us with. The suicides in Paris are double in number those of London on the population. The re- turns for 1883 give these figures. The total number was 642, or 63 “increase on the preceding year; 217 was by firearms, 148 by drown- ing, 81 by hanging, 37 by charcoal in a closed 100m, while the re- _Maining 59 are classed as jumping from heights, by poison, or by placing themselves in front of street wagons or railway trains. - Since 1827, throughout France the suicides have shown a steady annual increase. In that year they were five per 10,000 inhabitants; while in 1880 they have risen to seventeen per 10,000.* As regards the pauperism in Paris, I have already shown, by M. Haussonville’s figures, thal itis much higher than in London, and that during the last thirty years it has remained stationary in Paris and decreased six per cent. in the British metropolis. CHAPTER IX. A French Bedroom, Salle 4 Manger, Cuisine—Home Life—The Lady and her Daughters—A French Idea of Pleasure—Late Hours—Chicory—Coffee— French Wine: How it is Adulterated—The French Habit of Spitting into a Tumbler at the Dinner Table—French Politeness: Where iis it? In a Frenchman’s Hat! _. We have been accused in ‘‘ La Rue a Londres ”’ of not knowing | ~what comfort is. Wecan, of course, well afford to laugh at the ac- cusation. But Jet us see what French home-life is like, and how much comfort there is in it—remarking, en passant, that in the French language there is no equivalent for our word “‘ home,’’ the nearest approaching to it being en famiile. We will begin with « bedroom of a typical, fairly well-to-do class. The bedstead is a narrow, massive wooden arrangement, with wooden sides, against which a stranger is apt to break his shins every time he gets in and out. A massive spring mattress, dome-shaped; on the top of this is placed a matelas of wool or horsehair. This ac- _ commodating itsalf to the dome-shaped mattress, the occupant of the bed is compelled to lie on the top of an arréte, as it were. The bolster “— % e Bok Bae ‘JOHN matter what position he lies in, always has a kink in his body. In the daytime this bed is all covered with a fancy, and often costly | coverlet. But when the femme de chambre goes up to prepare the bed for the night, she removes this coverlet and carefully folds it up; and the bed-clothing then consists of a small, miserably poor coun- terpane and a square bag stuffed with feathers or down. Now, it is amoral certainty that this bag will not keep on all night, as it is sure to slip off with the movements of the sleeper. The consequence is, in cold weather one is constantly waking up half-frozen. Then, — in addition to this annoyance, he is surrounded by massive curtains, | which add to the genera] discomfort. If there happens to be a fire- place in the room, it is certain to have a board in front, and the — chimney will be stuffed up with rags, for next to his dislike for soap - and water, a Frenchman has a horror of fresh air. Before the win- dows are heavy curtains, and all the crevices of the sash are bound round with list. The floor is bare, with the exception of what is called a descente de ht, but which we call a hearthrug. This is placed alongside of the bed, There is a cumbersome garde-robve, or wardrobe, a chest of drawers with a marble top, on which stand a slop-basin and a jug holding half a pint of water; while hanging on — a rail at the side ot the drawers is a serviette de toilette of about the size of a large pocket-handkerchief. The mirror is hung on the wall, and opposite the light, so that the difficulty is to see one’s self. Of course there are afew chairs, and possibly a print or two on the walls. I have here depicted a good class of bedroom; an inferio one is the acme of cold, barren discomfort. Descending (or perhaps the rooms are all on one floor) is the salle — a manger, we find the same cheerlessness as in the bedroom. How- ever cold the weather, it is ten to one against there being a fire, for, though a Frenchman does not mind what he spends in gratifying his vanity, and decorating himself and family out in fine clothes and jewels, he will spend very little on the internal comfort of his dwell-_ ing. The floor of the eating-room has no carpet. There is a long table with massive legs, and ranged round this are stift-looking, straight-backed chairs. The salon, which is always a show-room, is repulsive in its flaunted gaudiness, and it is suggestive in every way of the show-room of a furniture shop. There are gaudy chairs with much gilt; rugs on the floor, what-nots, small tables, a couch or two, some plants, a great deal ot bric-d-brac, a crowd of things on the mantelpiece; some engravings, not always in good taste, unless the owner is rich, when, in lieu of engravings, there will be oil-paint- ings. This room is invariably vulgar in its ostentatious display, and so stiff, so formal is everything, that one is afraid to move. The salon is never used for any other purpose but to receive visitors. There is another room, a little less stiff, but equally comfortless, where will be found a piano and a few books, and the indispensable pack or packs of cards, for no French house is complete without play- ing-cards. The atmosphere of this room is always very oppressive with stale tobacco-smoke and want of ventilation. But, in point of fact, this want is common all over the house, for a Frenchman thinks that it is flying in the face of Providence to open windows or doors, The hitohen, or ‘oleae is “conspicuous Bes ie ‘had smells, its. great > te tty array of copper utensils, and its gas, charcoal, or wood fire, and ~ dosed stove. In all French kitchens there is the absence of: that aah Cleanliness we are accustomed to look for, and everything is untidy eee and slovenly. ich ie So much for the furnishing. Now for the style of life that is led. eatin FN is Ifthe master of the house goes out early to business, he comes down into the salle d manger, the table of which is bare of cloth,and - the servant brings him a bow] of what is by a pleasant fiction termed — coffee. And here I must have a word tosay about the boasted = French coffee. hea ‘It has long been a tradition with us that yon must go to France — for good coffee. There never was a greater mistake. As a matter of tact, the coffee that one generally gets in France is wretched, and Ath _. very frequently not coffee at all, but a mixture of three partsof chicory and one part of burned beans; unless it happens to be made —as is frequently the case—from a vile composition called “‘ Essence of Coffee.’’ The amount of chicory that is consumed in France is — _ absolutely enormous, while the proportion of coffee is comparatively - small. The very best coffee in the world goes to the English market. Sata That which finds its way into France is an inferior quality, with some rare exceptions. The difference between us and our neighbors — is, that we are not so much a coffee-drinking people, and the majority of. English people don’t know how to make coffee properly. On the ed other hand, French people have no idea. how to make tea, ny Returning to the master of the house and his bow] of coffee and — 3 milk—café au lait. A hunk of bread is brought to him, and this he proceeds to tear up—that is the only way one can describe the —— process. ‘The pieces he dips into the coffee, and, having protected " his shirt front—for a Frenchman is very particular about his shirt © front—with a napkin as big as one of our ordinary towels, he pro- wit ceeds to feed hiniself, eating and drinking with a rapidity that is simply amuzing. This ‘ first breakfast ’’ is a very short affair, and, being over, the worthy man goes out with a cigarette in his mouth;, and the strong probabilities are that he will not turn up again until af three or four o’clock in the morning, as he will go toa caté for his - déjeuner and dinner, ; A little later the lady of the house and her daughters, if there are anv, make their appearance, looking very yellow and washed out, for itis likely they did not go to bed until long after midnight. Their hair is screwed up in papers; they are attired in taded, and as often as not ragged, vobes de chambre, and they wear slippers down at the _ heels. Being tired and weary, they soak their bread in their coftee in silence, or, being in bad tempers, grumble at each other, unless they happen ‘to be discussing with zest the immoral play they wit- Ret nessed at the theater the preceding evening. When they have © finished their coffee, they return to their bedrooms, and wash them- aes - selves in the half-pint of water. Then they spend from twoto three hours betore the looking-glass, and by the time déjewneris ready they: are looking blooming, thanks to the marvelous French “‘ toilet requisites.’’ The déjeuner is a formidable affair, but not to be com- as poe pared to the dinner. Possibly some visitors have dropped in, and ie 9 Pe of voices is aicah French bales enone: neys ashy : Sets . Pe ene iit id mish A pits pi os i: D8 sone BULL'S NEIGHBOR. CIR Ne} ath ‘treble voices, and, as they speak f in the highest key and all pene to- _ gether, the noise is confusing. Many courses are gone through, and an immense quantity of wretched wine is drunk, which in three ha) cases out of five is manutactured from dried raisins.* As evidence ' of the quantity of wine that is consumed by the people, the returns | for last year showed two hectoliters twenty seven liters per head in Paris,} that is, about fifty gallons per year each person—man, — woman, and child. The breakfast being over, black coffee is handed round. The gentlemen smoke cigarettes, and the ladies munch bonbons. The afiernoon is got through somehow, visiting 01 shop . ping. Visitors are generally entertained hospitably on wretchedly weak tea, some biscuits, and bonbons. ‘Then comes the event of the day—diner. ‘This is a prodigious meal. If there happens to be | company, the ladies appear more blooming than ever. Their com-- plexions are fresh and youthful; the hair is artfully arranged to the best advantage; and madame or madewoiselle crowds on to her fingers, and round her neck, and in her ears, and on her bosom, all the jewelry she possesses, and that is generally a great deal, fora — French lady worships jewelry first and her God afterward, and she will have it somehow or another—gold, if possible, but if not, then the best imitation. Two hours or more are spent over the dinner, 3 and the quantity that is eaten and drunk is almost beyond credence by a stranger to French habits. As arule, there is only one knife and fork for all the courses, fish, flesh, und fowl. The torkisonly — used to hold the meat until it is cut in pieces: then it is laid on one side, and everything is lifted up on the knife and put into the mouth. When the plate is ‘empty, it is wiped and polished with a piece of bread, which is eaten; for a French person likes to see his or her plate go away perfectly clean. The dinner being ended, glasses of water are brought 1ound. In these the napkin is dipped, and the — fingers and lips wiped; then the gentlemen, and frequently the ladies, rinse their mouths out and spit the water into the glass on the table. This kind ot French etiquette may be seen at any time in any café in France, where the class 1am describing frequent. After this pleasant littlé operation of mouth-washing, black coffee and cognac is passed around. The gentlemen, sometimes the ladies, smoke. Then there is a little music, perhaps some singing, until it is time to go to the theater, concert, ball, or what not; and then really commences the Frenchman’s day. At some time after “Inidnight the bourgeois family I have described are supping in a café —another prodigious meal. The ladies are at their best. They look charming, 4nd they are brimming over with good spirits. They laugh immoderately and talk loudly, but they are thoroughly light- _ hearted. They are there to enjoy themselves; and they do. At ** Annuaire de l’Economie Politique,” page 420. : An enormous quantity of manufactured wine is sold in France. Both this and the common vin ordinaire is frequently adulterated with plaster of Paris, which gives it a ‘“‘body’’ and a bright color. This adulteration was carried on to such an extent, that a law was recently passed limiting the quantity of _ plaster to be used. Last year there were manufactured in France 1,700,000 hectoliters of wine _ being composed of a basis of common wine, with the addition of sugar an water; and 2,500,000 hectoliters from dried raisins.—‘‘ Annuaire de l’Econe — _ Imie Sy ape page 288, 6 «sss SOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR. — sual “three er four o’clovi they go home to thelr cold, cheerlow fetid a : house; and 2b frst breakfast-time apocar, as F hewe sein “ooking ~ yaN yelcw, ana weary. and Worn. TRe above is a tair representation Ot home-Hfeas we Enc in mG France among the mide c’asses [fou descend i thesocial scale, the uomes are barren an0 wrescoed. fhe rence ouorier home is very much.worse than une same ctass in England. Of comfort, as we are pleased to think we understand it, there is absolutely none. All is fetid—dirty—squalid. His diet for the most part consists of cabbage soup, common bread, a great deal ot garlic, with sausages now and again, and pork whenever he can afford it. When he has finished his dinner, he puts on his blouse and goes to a café, where . he smokes a great deal of villainous tobacco, plays cards or dominoes, and saturates himself with absinthe. If we ascend in the social scale to the first-class families, we find magnificence, ostentation, lavishness, but no comfort—absolutely none. The one great aim of a Frenchman’s life, if he have money, is to let the world know that he has gotit. He is always at the greatest pains to impress you with a sense of his importance. He flaunts his wealth in your face in every conceivable way. He patron- - izes you and sits upon you; and, so powerful is his vanity, that if. _ you are a stranger he will take you over his honse, or rather so much of it as is on show, and point out everything with the delight of a child displaying its new clothes. He will tell you with keen joy how many thousands of francs he paid for his wife’s diamonds, and what his pictures cost, and how much his horses and carriages stood himin. If he invites you to dinner, you will be overawed by the glittering display of plate; but the cold formality and want of cheeri- ness will make you very uncomfortable. A French dinneris always a long and very noisy aftair; and it justifies the caustic remark, that ** A Frenchman feeds, he doesn’t dine.’’ There is one other subject with which I must deal in this chapter, namely, ‘* French politeness.”’ A literary friend of mine wittily remarked, ‘‘ A Frenchman’s politeness consisted of taking off his hat and putting it on again.’’ That expresses an absolute truth, for French politeness goes ne — deeper. Go and stand at a busy corner where ’busses'and tramcars - start from, and watch Frenchmen rudely elbow women and children , away in order that they themselves may secure the best seats. If it is a wet day and Monsieur is asked if he will accommodate a lady, watch him how he will scowl at the conductor and refuse to budge © an inch. Go to arailway station on a iéte day, and watch F'rench- men behaving more like animals than men, and you will come away _ with a different idea about French politeness. Would a polite peo-. ple have treated King Alphonso as he was treated in Paris the other day? Would a polite people have acted with such coarse rudeness - to the Marquis Tseng as the French have done? Would a polite people have treated our own courteous and chivalric Captain Jobns- - ton as the boorish Admiral Pierre did? Do you find politeness in the post-office when you go for stamps or to transact other business, and some dirty, garlic-smelling clerk pufts his cigarette smoke toward you, and keeps you waiting while he finishes the conversation he was engaged in with another garlic-smelling clerk as you entered? — pean .7 : er ee NR es aS Ne ns Tide AL CAERPHILLY PALES Aol g SPROUT ON dca SL RP EN ' 4 4 guy 2 ' yA " fais te t : *S bs a " t ew aOR BUTTS Niccdm uy Bask WEL ea ata’ Pow iy hy ie fy, pide pei Vo you ‘ind i nmorgst the olliciais of railways? Dé you find it 22 _ __ board the steamboats, in the theaters, in the tramcars? Uf not in any , of these piaces, then where is it? 1t is, as my literary friend ex- ~ peat it, a Vrenchman’s hat, ‘There, and there only, is it ip be ound. | . CHAPTER X. nch Soijiers—Officers : their Ignoran ity— ‘their T sreiolesomeness and Dirt—The Vorale of the Army-The Duke of Welly pilibaus Goldiers-The Diserace of Sedan, at War—The French scared SomE years ago I was dining with a party of German the Mansion Rouge, in Strasbourg. frist nonocrinaee poaaba took its tone from recent exciting events, and an officer in a cavalry regiment thas haG cOnspicucusl¥ Goucedloped mself exclaimed, in answer to a temarik that had been maaes lie han “Ah! if Frenchmen had only stopped at home, and armed their women instead, and sent them against us, we should never have got into Paris.’’ This was the German’s way of expressing his admiration for French women and contempt for the French soldiers. 5 l was purticularly reminded of that remark recently on reading some articles in ‘‘ Le Temps’’ on the British army, in which the British soldier is held up to contempt, and the British officer is ridiculed as a nincompoop without brains, without military knowl-. edge, and no skill. These articles, of course, are written by hack writers, to pander to the Anglophobic tastes now raging. Their bad taste and untruthfulness one can excuse. History proves that the English soldier has always been a match, and more than a match, tor the Frenchman, therefore we need not trouble ourselves much about the opinions of ‘‘ Le Temps.’’ But, naturally, one’s attention is directed to the French Army, to see in what way it is so superior to our own, save in point of numbers. German contempt for the French army is well known, while in all ages the French soldier has been conspicuous for his unsparing brutality in war time. This, perhaps, is not to be wondered at, when it is remembered | from what class the rank and file are drawn. _- Napoleon I. said, ‘‘ The worse the man, the better the soldier; if soldiers be not corrupt, they must be made so.’’* This exactly ex- presses the ruling principle of the Freuch army. 1 find that in 1881 about 13 1-2 per cent. of the French army could not read or write; 2 1-2 could read only; while 57 1-2 per cent. had the rudimentary elements of instruction.+ The average French soldier is conspicuous for two things: his slovenliness and his dress, which outrages every taste. If my ex- perience goes for anything, 1 should say he is the worst-dressed soldier in Europe. He is wretchedly paid.t He is badly fed and * Thiers, ‘* Consulate and Empire,” Book 36. t “*Statisque Militaire: Annuaire de ’Hconom'« ~. litique,” page 96, + The pay for a common soldier is one sou a. \ bed hee - ee RRO Snr a ee Was sickened and disgusted with the dirt and fetid atmosphere. ‘badly Houeeas Ale Hood: is” coarse and ‘meager in the pipe times of peace. In war time it is indescribable. As for comfort in his” barracks, it is utterly unknown; and the same may be said for cleanliness. I visited a barracks in Paris not long ago, and ‘two others in the south of France still more recently; and in each case 1 My French friends will accuse me, possibly, of having been over-— ire et sensitive; but with some knowledge of barrack life in different coun- tries, lam disposed to say that the French barrack is by far the worst. In fact, the ordinary French soldier is looked upon by his _ superior as an animal and nothing more; with this difference, that, whereas an animal would. be taken care of, and its comfort would be attended to, the soldier is utterly neglected in that respect. He | is a fighting machine, and as such his soul must be ground out of | - him; and he must be brutalized as much as possible, in order that he may become indifferent and pitiless. And when that dangerous - eondition has been tully developed, he is kept in rigid subjection by the chains of a tyrannical discipline, until the time comes to let © him loose like a blood-thirsty animal. If space permitted, pages and pages might be filled with well-authenticated acts of brutality, recently, that are disgraceful to any nation calling itself civilized. aol hae _ Tunis, Madagascar, Tonkin, call up scenes that make one shudder, — Supposing that British troops had been guilty of anything like the | Hue massacre, as described by the China correspondent of the Paris ‘* Figaro,”? would not all France have uttered one great cry of con- i demnation? Butlet us go back to the Franco-Prussian war, when we find the French soldier in all his barbaric fierceness. During that time he was guilty of excesses that almost rank with the worst periods of his history; and the peasantry, inflamed by his savageness, joined | him in his defiance of all laws ot humanity. An exalted lady* saw _ a good deal of the French soldier and his offiver during that dread- — ful time, and in one of her letters to her Queen-Mother she says: ** A hundred French officers und two generals have broken their parole, and have escaped from their captivity. I doubt it a single — one in the German army would have done anything like that. The French peasants—sometimes women—murder our soldiers in their beds, and they have often, and in many ways, fearfully ill-treated _ our wounded. a When barbarians fight, one does not expect to hear that they have shown mercy or given quarter; but it is otherwise with so-called — * civilized troops. And yet, even in most recent times, the French troops in dealing with uncivilized people, have proved themselves to be not a whit better than the armies of the first Napoleon. That excesses are to be looked for in times of war, no matter of what nationality the soldiers may be, is alas! too truly the. case. But a ¥s a .*) if ‘ Te % rv ae Mp tpg ey might have been told! for Germany was not ready—her army had = to be mobilized, her frontier towns were unprotected, and many of her fortresses were so weakly garrisoned that they must have succumbed to a vigorous onslaught. But if the French officers had been tyros in the art of war—and many of them were so—they could not have | acted more foolishly. _frossard was airing his vanity before Saar- _ bruck; the town was his for the taking, but he did move until too late. He struck at last, and planted the tri-color where the Black Eagle had floated. But then came Spicheren—that bloody prelude to a stupendous and ghastly drama. I have heard Germans who were present on that dreadful day say that Spicheren was lost to the ’ French owing to the incompetency of its officers. In all the subse- quent struggles in the smiling provinces of Alsace and Lortaine the same incompetency was shown. Matched with a mighty foe, France displayed to the onlooking world the pitiable weakness of her army. And so long as French officers continue what they are, so long will the army cease to rise above the level of a military rabble: and should our neighbors unhappily become involved in another great European struggle at no distant date, 1t does not need a prophet to predict that the great, unwieldly military machine would go to pieces as it did nearly fourteen years ago. Sedan was a disgrace, Metz was even a greater one. Said Marshal Soult at Waterloo, in speaking of the English, ‘‘ They will die on the ground on- which they stand before they lose it.’? Does France think—does France dare tosay that if at Sedan and Metz they had been English instead of French soldiers, that those disgraceful surrenders would have taken place? Proudly and emphatically 1 exclaim Never! History and every nation except France echoes the word—’‘ Never!’’ ‘Thursday, September 1, 1870, saw France crushed by an inferior — number of troops; and 86, 000 French soldiers and officers, besides 14,000 wounded, with 550 guns and 10,000 horses, surrendered to the valiant foe. On that day the glory of the French arms was dimmed, and the dimness has never passed away. A few weeks later, Bazaine threw up the sponge, with 3 marshals, 66 generals, 6,000 officers, and 173,000 men of all arms. Oh, France! France! With such burning pages of disgrace as these in your history, why do you not hide your diminished head, and weep? But you will not do this. Your vanity is far too power- — ful to permit you to be humble, just, or generous. Your people are small in stature, and your average intelligence is far below that of your neighbors on the Rhine; but your consummate vanity has no Peres amongst any people on the face of the globe, me Bn . e wit if i vA > e's | JOHN BULL'S NEIGHBOR ‘The French Press: its Venality—‘‘ Le Temps” and London “ Telegraph” con- — ‘CHAPTER X1. eek Bo trasted—’* Des Debats ’’—** Le Figaro ’’—** Le a nia ”—Press Laws—Fear ae! of Actions for Libel—Want of Freedom. NeExt to the venality of officialism, the French Pree stands out as ; " the most venal of French institutions. The one leading idea of a French newspaper seems to be to abuse some other paper. There is not an official clique, not a religious sect, not a group of tradesmen, not a body of wire-pullers, not a political rabble, but what has its representative organ. In most countries this would be looked upon i i as an advantage, but in France it is otherwise. The vanity of, and want of generosity in, the people will not allow them to look with complacency and 200d- will on any rival. Inthe Press, this shows itself in such a venomous manner that foreigners are amazed. ‘Then, again, newspaper honesty is almost unknown. I say almost, because there have been some notable exceptions. But how can honesty be expected from a Press that is hampered with such utterly absurd libel laws? As the nation itself has no freedom, but is over-' run and kept in subjection by a barbarous system of espionage, so the Press is fettered and deprived of all liberty. If aman commits a robbery, or a woman commits adultery, and they figure in the iy criminal reports, it is certain, in mentioning them, that no paper will — have the courage todo more than to reter to ts ‘ her by the initial — letter of the name. Thus—‘' Le homme A.”’ or ‘‘ La femme B.’’ The reason of this is, that the editor of the me is afraid that the — thief or the adultress may bring an action against him. Then, as to the personal abuse | have alluded to, one has only to note the num- ber of challenges that pass and the number of *‘ meetings ’’ that take — place between French press-writers in the course of a year. Monsieur le Rédacteur en chef of ‘‘ L’\diot,’’ having in his paper called Monsieur le Rédacteur en chef of ‘‘ Le Diable’’ a godless per- gon, the latter gentleman sends a challenge to his calumniator. There is a good deal of—as our American cousins say—‘‘ tall-talk;” — - and these valiant fire-eaters sally forth, spluttering and fuming, to avenge their sullied honor. They meet, scowl like fiends at each © mh Hee then fall to like two dancing-masters. One of them is : scratched, or perhaps both. Their wounded honor is made whole. They weep over each other, and, adjourning to a café, swear ny ing friendship in deep draughts of absinthe. There are some clever writers on the French papers, but they are ie ni outnumbered by inferior ones by twenvy to one. In our own coun- hen _try, before a man can take a a recognized position as a journalist, he must have served an apprenticeship and given some indications of © ability for his work. Not so in France. The most incompetent numskull there, if he can only scrape together a few francs, starts a sheet, and calls himselt a journalist. And here again the ‘national — vanity displays itself strongly; tor there is a certain class of French- men who would infinitely rather starve and be called shay task rs. ‘The cravi " ost Pp : in rance if he has a thousand francs or so to lay out, so any one though a French Professeur may signify something, it very ye cpa signifies nothing but impudence and audacity. - aoe hag Aa them, the wonder is how they can possibly manage — to exist ity eke out a wretched existence, for a paper can be produced very — » cheaply indeed in the French style. Wretchedly printed on bad - and Monsieur le Rédacteur struts about supremely happy, because, © Ke ie eres first,-his vanity is gratified, and, secondly, he can abuse sumebody, ST and so get himself talked about. Anything like. enterprise, with — -) ae Ly OV canal notable exceptions, is a thing unknown amongst French news- a Me ap papers. There is hardly a paper that has a ‘' private wire,’ and NS ane very few go in for private telegrams. lf anything exciting is going © iG Sat on in the world, Paris newspapers are dependent upon London for. Daily News,’’ for instance, have cost. more than the whole pro- — “Siuotion of “Le Temps ”’ for the day, and which, as every one at the head of the list. As *‘ Le Temps ”’ is pretty generally known e by name to English people, and is a puper that Paris people are very As _ proud of, 1 will take a copy of that journal for the 15th of January ie graph ’’ for same date. The paper on which *‘ Le Temps ’’ is print- ut fae a is three inches longer than the ‘‘ Daily Telegraph,” but half an a a3 ‘inch narrower, and, swhereas the ‘* Telegraph * consists of eight — _ pages, ‘‘ Le Temps ” consists of four. In the issue of the French . ie _ journal for the date mentioned, and which 1 have not selected for any special reason, 1 find the paper made up as follows:— * - Eleven and three-quarter inches in large and heavily-leaded type ae day. This is followed by thirteen inches ot ‘* Depeches Telegraph- - Akh Pes des correspondents particuliers.’’ These are set in smaller i _, type, but considerably ‘‘ spaced out.”’ The longest of these tele- ee , January 18; and the greater portion of itis a transcrip NE "paragraph that appeared in the “‘ Gazette Russe de Saint Peters- ~ bourgh. * Vhe next longest telegram is from Madrid, and no~ ni ‘Spanish | paper is mentioned. The third longest is from London, _ the “‘ Times,’’ said so and so; that the correspondent of the *‘ Times’’ ~ at Cairo says the environs of Khartoum are already in confusion — - (saccagés) ; ‘and that, following the intormation of the ‘ Daily — ; he e ‘News,’ ’ the evacuation of Khartoum, and destruction of the maga-— at Fine cts: In each of these items of news, the cones epee is” $ ee on two eenee Ppppate ais the information. Oy mena r has and ing for social on. am: ong! this Rept Bhan people is so intense that a man a Ky will sell his birthright to, be able to call himself a journalist, — a _a professor, a doctor, or an author. As any one can be a journalist — may become a ‘‘ Protesseur,’’ in fact with even greater race ee : : W : “When one looks at the thousands of trumpery sheets that are 4 ; | issued under the name ot newspapers in France, and the inanities — oe Ks ut, while many ot them die in their infancy, the major- Af he _ the first news. 1 have known when two foreign telegrams inthe —~ ee _ knows, is one of the leading Paris papers, even if it does not stand i ae and it quotes in fourteen lines that Sir Samuel Baker, in a letter to. a : Sake paper, with tew or no literary expenses, these flimsy things drag on, ao ae of this year, and contrast it with a copy of the London ‘‘ Daily Tele- i. is ‘ ofa ** Bulletin du Jour,’’ which isa summary of the newsofthe — ; a oes is from St. Petersburg, and is dated two days pr festa ha A Os S M, fe} ait a) + ets ‘The dé echee are eatonae ‘by a short column Salle Levis, and which 1 refer to on page 19. Then comes a polit ical leader of a column in length, and in same type. We next get — four and a half inches of telegrams through Havas Agency, and - then three long paragraphs of China news through ‘* des telegrammes ‘a. big | ype 8 and heay- ae ily ence: of a leader on a Socialist meeting that took | place at the de source Anglaise.” There is a considerable extract trom the _ _** Gazette de Voss’’ on the Marquis Tseng. 'Then come threespaced- — out, paragraphs on Algeria andthe Congo. Whilethe bottom of that — : “page is occupied by the indispensable fewilleton, consisting of six — columns, seven and:a quarter inches in length. Turning over,isa heavily- spaced. column of ‘* Bulletin de 1 Etranger,”’ followed Dye half a column of ‘‘‘Affaires Militaires.”? Then a column of news _ of the day, consisting in the main of an extract from ‘‘LeCridu Peuple.”’ Then come three columns, big type, leaded, of a report — of a workmen’s meeting; and at the bottom of the page six more — short columns of the feudlleton. ‘Turning over, there isa long col- umn, twenty-four inches, of a political meeting, which is continued through half of the next column. We next ‘get a short article on public prayers; then a reunion of Bonapartists; the grievance of the - coachmen; two other unimportant paragraphs, and two columns of — ‘** Faits Divers,’’ a mixed medley of little bits of odds and ends, in- cluding a report on the weather, a long letter from a correspondent on a national school of mines, two advertisements, and a quarter of © a column of a law case at Marseilles, copied from the local journals of that town; while a quarter ol a column i is occupied by a story about — the loss of some shares by a widow ‘The last page is made up ofa | list of the theaters; the said’ list being comprised in thirty-seven — lines. The rest of the matter is vulgar and staring advertisements; a chart of the weather; a column of a report of “the sitting of the Sy Chamber; two or three short telegrams by Havas Agency, and the - paper is completed. ‘‘ Le Temps’’ is twenty-four years old, and its ‘price in Paris is three halfpence ahd in the Departments twopence. Now, taking the ‘‘ Daily Telegraph’”’ for the same date, we find — in the front page eight twenty-three and a quarter inch columns of adverlisements., The next page is composed of eight twenty-five inch columns of closely-set matter, including.a little more than two Columns of a report of the ‘‘ Money Market;’’ three-quarters of a . ~ column of ‘‘ Special Market Reports,’’ set insmall, solidtype.. Then an Auction Summary and some paragraphs complete three columns. The following columns include a letter to the editor, reports of ac- cidents, nearly two columns of police reports, three-quarters of a column of the trial of the men charged with a plot against the Ger- man Embassy, .‘‘ Sporting Intelligence,’’ ‘‘ Official Cause List’’ of the Supreme Court of Judicature, a very complete *‘ Shipping In 3 : telligence ’’ list, dealing with shipping in all parts of the world. Then there is a paragraph or two, a reportof a‘* Saleof Blood Stock — : e at Tattersall’s,’’ and the page is complete. On page three areeight more columns set in solid type. They include nearly a column of political speeches; a column and three-quarters of a special article, entitled, ‘‘ Our Coral Gallery;” a descriptive article of the new theater; a notice of the Strand Theater; .a quarter-column of Popu- lar Concerts; the movements of the "Army and Navy; a quarter- — # sag Tay | ey), ee ofa arealel aloe rta [ROE sented ‘dated the Siow day ; a Reuter’s telegram from St. Petersburg of previous day also; a par- Cit oer telegram from ‘* Our Correspondent at Vienna;’’ a long list ‘Latest American Prices;’’ telegrams from Paris, the United States, the Suez Canal. Then come *‘ Shipping Disasters,”’ a weather report, and a paragraph on Portuguese annexation, and we finish with the page. Page four is made up of three and a half columns of theater advertisements: three and a half sundry advertisements and law notices; and the remaining column is a summary and part — of a leader. Page tive has four and a halt columns of leader. mat-— «ter; while a space across two columns and nearly equal to oneord- _ / inary colimn, is occupied by a map of the Soudan; then thereisa — vt. 2 ', Gescription of the ‘f Mahdi’s March; sundry paragraphs; ; and tele-. grams from special correspondents at Paris; Cairo, Vienna; and sev- _ ~ eral of Reuter’s telegrams from Paris, Hong- Kong, Berlin; and three-quarters of a closely- printed column relating to the voyage of the *‘ Celtic.’” Page six is entirely advertisements; pages seven and eight the same. These advertisements represent ata rough guess a money value of about £2,000. That is more than the vost of pro- duction of ‘‘ Le Temps” for the whole week. The price of the hes Telegraph” is one penny, and its circulation 241,000 a day, while _ the circulation of ‘‘ Le Temps”’ is probably 25,000 to 80;000 a day. __ In selecting these two journals, 1 have taken what I believe to be _ _ fair representative types of English and French journalism. In ~~ fact, 1 think it will be admitted that “* Le Temps’’ represents the — ‘ Behe hs highest type in France; but in England the ‘* Times’’ must certainly fate be placed first;- and for telegraphic news the ‘‘ Telegraph’’ must aN Pe yield to the ‘* Daily News.”’ ae Pa lf we take the seven leading morning papers published in London "> namely, the ‘* Times,’’ the ee Standard, ”’ the ‘‘ Morning Post,’ the oa ** Daily News,’’ the *‘ Morning Advertiser, ”’ the ** Daily Telegraph, fe a and the * Daily Chronicle *_they contain in their united issues more matter than all the Paris journals put together, morning and even- | ce ing, and which number some scores; and their united circulation is probably greater than the united circulation of all the papers pub- Vetus eished at Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, Macon, Marseilles, Nice, Toulon, |. Brest, Havre, Dijon, Amiens. _I have particularly mentioned these 5 towns because in each a great number of morning journals are published. "sf we now take the ‘ Journal des Débats,’’ which holds a very high place in French estimation, we shall find ‘that it sinks into insig- nificance when compared with even our leading provincial papers, the ‘*‘ Manchester Guardian,’’ for instance, the ‘* Examiner and Times,”’ the ‘‘ Liverpool Courier,’’ the ‘* Nottingham Guardian,” » ‘the *‘ Leeds Mercury,”’ the ‘* Scotsman,” the ‘‘ Glasgow Herald,”’ _. the Dundee ‘‘ Courier-and Argus,’’ and very many. others, if space _~—~——sO Would permit to enumerate them. Passing on to the Paris ‘‘ Figaro’? _————s also a leading paper—it will not compare favorably with the sec- ~~. ond rank of English provincial newspapers. ~~ Ta France,” ‘‘ Le Voltaire,’’ ‘‘ Le Clairon,”’ ‘‘ Le Gaulois” are” ‘pate quite put into the shade, hoth ag literary and news papers by the — __ ** Birmingham Post”’ and the “ Daily Gazette,” the Bradtord *‘ Daily ate Telegraph, ‘ oe the ‘ “Western Morning News.” One might go- T, as ‘compared with that of sunply ety, ee Bee, independence i it has no tival. . CHAPTER XIl. 3 : French Cooking and English Compared—French Soups—Bouillon: How tis Si Made—Horseflesh. Oy i ¥ ag Must now touch upon one other charge that our ood neighbor are never tired of preferring against us, They say that We. cann a A by certain writers in the Englisit press, who, judging from the style — in which they write, would seem to have gathered their knowledge of France and the French by repeated visits to ‘‘ Boolong.”” I here - assert, emphatically, that the charge is a libel, and 1 will prove it Ce. have heard French cooking described as ‘* The art and science of making messes.’ Nothing ¢ so accurately expresses what French _ cooking really consists of as that phrase. -, The story will be familiar to every one, of the English commercial traveler who, having gone through thirty courses at a table d’ hote, Li paid,:*" Waiter, I have tasted all the samples, you can bring me my dinner now,.’’ A true French dinner is a dinner of courses and the - courses consist of nothing in particular... A French chef prides hi _ self on being able to destroy the flavor of one thing by adding th “flavor of another. Take salmon, for instance, served up with sau Need oanatee, What is the predominant flavor there, if it is not the acid and the oil of the sauce? Then, did youever try French mashe potatoes? You taste everything there but the potatoes, which are of the consistency of porridge. Spinach is dressed in a manner that Causes it to resemble thick, viscid green paint; and, owing to the — oil that is put in, the,flavor is probably not unlike paint,—at an’ rate, it is not like spinach, Snails and slugs will be served to yot i ‘and you will have to be very Clever indeed to detect what they FO ane - in their disguise. ; ) Mrs. Fred Burnaby, in her recent book on ‘The High Alps: * Winter,” tells how she anda companion were dining at a Frene hotel, and enjoying one of the courses very much, although the ad not the remotest idea what it was composed of. Suddenly the ‘companion dropped her knife and fork, and exclaimed, ‘‘I know © what this dish is: it is slugs.’”’ And it was. Now, 1 think I could. challenge any of my counirywomen to dress a dish of slugs or snails ‘so that they would defy detection, Yet your French chef willdo this. He will take a piece of diseased horse or fusty beet, and make a ragott that will cause you tosmack your lips and cry for more, He will so dress you a putrid fish that you shall imagine you are eating the most delicious plat. He will give you stewed goat so dis- guised that he might safely wager his head to yours that you Not tell the dish from jugged hare. He will give you tripe, and ake you believe that you are eating fish; Sisos i , and yc hink you a are eo unmae of some Ser Cs) Spee es pe 0 wn with rie “will ine impartial person, for instance, Midersne: i Sah Desay that English soups are not ‘superior to the much- vaunted ones — of France? Our idea of a soup is, that its basis should be the essence — - of “meat. A Frenchman’s idea is, that its basis should be hot water pars some fat in it, and the potential! ities of that decoction ina French “chef's hands are incredible. There are some exceptions to this: for. . example, in boutile-d-baisse, which is at once delicious and deadly in — its, digestion- disturbing properties, and the universal Joudlon. But a what is bouillon? It is made from the very worst parts of beef—the _ scrapings and the cuttings, and what we should call ‘‘ scrag; 7 for oy ee - your French chef thinks it is a deadly sin to boil good beef to make soup of. If you get bouillon in a restaurant, you may depend upon — es it that in its manufacture nothing has been ‘allowed to escape the . bit careful and frugal eye of the maitre or maitresse that would be | ‘ _-. likely to earich the bouillon pot. So in go the pieces from the cus- — ae tomers’ plates, and when the butcher brings the joints of meat in or iar ‘the morning the skillful cook with his little knife Shaves off all the © “ia dirty and pressed parts and pops them into his pot. They all bee ct * “and a little dirt is easily skimmed off, But generally, the dowdllon uD owes its strength to horse. The horse is a wonderful animal in the his - Frenchman’ s hands, When living he gets every atom of work out - of him it is possible to get by means of a liberal application of the _ whip: and when he is ” dead, be stews him and eats him. Most S Oe Tacit visitors to Paris will know that there are special horse-flesh — butchers; and in some parts of the town are markets for the sale Hee “fe horse- flesh. Is it to be wondered’ at, therefore, that the poor people ae sl can buy bouillon at from ten to forty centimes the liter? Nor are rf nN wy there many restaurants in Paris where the doudiion is not made from _ a wee ~ horse- flesh. But cheap as this douzillon is, it is aluxury tothe French | Eaiat hae peasant, whose staple diet inay be said to ‘consist of cabbage or potato — % ae i soup; a piece of coarse fish- occasionally; sausages always—for, : ae ‘being made froin horse-flesh they are sold very cheap:, now. and ‘b ~ then a piece of pork; considerable quantities of chicory-coffee; wine. vos “concocted from dried raisins and plaster of Paris; together with a ~ tremendous proportion of coarse black bread. The consumption of haat per head—man, woman, and child—in Paris per year is 168.51 _ kilos.* The general unwholesomeness of a French peasant’s diet, ey ais horror ot fresh air, and his Pebathet dirtiness, account for his a , a Pees An English peasant aims at - getting good food, but *his Rast confre ére cares not what he eats so ae as it does not cost much; for so great is his greed for gain that. he wil! haggle about a centime, and siarve for two days in the week — » tosave a sou. But, returning to the subject of cooking—Did you, e apes ts gpood. reader, ever get green peas cooked properly in France? — aN re the y not generally given to you clogged together in a mass, and — te vimining in ei butter? marian as ‘tor’ a pots iwt i dely a ; : “ * Statistique Alimentaire," page a, ‘or Devonshire, Hampshire or Wiltshire, and the first respectab] - amiarvelous story he gives to his country of .the hideous types of — y than 1 will undertake to £0 fhto Westinoteland: or Yorkshire, Lancashif -mechanic’s wife 1 meet shall be a better cook than the same class of women in France. Where is the Frenchwoman, whatever her station, who can make bread, good pastry, wholesome puddings? = who can stuff and roast a fowl, cook a pheasant or partridge, roast e aleg of mutton or joint of beef? who can stew a rabbit, make a peas-pudding, an Irish stew? who can make a jelly, stew eels; boil a cod’s head? who can make jam, a hot cake, mutton broth, a haricot? who can jug a hare, pot shrimps, or pot beef? who can” make a meat-pie or mutton-hash with toast in it? who cancooka’ chop, grid a steak, or‘mash’ potatoes? Yet all these things anda score more, the most ordinary Englishwoman is capable ot doing, ~~ and doing well. The women of France are, asarule, wretched cooks; and among the poorer classes the aim seems to be to get. % things as strong of garlic and as greasy as possible. Go among the vi navvies who work on the roads, the market- women, the porters, and = people of similar standing, and examine their food as they takeitat their meal-times; then look at the food eaten by the same class in England, and unless you are blind and a confirmed bigot, you will confess that England has the advantage by a long way. Tosaythat English people cannot cook is the veriest cant; and you have only to live in France long enough to know how untruthful the statement — is that the French ‘peasantry ean cook better than the’ same class in © England. The ‘‘ art and science of making messes’’ flourishes in France, and I am prepared to give the French all due credit for the — marvellous ingenuity they display; bat 1 object to Monsieur coming to us for a few weeks, and then going back to his country, and proclaiming that the English eternally live off ‘‘ ros-bif ’’ and ae wae ton-chops. Nae ee ee CHAPTER XML ee. The Frenchman in London—His Cat-like Love for his Haunts—His Dislike to — Travel—Paris Municipal Council and the Hospitals—Social Life—How ~— Children are brought up—The Dot—French ‘Courting—The Treatment of Infants—The general Unhealthiness of French Cildren ice ae t French Theaters—The English Flag and Liberty. If the French stranyver within our gates could, by any possible —_— means, be induced to leave, Rupert street, Wardour street, andthe other precincts of Leicester-square, and take a walk west, north, or — south, or east of the metropolis, how his mind would be expanded! £ Frenchmen have been known to find their way to the neighborhood of the docks; and M. Hector France is believed by his countrymen — to have been in Wapping; and if a Frenchman can only tear himself — away from the seductions of Leicester-square and the Alhambra— -if he can only muster up energy and courage enough, he struggles - into a bus and goes off to the purlieus of the docks, and then what — a English faces he has seen, and of the awful brutality of the Saxon! — That these English faces are not English faces at all doesn’t matter — tohim, That there are a few hundred thousand or so of foreigners: is ee fe’ act ss lB Ali haku) 1 eae a JOHN ‘BULL'S: NEIGHBOR. austere 69 , 4s not of the sl chtsst conseqitence. He has seen them in the neigh- ; Ky _borhood ot the ‘docks in London, and that is quite enough. It is no Po business of his to discriminate. "When he flees from his « country and. comes to England for protection, be is perfectly well aware that he is coming among brutal Saxons, and with him it is a creed that the _ Saxon is a fiend incarnate. So he hies him away to the docks, and comes back to Leicester-square, and believes that. he knows London - intimately, and has seen the most. expressive types of the English people. It never enters into his head that the neighborhood of the docks in that most unholy of cities, Marseilles, 1s infinitely worse } than anything we have got to show; for there, every evil and every sin that human nature is capable of is committed hourly; while for - devilish, hideous, repulsive humanity it cannot be surpassed. We need not mention Toulon, Bordeaux, Brest, Havre: it is too well. yy known. what they are. ¥ Now, it our guest would try for once to leave the docks alone, and walk down that unique road that leads to Bow, he might benefit — in mind and body. And if he turned his steps north and went on to Highgate, Hampstead Heath, Primrose Hill, he might, if he were © ‘susceptible, bevin to feel the beauty of London growing upon him. And then, if he would only steadily pursue his course into Oxford street, and, bearing west all the.time, give a glance round the truly grand neighborhood of Hyde Park, and-if he were not too fatigued he might stroll through the park and get into Piccadilly, and, still steering west, peep in rat Kensington Gardens, looking at the Albert Hail and Monument en route. Then let him turn down the Crom- _ well road, and when he gets to the bottom and gazes round on the unsurpassed grandeur which will meet him at every turn, he will, if he be an honest man. confess that London is not such a bad place after all. 1f he were a traveler, which unfortunately few French- men are, I would beg of him to spend a few hours exploring Bays- water, and coming down past Holland Park and House, go south to Chelsea, and crossing the river just peep in at Battersea Park. He might go on to Wandsworth, and, crossing the Common, get to Clapham Common; learn something of the neighbortood of Balham, and Streatham, and Clapham Park; and he might do worse’ than - extend his walk to Peckham Rye and the locality of Nunhead, At any rate, if he carried out this little programme, 1’l1 warrant me that, an’ he be an honest man, he will, as he sits down in his squalid — café or lodging in Leicester square, or its vicinity, to write an ac- count of London for his Paris paper, that he wili write with a less jaundiced view than he does now. Were it not too much to expect any Frenchman to travel so far from his haunts—for there is a good - deal of the cat’s nature in your Frenchman, and he hates to get far from the house where he lives—I should ask our next guest who is _ troubled with the cacoéthes scribendi, to endeavor to get up the river and explore some of its exquisite bits; and, above all, I would pray him to wander studiously and thoughtfully through Richmond . Park, and to see that view trom Richmond rill which has set poets: ¥ and painters raving—and they not always of the brutal Saxon race either. And if he could—oh! if he only could be induced to slip into Kew Gardens, aud-after that make his way to the railway station _ and proceed to Windsor! And, when he had rested himself thor- RS UR Ai ay eg >\ ou ase Napmenniid of of pepe doe Bee mig _ head and Maidenhead, and getting | on {0 Holmw on run - up to the top of Leith Hill, and if our eternal fogs would only allow — of it, gaze on the panorama that is there untolded. Then bd A means he should come back to the little old- -time, chalky town Dorking, and hire—if he has money enough—a conveyance to ta him to the top of Box Hil: When he descends and has partaken o ~. some slight refreshment at the exquisite little ivy-covered hostelry near the bridge at the foot of the hill, he can return to London, On : another day I would like him to get as far as Weybridge, and glance ; around there, and then tramp over to Godalming. Or if he would ve : - wenture among the brutal population of the far east, he might ex- . plore the sylvan beauties of Epping Forest and Chingford, and even. _ goas far as Rye House. Then there are Norwood and Beckenham’ - jn the south, Harrow in the north, in fact, scores of places all in the ~ suburbs of our much-maligned metropolis, that if we could only - induce our dear friends to Visit, we might hear a little less of the _ brutal Saxons, and more of beautitul London, But, Se ae for us, London, as known to our French guests, is comprised within _ - aradius of half a mile from Leicester- -square. lt is regretable that — this should be so; but what can we do? You may take a horse to — |. the water, but you cannot compel him to drink. Nor can we com-_ “pel our Gallic visitors to see what they don’t want to see. I began — by explaining the nature of the disease—Anglophobia—from which ~ all Frenchmen suffer more or less. And so far as my experience _. goes —by-no means inconsiderable—I am strongly inclined to think - that the disease is perfectly incurable. We must, therefore, try and endure through it all as best we may. In conclusion, | must make a few remarks upon the position of Sranos as it is understood by ull thoughtful men at the present day, She is a declining nation, and will continue to decline until she gets. - astable and honest Government, who have the welfare of their coun- — _ try more at heart than the welfare of themselves and the filling of — their pockets out of the taxpayers’ money. I have, : already quoted the Paris ‘' Figaro ’’ on this very subject, and here is another Tas) vf sage from the same paper: wae “Instead of reducing the salaries of bishops from £2,000 to £600 a year, the Chamber of Deputies might with advantage turn their attention to official jobbery.”’ _ This jobbery and peculation is a glaring and crying disgrace. It - corrupts the army, it corrupts the navy, it corrupts the State, it cor- - _ Tupts the people. And then again, how is it possible for a country eet to flourish and prosper when its people are eternally pulling down and altering the institutions upon which a nation’s greatness de- » pends? What can be said of a people, for instance, that can be g eaalty, of the following imbecility: ‘The Paris Municipal Council is composed. jor the most part « of ‘ _ Anarchists, and these would-be destroyers 0” everything are going: to change the names of five hospitals in Paris, which bear the names + of. L’Hotel Dieu, La Pitie, La. Charite, St. Antoine, and St. ‘Louis. oe . : These are all to be rechristened because. scl 4h Roa eal ae mem-. P7, ae a Homme et du Citoyen,” ‘ Boerhaave,” and * Velpeaux.’? What ¢ “axe him to the hospital of les Droits de V Homme et du Citoyen.’’ _ the present year, are ‘altogether $21,500 francs, divided as follows:— Bibliotheque de I’ Arsenal, 15,000 francs. The French papers com- _ British Museum alone, bai ot i _ fi - instilled into the children; and from the time the children have their gades, they are bound slaves to a worship that is imposing in its cer- ~ emony but without true devotion. In their domestic lives there is an absence of regard for those ob- | a servances that people of less prurient minds “hold dear, Long DOE ite, fore a boy is out of his teens he is allowed full license; and, if the _ family is well off, it is a moral certainty that lony before the lad is twenty he will have ruined .his health, and have parsed through a ~ career which we in our Saxon brutality should be disposed to stamp _ with the word disgraceful, if not infamous. I am aware that - amongst ourselves we have plenty of this sort of thing, quite enough et apt to ‘make us blush; and I believe we do blush, and sometimes weep. But with us it is rather the exception. In France it is quite a rec- __ ognized thing; and a young man is not supposed to have graduated - unless he can show a diploma for intrigue. So fully is this sort of ch, If we look at French social life, and examine it in all its Aataiia: ce we find it as hollow and as full of shams as it can possibly be. _ From an early age the dark superstitions of an exacting creed ure vis “ih fefr hy at f cel a eligious beliefs: Bol which we hee Henaret di our. | - selv es, an an do so again.” And so this precious Council is going to take away the beautiful and sentimental names, and substi- tute them .by ‘‘ La Solidarite,”’ ‘‘ Ambroise Sare,’’ * Les Prous de | 8 change! Fancy any one having to say in reference to a patient, es Tf it were not so pitiable, it would be ridiculous. lf the worsten- -._ emy of France had wished to hold her up to public scorn and ridi- — cule, they could not have invented anything that would bave done it better than what 1 have quoted. It is not an invention, however, but an absolute truth. Then, instead of squandering such enormous, — - . gums of money in jobbery, would it not be more becoming if they ay ¢ spent some of itin improving the ignorance of the people? PG Fe CRE eS notwithstanding that the swollen budget for the present year is _ enormous, an official announcement just published states that the sums oranted by the French Government for the purchase of books, Ore manuscripts, medals, and seals by the great public libraries during en Bibliotheque Nationale, “181, 200 francs: Bibliotheque Mazarine, SA _ 93500 francs; Bibliotheque Ste. Genevieve, 16,000 francs; and | hy te that the total sum is less than that granted in London to se ios ‘ __ ** first communion ”’ to their dying day, unless they become rene- ‘4 AS a Sey aS thing understood and recognized throughout France, that daughters rate - are watched and guarded in a manner that, though necessary, per- haps, while society is what it is in France, is, when taken with other _ i - things, incongruous and absurd. For instance, no restriction what- - ever is put upon the literature that may come into a girl’s hands, RAC ga _ nor the number of immoral plays she may witness ata theater. And . " te - any one who has the slightest pretensions to a knowledge.of France, = _ knows perfectly well that both French literature and the French Ries) a eBay are leaker and oy with. niger A most eminent ie Siompstie © tants of. Rea. Gitecaitue) “say 1 i Ip - of the literature of the day, I have been dragged into. the Ruri abyss of horrors of French romance-literature. I will say in on _ word—it is a literature of despair. In: order to produce a momentar effect, the very contrary of all that should be held up to man tor his , - safety or his comfort is brought before the reader, who atlast knows -not whither to fly or how tosave himself. ‘To push the hideous, the _ ‘revolting, the cruel, the base, in short the whole brood of the vile * and abandoned to impossibility, is their Satanic task. One may, — and must, say task; for there is at the bottom a profound study of © old times, by bygone events and circumstances, remarkable and in- ~ tricate plots, and incredible facts, so that itis impossible to call such © a work either empty or bad. And this task even men of remarkable _ . talents have undertaken; clever, eminent men, men of middle age, _ — " who feel themselves condemned henceforward to occupy themselves » — -./ with these abominations. . . . Everything truc—everything . -gesthetical is gradually aud necessarily excluded from this literature.”? But though the girl’s mind is allowed to be thus’ contaminated— though, of course, French people do not think that it is contamina- ~~ ~~ tion, —an iron hand is kept over her personal movements. During ~~ her school-days, she is watched with hawk-eyed vigilance. When = — she is old enough to ‘‘ be brought out,’’ the parents set to work to bo ages her married... She. is taken to balls, concerts, parties, reunions, but always under guard, and not for five minutes ata time 1s she allowed the slightest liberty. She is on sale, and her value, includ- Ly ing her dot, is worth so much. - If a young man wishes to purchase her, he gets iis mother or his father, or some other relation or friend, to go to her parents, who are informed of his wishes, and the amount ot money he has. That he may be a 7owé is of no consequence, so Jong as the money is there. When the engagement has been - arranged, the young man and woman are allowed. to meet, but never — ig by any possible chance alone. Some near relation of the girl’s is always with her. The fiancé is not allowed for some time to do more Hees than to shake her hand, though, ‘ater, permission is given to him to © embrace her on meeting and on parting. Al! his letters to her are © - opened first by her euardians, and hers to him have to pass the censorship of the said guardian before they are dispatched. If the engaged couple waik out, following behind the girl, like her shadow, ‘stalks her mother, sister, aunt, cousin, as the case may be. And so, - until the moment that the warriage ceremony has made them one, the young woman is never ouce left alone with her future husband. _ Now, whence springs this suspicion, if it is not froma knowledge — of the too real danger? It is the old story of the thief watching. the, thief. The results ' of this pernicious system of restricting all liberty” is seen in the awtul domestic misery throughout France, and the = ‘total disregard of the seventh commandment. 3 _. As soon as ever the young wife has shaken off the shackles of parental bondage, she abandons herself to her newly-acquired free- — dom. For the first few months, if the husband and wife do not — mutually agree to separate before then, there is much visiting and saipeiiae of visitors; and a ball or a theater every night is inevitable, i Nye Goethe: “Correspondence with Zelter.” Pai 9. pride, en st aie! be Good. ioctiny: is ue object of the most fulsome flattery and odious attentions on the part ot the young men OW ho swarm round her like bees round sugar. - From this swarm she soon selects her lover. When she becomes a mother the maternal © . are instincts would appear to be peculiarly evanescent, or, rather, they are crushed out by the national vanity and a slavish observance of a eruel and ridiculous custom. No Frenchwoman of the slightest f Fh, ee ‘social standing would think of suckling her child. That would be an outrage against all conventional laws. The result is, the child is epee | either Sent away to a wet-nuise, or a nurse is hired for the house, - _ Bat in either case, the mother for the first few months seldom sees _ her infant. During this time the poor little mite is kept swathed in ‘ bandages exacily like an Egyptian mummy, and under no circum: » wea stances are the limbs allowed to have any play, for in the French | mind is a rooted conviction that if a baby is allowed to move its igs ‘ and arms they will not grow straight. es - When the child is taken out, it is doubly swathed, and, in additions ye: it will be wrapped in tlannel, and over that again will be putan enormous robe of cashmere or satin, according to the wealth of the parents; and in their vanity and love of show, the parents will lavish ae -. enormous sums of mouey on this one article of dress. T hen the baby’s face is closely muted up in a thick veil, and over his head © an umbrella is held, and in this state he is paraded up and down,a~ _ mere vehicle for the display of the grand robe. If any one doubts Ma _ the evil effect of this sort of thing on the national health, one has only to look at the chalky-faced, weakly children throughout France, ee _ There is no robustness, no vigor, no healthy life. — I find that in 1880 the marriages in France were only 7° 9 per 1, 000 i (inhabitants, while the births were 26°4 per 1,000, and the deaths Ra aL “4 per 1 ,000, * These figures are so suggestive as toneed no com- we ae +) o> ment from me. But 1 would ask the reader to contrast the low — Russ percentage of marriages with the high percentage of births. ~The, _ same authority gives for that year the percentage of illegitimacy as # 4-41 per 100 inhabitants! the total number of illegitimate births TOP 42 ____ the total population of 37,314,660 being 68,227 during the year, With reference to the population of France, 1 may quote some in- - teresting statistics that have been recently issued by the Ministry of _ Agriculture, the object of them being to obtain an approximate esti- ‘mate as to whether the total number of inhabitants in France will athe ne ' greater or less at the close of the century than itis now. The figures ~ a ay » so far worked out tend to prove that there is likely to be a decrease ten in the population, for though from 1806, when the total eae : on? Ke ‘was 29,107,425, to. 1872 there was an annual increase of 38 per LU; ‘ 000 inhabitants, that increase has since dropped. to 26 per 10, 000. | oY __ . There is reason to believe that the rate of increase is still further de. i mt Clining, and that there are not upon the average more than two chil- dren to each family. The returns also state ‘that out of every 100. - inhabitants of Paris only 36 are born in the department,.57 coming _ from the provinces, and seven from abroad. Moreover, while the , hy sree mandy, and 15 per cent. for the whole of France, “ fant qabrthitty is enormous, open as. He as 47 per. cent, ih Let the reader particularly note in these statistics, that the infant “mortality for the whole of France reaches the high figure ot 15: perce éent. Thoughtful Hrenchmen, weuld do well ‘to ponder on this © ~ alarming destruction of the young of the country, But who that knows anything about the infant life of France will be surprised? — As soon as ever a baby comes into the world, it is dosed with strong und drastic purges; then it is immediately swathed in bandages ex-. i he ; actly like a mummy, and for the first year of its life itis very sel- — ~ dom properly washed, for French nursesand mothers have a perfect dread of water touching their children. Then, as 1 have already described, mothers in France do not, as a “rule, suckle their own children, The bourgeois class look upon this - maternal operation as undignified; besides, a French woman is too: fond of gayety and pleasure to yield readily to the trammels that a baby imposes, so the child is delivered up to a stranger. Its mother, when she can spare the time, looks in on it occasionally. Descend- ing in the scale to the peasantry, the women, for the most. part being the hewers of wood and drawers of water, cannot give the slightest ‘attention to their children, and so they are ‘sent away to women who make a living by taking care of infants. Here, amongst the most appalling dirt, squalor, and miset y, the child passes the first year or soot its life, and if it happens to survive the ordeal, it is a stunted, rickety, miserable creature. - . Itsurely needs no further evidence than this to account for the fact that the average duration of life in France is much lower than it is in _-England. But if other evidence were necessary, it might be found in the dirty and lazy habits of the people. Personal cleanliness is a “thing they care very little about, and they dread ventilation, Then again, the enormous quantities of absinthe and other filthy decoc- — ay tions that are consumed must tend to sap vitality; while the love of outdoor sports, which is so characteristic of the British, does not ex- ist amongst our neighbors, A Frenchman prefers to pass his spare hours in a fetid billiard-room, a reeking café, or in a cramped-up. _. bowling-alley; but he shrinks from manly and healthy outdoor sports as he would shrink from the pest. The evil of this dislike for exercise manifests itself very conspic- uously in the women, A French woman is the very incarnation of laziness and slovenliness. The oneruling thoughtof her life is dress. She cannot walk, or, if she can, she won’t, and she does not believe that cleanliness is next to godliness. By the time French women are twenty-four or twenty-five they are as old and not half as active as the generality of our women of thirty © to thirty-five. They are burdened with an excess of fat, and are ‘almost invariably as yellow as saffron. The fat is due to want of exercise, and to the immense quantities of saccharine mattera French woman eats, for she is never happy unless she is drinking Cau gucrée, syrups, OF munching bonbons. ‘The yellowness is the result r of the want of fresh air and liberal use of soap and water, ‘But there is one thing that a French woman excels in, and that is Be are the making of a complexion. ‘The brilliant fresh complexions that "One #ees on the boulevards and in og Bois are the skillful preduo:, pur ey ot cae Bt ut. ‘Goamaties, Htoaie rouge, Fea wae: a 1 hundred and one Ke : Bat other elaborate preparations are indispensable lo a French woman’s- - toilet-table; and if nature has failed to give her a good figure—and_ - not one woman in France out of every five has a good figure—she take many more tomes yet to exhaust it. It is therefore almost au-_ of dacious to attempt to criticise the stage in France in a few words; ‘ relies upon her dressmaker to supply the want, and by | means of false bust, false stomach, false hips, shoulder- -pads, quiltings, and other artful devices, she is turned out faultless to all appearances. >. This art of making uv the figure—an art which men do not hesitate ‘to avail themselves of—is one that is peculiarly French; andit would be unjust and ungenerous not to frankly admit that our ne ae are perfect in it. A The purpose of this little work would scarcely be fulfilled if some © passing reference was not made to French theaters. I am aware that the subject is one upon which tomes have been written, and it would but I feel impelled by a sense of duty to enter a strong protest against the cant that is talked in England about French acting and . French plays. This cant seems to have become almost a fashion amon gst a certain ciass of people in our own country, who, in their ignorance Of ony ‘France and the French, think it is ‘* good form’? to exclaim, ** Ah! 3? erly.”’ The people who talk thus are generally those who are the aps are infinitely superior to the French as actors, and so jealous are . _the French of their rivals in this matter that there has recently been a dead set against everything Italian; and the Italian Opera in Paris) has ceased to exist, on the: plea that * French peaple are incapable of appreciating Italian music.”? Ot course they are, and for the very substantial reason that Italian music and Italian acting are above them. If one compares the two lyrical and representative theaters, - the Grand Opera in Paris and La Scala at Milan, the former sinks into utter insignificance, At La Scala one witnesses the very peter tion of art, in “Paris only a tawdry imitation. uke The French, in their vanity for outward show, have erected a mag- | \ ~ nificent temple of the Drama in their Grand Opera House; but I laine wv Ah, Clay ie 7 - venture to assert that its magnificence is all in its gilt and decora-, as tions, for a worse-ventilated and more uncomfortable house of’ its ‘kind does not exist, while the way in which the theater is managed would disgrace a body of schoolboys. One never knows until a few . ‘hours beforehand what is going to be performed, and the perform- | _ ances, generally speaking, are beneath contempt, considering the ee Oh tensions that are made. Then as regards the much-vaunted Comedie Francaise—is not our _ own Lyceum, under Mr. lrving’s management, its equal in every re- _ spect? have we not something to be proud of when we remember the _ glorious career of the tiny Prince of Wales’s under the Bancrofts?, + and where in Paris at the present day can we find the equals of the |. _ Haymarket, the Court, the St. James’s, the Prince’s, the Princess's, ie _ the Savoy? ‘While the Gayety, Drury Lane, the Adelphi, the Vaudeville, the - Strand, the Grand, may piss the whole of France to rival them, vie ee” nw i, 44 7 bia ea Kid MY Lae at sey PBS is fe ae #4 i AVA Oct PN a eM cs + : Wea K u ¢ h 7 . PANG tie nn eh a ¢ . you must go to Paris it you want to see this sort of thing done prop- ah pact qualified to express an opinion, Asa matter of fact, the Ital- — ; not ifs equal Cabenat ath } ‘And thoug g ; glish managers to go to France for their dramatic wa: Is setting in, and the last few years have proved that we talent amongst ‘us which is capable of turning out infinitely etter stuff, purer, “healthier, aud higher in tone than: NE YEARS, our neigh- | _ bors can send us. af In conclusion, I must once more make reference to the ‘Angloph mee “bic criticisms to which we have so long been subjected at the hands of our good friends. We are told that we are gloomy, melancholy _ 1 tena and even an English writer * has caught up this cant,anmd echoed it. He speaks of our having ‘‘ peopled one “whole continent _ with our lank-jawed kinsmen, and fringed another with the careworm faces of our sons. A full halfof the alobe’ 8 surface is given over to the: melancholy Englishman—with his somber attire, his repellen pprpnnets, his eloomy worship, his mechanic habitudes ‘of toil.”’ ‘This is cant of a very silly type. In what way is the Englishman more melancholy than any other civilized race? 1t has been said and ‘sung that our peasantry are the happiest in the world; and those who know the ‘Italian and French peasantry will certainly not venture to— assert that ours are inferior to them. English worship may be _ gloomy, and in my opinion is so; but it is at least free trom the hor- _mible superstitions of the Romish Church. . And then as to our ‘‘ mechanic habitudes of toil.’? Why it is these very mechanic habitudes that have made us the mighty people-that “we are, and that place usin the van of all other nations; and as there “Gs no effect without a. cause, it would seem, arguing from the fore ~ going premises, that these very characteristics which are so con -demned are what bave enabled us to spread ourselves over the face of the globe. How is it the French have not been able to do this? es is it the French cannot colonize? How is it the French cannot civilize savage peoples as we can do? They: must be wanting in something which we possess. What is that something, if it is not _ the mechanic habitudes of toil? We succeed where the French fail. Why? The French are just as ambitious of spreading themselves. - all over the globe as we have been, but they have not been able to accomplish it. 3; i _.. »And since our kinsmen on ‘the other side of the Atlantic have ybuilt up a mighty nation, and our kinsmen at the Antipodes are fol- ie + Towing in their wake, it would seem as if the gloom and the melan- -. choly, the somber attire, and the mechanic habitudes of toil, are the : «. indispensable conditions to becoming powerful and great. It has - been my lot to travel over a’ great part of the world, and it has never yet struck me that Englishmen or their kinsmen in America we ‘more gloomy or more melancholy than any:other races of people. — _ If they take life more seriously, it is because they have a higher ‘regard for the serious duties that life imposes; but I am strongly of opinion that an Englishman gets quite as much enjoyment out o Jite as a native of any other civilized country. At any rate, if our ~ iacananGl friends would only try to view us aes an ner aH ~ Ni basi JOHN BULL’S NEIGHBOR. ~ 79 present us to be. Even if their criticisms were conceived in a spirit of truth and fairness, they would carry weight; but they are so man- ifestly the outcome of malignant jealousy, so unfriendly in their tone, and so bitter in their denunciations, that we may well afford to treat them with indifference. As in the past we have lived through French jealousy and envy, so shall we in the future; and while France is seething with internal passion, while her power as a nation is waning, and growing weaker day by day, we, gloomy, melancholy hypocrites, will steadily pursue our way, and the English tongue will continue to spread, while the Flay that is the symbol of Freedom, Truth, and Honor, shall float on the winds in the remotest. corners of the earth, carrying with it a laws and morality to countless millions of the great human family. TUE DAD. a ada ne i . ee | 2 The Rock or The Rye. ! it en receipt of the price. oo GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, Monro’s PuBLIsHING Hovse, Mv P 0. Box 2781. “TM LIBRARY OF AMERIGAN ISSUED QUARTERLY. BS Pe PN ee Re Ta No. Se aya ‘PRICE. ; 30. The Little- Light-House ‘Lass. PRICH. 1 My A Sin. By Wage E. Bryan. 25 (After . “The Quick or the Dead.”” By TOU MIPS LOOM Ss use eneehe mole 25 8 Shadow and Sunshine, By Adna Hye nbners fee aes Cae 25 4 Daisy Brooks. By Laura Jean LCT RY Et atacgy iyi fp gfe py Ia fe 25 6 The Heiress of Cameron Halli. By Laura Jean Libbey........ 25 6 Marcas. By Margaret Lee.... 25 7 Lizzie Adriance. Margaret Lee 25 8 Madolin Rivers. By Laura Jean Libbey 9 Saints and Sinners. Marie Walsh 25 10 Leonie Locke. By Laura Jean HADPUSO My ets Gila Liaise a ogietc bes 25 41 Junie’s’ Love-Test. By Laura SCRA LAD DEY 2. yea 25 12 Ida Chaloner’s Heart. By Lucy Randall Comfort. . 2. .0.2.22.% 25 12 Uncle Ned’s White Child. By Mrs: Mary E. Bryan....7.0... 25 14 All for Love of a Fair Face. By Laura Jean Libbey......... PED 15 A Struggle for a Heart. By Lau- PAT OA IatDNOY:s srk eatitee aes 25 416 Little Rosebud’s Lovers. By Laura Jean Libbey, ..... 02.5. 25 17 Vendetta; or, The Southern Heir- ess. By Lucy Randall Comfort, 25 18 Laurel Vane. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller:...0.2...2.2.. 25 49 Married for Money. By Lucy BRandall‘Comfort: 2.2. 2o5.4% 25 20 Muriel. By Christine Carlton... 25 91 Sworn to Silence. By Mrs. Alex. MeVeigh Milleric) 07 20.00%. 25 oy 22 The Bride of .Monte-Cristo. A Sequel to’ “The Count of MONte-OFiston eet oe ls bas 25 28 Love. and Jealousy. By Lucy Randall Comfort.... 00... 025. %4 Hazel Kirke. By Marie Walsh.. 25 25 Tie Relle of Saratoga. Ry Lucy Rendall Comfort 26 Manch. By Mrs. Mary E. Bryan 35 27 Her Second Choice. By Char- lotte M. Stanley....22...0.. 20 26 Eve the Factory Girl. By Lucy PARANA OOM TONG Gases ce es 25 ‘29 His Country Cousin. By Char- FL AQUUS i WEy MOATICY sos cues: ee 25 80 Ruth the Outeast. Mary E. Bryan 25 81, Sold For Gold. By Mrs. EK. Burke SAOMANSUN wk heh tate ek learbee cot 25 $2. A Misplaced Love. By Charlotte DUE SSAC SS vice hin's ard o'6 b wis bin oy 25 83 Love at Saratoga. By Lucy (50) ARANDA COMPO A ss 05 bb a Vee eh oD #4 Estella’s Husband. By May Agnes Fleming.. fee oeeeoeeeece By Elizabeth Stiles...... 36 Wild: and Willful. seene By Lucy Bauer 25 Aah COMTONEG aac nieate sie lowes 87 Lady Gay’s Pride. By Mrs. Alex. MeVeigh Miller........0005.0. 88 Lillian’s Vow, By Mrs. E. ‘Burke Oolins ee euveests Genes ha ea 35 Lottie and Victorine. By Lucy Randall: COMMOLi ies apeoee 25 40 The Banker’s Daughter. By Mag- dalén. Barret Osi see te 25 41 The Barouet’s Bride. ey May Agnes Fleming....c..eeeerees 25 42 Lancaster’s. Choice. By Mrs. Alex. MeVeigh Miller........ 43 Tiger-Lily. By Mrs. Alex. Mce- Veigh Miller..... JON ie he one ae 2 44 The Pearl and the Ruby. By Mrs. Alex. McVeigh Miller......... 25 45 Beautiful Ione’s Lover, By Laura Jéan Libbey iis So. abe casa 46 Eric Braddon’s Love. By Mrs. , Alex. McVeigh Miller,......4. 25 47 Frou-Frou. From the French of MM. Meilhae and Halevy. By Charlotte M. Stanley. 48 The Unseen Bridegroom. By May : Agnes Fleming. .......00. 055 25 49 Little Sweetheart. By Mrs. Alex. MeVeigh Miller. 3 .2....00048.. 25 50 Flower and Jewel. By Mrs. Alex. MeVeigh Miller .... 51 Little Nobody. By Mrs. ‘Alex. MeVeigh Miller..........00 4% 25 52 The Depth of Love. By Hannah Blomereny 20 vie nNier owe 53 Cast Upon His Care. Dora Delmar 52 54 The Secret of Estcourt. By Dora Delia rs Seu ieee ive were eon Io 55 May Blossom. By Margaret Lee. 25 56 Under Five Lakes. By M. Quad. 25 | 25:1 57 The Fugitive Bride (The Bayou Bride). By Mary HK. Bryan... 25 58 Kildee; or, The Sphinx of the Red House. By Mary E. Bryan 25 59 A Tempting Offer. Dora Delmar 25 00 A Heart of Fire. By Jean Corey 25 61 Answered in -Test. Dora Deimar 25 62 His Legal Wire. Mary E. Bryan 26 638.Nan Haggard, the Heiress of Dead Hopes Mine. By Mary BP Ayia ain ee nee 64 The Girl He Bought. By Mrs. _ Mary E. Bryan...... Aa er A 25 65 A Handuarhe Sinner. By Dora Delman sh 38 Bee P A erase 66 In the Golden City. By Dora %S 67 By a Golden Cord. Dora Delmar £ — 68 Where Love Leads. be Dora . Delmaret ee ters Pi tie “The above works are for sale by all newsdealers, or shire be anced by rail Address Ranta - by hee ae ha! ie Se 37 to 27 Vandewater Street, R. a : : ~ nei se Kay EAS THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, POCKET EI EDITION. AUTHORS?’ . CATALOGUE. {When ordering by mail please order by numbers.] E. About. 1467 A New Lease of Life ....*25 Mrs. Leith Adams, 1345 Aunt Hepsy’s Foundling*25 Author of “ Addie’s Huse ‘ band.’’ 888 Addie’s Husband; or, Through Clouds toSun- shine Coe we alnierdia eoversoeeere 5 504 My Poor Wife........... #25 1046 Jessie............ Pieyasei tae Max Adeler. 1550 Random Shots......../.*25 1569 Elbow Room ...... mah Paik 7. 5! Author of ‘°A Fatal Doweyr.’’ 872 Phyllis’s Probation...... 25 Author of *°A Golden Bar.’’ 483 Betwixt My Love and Me.*25 Author of *“‘A Great Mise take.’ 244 A Great Mistake.......... 25 SSS Cherry oes. ok Ah oS a 75 1040 Clarissa’s Ordeal...... er (25 1137 Prince yg any 25 2187 Suzanne.. eS Author ot “*A Woman’s Love-Story.’”’ 822 A Woman's Love-Story..#25 Author of “for Mother's Sake.’ 1900 Leonie; or, The Sweet Street Singer of New ORR. ao ¢ tink cath wees $e e000 Hamilton Aide. 383 Introduced to Society... .*25 Gustave Aimard, 1341 ey reper of Arkan- ey 1398 Pirates of the Prairies... 25 1400 Queen of the ae ga 25 1401 The Buccaneer Chief.... 26 1402 The Smuggler Hero..... 25 1404 The Rebel Chief; ........ 25 1650 The Trail-Hunter........ 25 1653 The Pearl of the Andes.. 25 1672 The Insurgent Chief.... 26 1688 The Trapper’s Daughter 25 1690 The Tiger-Slayer..... eee ep 1692 Border Rifles. ......5..0. 25 1700 The Flying Horseman... 25 1701 The Freebooters......... 25 1714 The White Scalper...... 25 1723 The Guide of the Desert. 25 1732 Last of the Aticas......3 25 1734 Missouri Cutlaws........ 25 1736 Prairie Flower..... euaiwene 1740 Indian Scout.. 1741 Stronghand ............- 1742 Bee-Hunters........... ae ee 1744 Stoneheart...........0- +. 25 ps The Gold-Seekers........ 25 i 52 Indian Chief.:... Vibe cetk ee (OO. Red: Trackin. oo arp 25 inet The Treasure of Pearls.. 25 1768 Red River Half-Breed... 25 Grant Allen. 712 For Maimie’s Sake...... 25 1221 ** The Tents of Shem’’,,, 26 1783 The Great Taboo........ #25 3870 What’s Bred in the Bone*25 1908 Dumaresq’s Daughter...*25 2022 Duchess of Powysland..*25 Mrs. Alexan dex. 5 The Admiral’s Ward..., 25 17. The Wooing QO’ ppeeah 25 62 The Executor. . are GAP No 3° 189 Valerie’s Fate.......22.% 25 229 Maid, Wife, or Widow?.. 23° 236 Which Shall it Be?..:... 25 339 J ied Vereker’s Pasion 490 A. Second Life... PA) 564 At Bay vais uck Gwe whe sw reeed 794 Beaton’s Bargain,. 79% Look Before You Leap., 25 805 The: Freres) ce iekieee te ‘ans Her Dearest Koeed cess 2B ~ ti me ae vba elias a : Books marked ihus* are at Dresent in Alligator covers, rae Ans ; ‘Sipe ‘sd “THE SEASIDE TIBRARY. : gt4 The ones of ieeeicks 25 815 Ralph Wilton’s Weird... 25} ~ 900. By Woman’s Wit... 026. 25 997 Forging the Fetters, and The Australian Aunt. ...*25 1054 Mona’s Choice......,..2. 25 1057 A Life Interest... 20.20. 25 1189 A Crooked Path......... 25 1199 A False Scent: ... 20.022. 25 1367 Heart Wins........ von Lan ea 1459 A Woman’s Heart....... 25 AGA BUDE WARE Ke ie voli ee 25 2158 What Gold Can Not Buy. 25 Mrs. Alderdice. 1582 An Interesting Case..... 25 Alison. 481 The House That Jack BULLE e uuae es eta esas #25 Hans Christian Andersen. 1814 Andersen’s Fairy Tales.. 25 Ww. P. Andrews. 1172 India and Her Neighbors*25 FF. Anstey. BO WiC. V Orsi cick sekecces 25 ' 225 The Giant’s Robe... ..... 25 503 The Tinted Venus. A Fareical Romanee...... 25 $19 A Fallen Idol... ........ 25 1616 The Black Poodle, and Other Tales............ #25 G. W. Appleton. 1346 A Terrible Legacy.. ....*25 T. s, Arthur. % 1837 Woman’s Trials. ...... .*25 1636 The Two Wives.......... 25 1688 Married Life............. #25 1640 Ways of Providence..... #25 1641 Home Sceneés............ #25 1644 Stories for Parents...:..*25 1649 Seed-Time aud Harvest. *25 1652 Words for the Wise......*25 1654 Stories for Young House- K@OPers s eicye. cecescee > #25 1657 Lessons In Life... 2.0.0.5 #25 1658. Off-Hand Sketches...... *25 Sir Samuel Baker. 267 pee and Hound in Cey- oe ee ee ae BURT ay ay iuitoe Wa it 1502 Oat Up 8 the Soe. Aare Yaak 25 nr. MM. Ballantyne. 89 The Red Bric. ......00.-. 25 95 The Fire Brigade........ 25 96 Erling the Bold.......... #20 Books marked thus* are at present i Alligator covers, eer: a a G72 Ge the Sandal- ge Wood Trader..... SURG 1514 Deep Down........: civte Elonore De Balzac. 776 Pére Goriot...... 2. cece ee 25 1128: Gousin Pons. j.o0 eck. 25 1318 The Vendetta.......2.... 25 S. Baring-Gould. 787; Courbh Royahicsiscesucs #25 878 Little Tu’penny..... sisi teD DIVA EVE Pid alah wae ey #25 1201 Mehalah: A Story of the Salt Marshes.ii. 3.003. ees) 1697 Red Spider... 0.22.3. . #25 1711 The Pennyeomequicks.. ons Ata 1968 JONN Herring sans est Bers) 1779 Armineil Cislete pers she wie, are io ron y a ae 1821 UTES Olasteais ose eeieae nee AT) aa Frank Barrett. 986 The Great Hesper..... 25 1138 A Recoiling Vengeance, .*25 1245 Fettered for Life........ #25 Bei Pky 3112's 1461 Smuggler’s Secret....... 25 aM ae 1611 Between Life and Death. 25 1750 Lieutenant Barnabas... .*25 J. M. Barrie. 1896 My Lady Nicotine....... 25 1977 Better Dead... 2... ee. 25 . eth 2099 Auld Licht Idylls....... 25 Big he aes 2100 A Window in Thrums... 25 Misa 2101 When a Man's Single... 2 Basil. veers 344 “*The Wearing of the Sieh Green?) ies weicsens na ilee *O5 et SE aD 585 A Drawn Game......... *25 ha G. M. Bayne. 1618 Galaskis. i.e. cis ee coe HOD Anne Beale. 188) Tdonea fos eee 25 199 The Fisher Village.... TLRS Alexander Begg. 1605 Wrecks in the Sea of Life. . ee @e@eeee ee #0 ©Ceevee #25 By the Writer of, ** Belle’s Letters. 2091 Vashti and Esther...... 25 E. B. Benjamin, 1706 Jim, the Parson... ......#25 1720 Our Roman Palace......*25 A. Benrimo, 1624 Vie st et ents eeeecereeseee MOD a ices EDITION. 8 eo q meal é p , ‘ae E. F. Benson. William Black. SIP DOdOn ki vaades se een ese 25 1 Yolande..... eeee wees eee a) 18 Shandon Bells........... E. Berger. 21 pane A Story of These h ARIS 'p LNOB: 42 Spudwie ian ve vi ho tht a ae ah ond as 23 A Princess of Thule..... 25 E. Berthel. 89 In Silk Attire. ........... 25 1589 The Sergeant’s Legacy..#25] 44 Macleod of Dare........ 25 49 That Beautiful Wretch.. 25 Walter Besant. 50 ne Be alo hia Adventures : j ; of a Phaeton. 1 Uncle Jack ne 495] 70 White Wings: A’ Yacht. 140 A Glorious Fortune..... #25 3 ing Romance a'e\g sieiai.9 6 He 25 146 Love Finds the Way,and "8 Madcap Violet........... 25 Other Stories. By Besant 81 A Daughter of Heth..... 25 Bd Riko 2 8 Choc: RAY 124 Three Feathers..... ... . 25 230 Dorothy Forster...... ... 25| 18 The Boneren of Mincing 824 In Luck at Last......... 25 Lanes, : ieee veeeeees a5 B41 Uncle Jack........e..e5. #95 126 Kilmeny Cd MW WERE UF gta Sb) OC 25 651 “ Self or Bearer”....... *OB, 138 Gr dil Pastures and Pic: 2 Chi crac cadi y ee Ne CYR eae B Chiltron, of Gideon... op, ln shaiapeare He ) 906 The World Went Very Love Affairs and Other za) Well Then........ eas, 25 Adventures.. .....++.++ 25 980 To Call Her Mine.....,.. 25| 4/2 The Wise Women of In- ; ~ pp ‘ * VOINeESS) 40.505 S08 Ou ‘ eee enter 2) oar White Heathers ss.) 3c 25 bi His Greatness, and His 898 Romeo and Juliet: A Tale ; LA ESTAR are SI #25 of Two Young Bools, «029 1148 The Inner House........ #95 | 962 Sabina Zembra ......+..720 1151 For Faith and Freedom, .*25 | 1096 The Strange Adventures 1240 ‘The Bell of St. Paul’s....#25] |, ,0f,8 House-Boat,........*25 1247 The Lament of Dives.... 25 1132 In Far Lochaber........ 25 1378 They Were Married. By 1227 aa Penance of John Walter Besant and Jas. | 1959 Nanciebel: A’ ‘Tala of 1413 Armorel of Lyonesse.:.. 25 .Stratford-on-Avon.. .... . 1462 Let Nothing You Dismay*25 1268 Prince Fortunatus,...... 25 1580 When the Ship. Comes 1389 Oliver Goldsmith. . #25 Home. By Besant and 1394 The Four Macnicols, and | Beer A Me i eRe, #25 Other Tales. jase diot ses 1655 The Demoniac........... 95 | 1426 An Adventure in Thule. 035 1861 St. Katherine’ s by the 1505 as Silverdale’s Sweet- Tower. Eimiawens atone cit #95 ATU ee peared suis 25 1506 Mr. ee ne Brown, MM. Beth am-eKdwards. ee 6) (el ee: 6 BO O00 dein ialwrars *OK ae 203 Roe and OES orThe | TN Ce es aiting on an Islan 2 t 579 eae otk er of Doom,and ee 1892 Donald Ross of Heimra,. 25 WERE ther Stories......... .-D. BI . 4 594 Doctor Jacob ........... #25 67 ines te pice oS an 1023 Next of Kin—Wanted.. Het 427 The Remarkable History 1407 The Parting of the Way $*25 of Sir Thomas Upmore , é eats hog 3 “ oe an? . ia FRB Bart.. M 7 * or ne an t e or R65 Vee hae nwa eeteseaane 1627 A Romance of the Wire.*25 se ct ee ah Paiher's - a v) ns : Jeanie Gwynne Bettany. a Ba Baath atm Wi ded eee tal Oe ae % : ipps, the Carrier...... 25 eu 1810 A Laggard in Love......*25) 630 Gr abel Nowell..... eS bit r mA 631 Christowell......... Seen PRO pats Bjornstjerne Bjornson. 632 Clara Vaughan.......... 25 ith ; 1385 Arne.. ree fore eee es eme 25 633 The Maid of Sker..... eee 25 es 1888 The Happy Boy......... 25| 686 Alice Lorraine.......... 25 Pea? Sa it Books marked thus* areat presentapiaator covers. ¥ t \ } { ! 926 Ae even US eee kee bh cD 1267 Kit and Kitty...........*25 Isa Blagden. _%05 The Woman I-Loved, and : the Woman Who Loved Me:...... I Sa ERED oti bekeo Cc. Blatherwick. 151 The Ducie Diamonds... .*25 Edgar Janes Bliss. 2102 The Peril of Oliver Sar- gent........ See Se bie «+ RO Frederick Boyle. 856 The Good Hater......... #25 Miss M. BE, Braddon. f 85 Lady Audley’s Secret... 25 » 56 Phantom Fortune:...... 25 4 Aurora PlOVd. sees ay 110 Under the Red Flag..... *25 - 153 The Golden Calf......... *25 DOAN IRON eka faiaalete ais 25 211 The Octoroon........... 25 234 Barbara; or, Splendid WVLISEPY ses hed a sec be te oul 25 963 An Ishmaelite .......... #25 815 The Mistletoe Bough. Christmas, 1884, Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon. 25 434 Wyllard’s Weird........ 25 478 Diavola; or, Nobody’s Daughter iit cote ae 2D 480 Married in Haste. Edi- y cae by Miss M. E. Brad- By 487 Put tothe Pest. Haited by, Miss M. BE. Braddon....*25 488 Joshua Haggard’ s be DAUeNLOP ssid cin ee ose 489 Rupert Godwin.......... 25 495 Mount Royal.......... 25) 496 Only a Woman. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon.*25 497 The Lady’s Mile........; #25 om On A COU eswhc coe xo 425 9 The Cloven Foot........ 25 511 A Strange World Ae al le 25 515 Sir Jasper’s Tenant..... #25 524 Strangers and Pilgrims. *25 529 The Doctor’s Wife...... *25 542 Fenton’s Quest...... ... #25 544 Cut by the County; or,* Grace Darnel .....5.... *25 548 A Fatal Marriage, and er abe] Shadow in the Cor- Big Dudley Garioon: or, The Brother’s Secret, and Geers Caulfield’s Jour- ne B52 Hostages to Forune. ..*25 (658 Birds of Prey..+.s+ ate 25 Books moaived thus ave at en any Alligator cover& “THE SEASIDE LIBRARY, 554 Charlotte’ s Inheritance. F (Sequel to ‘Birds of Prey) wks eine Bulvteats 557. To the Bitter End....... 25 559 Taken at the Flood.....*25 S60‘ ASPHOA OL canis ee eee 23 561 Just as I am; or, ‘A Liv- INE TAG ec eras toe ; 567 Dead Men’s Shoes....... 25 570 Jp 75 Marchmont’s Leg: 618 The Mistletoe Bough. Christmas, 1885. Edited by Miss M. E. Braddon. 25 840 One Thing Needful; or, The Penalty of Fate...*25 881 Mohawks.../...-......6: *25 890 The Mistletoe Bough. i Christmas, 1886. Edited by Miss M. EK. Braddon..*25 943 Weavers and Weft; or,. ** Love pat Hath Us in HisiNeG Fe Ca eid ules #25 947 Publicans and Sinners; or, Lucius Davoren....*25 1036 Like and Unlike......... 25 1098 The Fatal Three......... 25 1211 The Day Will Come..... te ; 1411 Whose Was the Hand?.. 1664 Dead Sea Fruit......0.5.. oe 1893 The World, Flesh and the DOV ieee ket veces 55 Annie Bindshaw, 706. A Crimson Stain.........%*25 Charlotte M. Braeme, Aue thor of ** Dora Thorne.” 19 Her Mother’s Sin........ 25 51 Dora Thorne..... Reith ge 25 54 A Broken Wedding-Ring 25 €8 A Queen Amongst Women!) Coren ees ee 69 Madolin’s Lover ........ 25 73 Redeemed by Love; or, Love’s Victory.... .... “6 Wife in Name Only; ae . 2 Molly Bawn..........05. ay GO Porhiat ire ee Kip ita eae 14 Airy Fairy Lilian. be Reba ans hae 16 Phyllis ...... Pape N e AG A 25 Mrs. Geoffrey. . haba ae 29 Beauty’s Daughters. Usage 25 30 Faith and Unfaith....... 25 118 Loys, Lord Berresford, and Eric Dering....... 25 119 Monica, and A Rose Dis- GES Se ee 25 123 Sweet is True Love...... 25 129 Rossmoyne.....,.......5 25 134 The Witching Hour, and Other Stories... ......... 25 136 ‘* That Last Rehearsal,” and Other Stories...... 26 171 tartans’ s Wheel, and Other Stories........... 25 DBA DOGS: Foie suse diate cote 25 3812 A Week’s Amusement; or, A Weekin Killarney 3) 342 The Baby, and One New Wear's Hyeiioie) uel: 25 890 Mildred Trevanion...... 265 404 In Durance Vile, and Other Stories...... SER 5 | 486 Dick’s Sweetheart....... 25 494 A Maiden All Forlorn, and Barbara. 2.3.63 0.22. 25 517 A Passive Crime, ‘and Other Stories.......... 25 541 ** As It Fell Upon a Day” 25 733 Lady Branksmere. ..... 25 [71 A Mental Strugele....... 25 “85 The Haunted Chamber . 25 862 Ugly Barrington.. ...... 25 875 Lady Valworth’s Dia- MOnds Sts aes ae 1009 In an Evil oars and Other Stories......... Me 1016 A Modern Circe......... 25 10385 The Duchess o«ce...-s- $0) 25 1O4f) Marvel eS Ne 25 11038 The Honorable Mrs. Vereker oiiicovdie aie: : 11283 Under-Currents......... . @ 1197 ** Jerry.”’—‘* That Night in June.” — A Wrong Turning. — Irish 5 “and Marriage.......... 1209 A Troublesome Girl..... 25 1249 A Life’s Remorse.... 1333 A Born Coquetté........ 2 1363 .‘‘ April’s Lady ”......... 23 1453 Her Last Throw......... 25 1862 A Little Irish Girl, eeeees 25° 1891 A Little Rebel....cccsese % poe: Sook ean ie eos (ss 2B Pate dander inane: ei 55 The Three Musketeers., 25 75 Twenty Years After....: 25 262 The Count of Monte- OVISER PAE Li Vs: 25 262 The Count. of Monte- Cristo. Part II 717 Beau Tancrede; or, The Marriage Verdict einer a 25 1058 Masaniello: or, The Fish- erman of Naples MBN ae 25 1340 The Son of Monte-Cristo 2 1642 Monte- Cristo and His Wife. A Sequel to the “Count of Monte- TISHOS awe lochs en ae 25 1645 The Countess of Monte- . OTIGtON tau c ke A AEP ORN Ge 25 TOO GORING L Visit oer eau es 25 2062 The Watchmaker.....:. 25 2063 The Russian Gipsy...... Ro 2064 The Vicomte de Brage- IONNG Lass ees SPR epy bss 2065 Ten Years Later........ 25 2066 Louise de la Valliere. va paeD 2067 The Man in the Iron Sa vic Sa ate ee 25 2075 The Twin Lisatendnts 25 2076 The Page of the Duke of BIBVOV) ob chee ekicicdnaln 6 25 2096 Madame de Mailiy. Se- quel to “Olympe de OIesee eae tae el oe, 25 2110 The Two Dianas.-...... 25 2111 The Black Tulip......... 25 2112 Olympe de Cléves....... 25 2113 The Chevalier d Harmen- cat or, The Conspira- me 2114 The. Regent's Daughter. 25 2115 Marguerite de Valois... 25 2116 La Dame de Monsoreau R or, Chicot the Jester... 25 2117 The eee Five Guards: 2118 Hosagh Balsamo. ....... 25 2119 Memoirs of a Physician 25 2120 The Queen’s Necklace.. 25 2121 Ange Pitou; or, Taking the Bastile ; ;. or, Six Years Later: 25.0.2... 25 2122 The Countess de Charny 25 2123 Andrée de Taverney.... 25 2124 The Chevalier de Maison UOT Oircivsiceaecabicrs vette 25 2125 The First Republic; or, The Whites and the HBTS ics oo ee fineis Sees 25 2126 The Company of Jehu.. 25 2127 The she-Wolves of Ma- haere or, The Last . Vendé A128 The ran BE Brothers... 25 Books marked thus* are at presentite Maier covers, 2134 Rdmiond Dantew.....6... 25 2138 The Son of Porthos, .... > er Sara Jeanette Duncan. 1852 An American Girlin Lon- ee a er a a) don 2137 A Social Departure. ase, pO George Ebers, 474 Serapis. An Historical Novell Meares whites 25 O88 Vardar ices ire aes ae 25 1056 The Bride of ihe Nile... 25 1094"“Homo: Sum’. yes Sule 25 1097 The Burgomaster’s Wife 25 1101 An Egyptian Princess,.. 25 : 1106 The Emperor..........2. 25 1412 Only a Words .2sy.<2 25 1114. The Sisters: 0c... oa. 20 1198 Gred of Nuremberg, A Romance of the Fif- teenth Century......:.. 25 1266 Joshua: A Biblical Pict- MILO oo ces Noe ontalah auton tom Maria Edgeworth. 708 Ormond 08. os. Haas #25 788 The Absentee. An okede Story eos vegeae tan Amelia B. hivarae 99 Barbara’s History...... - 20 354 Hand and Glove......... #25 1364 My Brother's Wife.......725 Mrs. Annie Edwards, 644 A Girton Girl. ou... Leo 834 A Ballroom Repentance. 25 835 Vivian the Beauty....... 25. §86 A Point of Honor. ....... #25 837 A Vagabond Heroine... ,*25 888 Ought We. to Visit Her?..*25 8389 Leah: A Woman oF Hashion. soe seated 841 Jet: Her Face or iar Fortune?:...... SSBTARE 842 A’ Blue-Stocking.....0.2. #QH 843 Archie Lovell..... ie iat aim #25) 844 Susan Fielding. ..f...... #25 845 Philip Earnscliffe ; or, The Morals of May Fairs2h. 846 Steven Lawrence,....... 850 A Playwright’s Piven Hi. Sutherland Edwards. 917 The Case of Reuben Ma- lachi ee eee #QB ; Mrs. C. J. Eiloart, 114 Some of Our Girls...... 25 George Eliot. 8 The Mill on the Floss.... 25 : 81 Middlemarch....5-i..... 29 34 Daniel Deronda......... 25 86 Adam Bede..-.... doKeateteo FRA ~ S 5 A AQIROMOl A a rh ote 25 693 Felix Holt. the Radical. 25 WF Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe . 25 728 Janet's Repentance...... 2825 762 Impressions. of ~Theo- phrastnus Such......2... *O5 1441 Amos Barton... .3. 220.055 *25 1501 The Spanish Gypsy, and Other Poems........... 95 1504 Brether Jacob.....0....: #25 Frances Elliot. 881 The Red Cardinal....... #25, Eva Evergreen. 1858 Agatha.-...... PEPER MCLANE ti) Juliana Horatia Ewing. 752 Jackanapes, and Other Btoriags he #25 Kate Eyre, 1804 A Step in the Dark...... *25 Olive P. Fairchild. 1800 A Choice of Chance..... *O5 1802 A Struggle for Love..... *25 H. Farley. 1625 Christmas Stories....... 25 BR, LL. Farieon, £479 Little Make-Believe......*25 573 Love’s Harvest.......... *25 607 Self-Doomed........0..8. 25 616 The Sacred Nugget......*25 657 Christmas Angel........ #25 907 The Bright Star of Life.*25 909 The Nine of Hearts... #25 1383 The Mystery of M. Felix.*25 PRIS Gautranicny hein es #25, 1735 A Very Young Couple. ..*25 1790 A. Secret jearencennateas #25 1791 Basil and Annette.......*25 1812 Merry, Merry Boys, peat #25 eee ewe Bowsers nene Pardon *25 1890 Toilers "of Babylon. ee tap Heinrich Felbermann. 355 The Princess Dagomar OL POlAMNG, sexs caine se shoes *2) G. Manville Fenn, : 193 The Rosery Folk. ../.... #5 558 Poverty Cor NOP... cress *O5 587 The Parson o’ Dumford.*25 609 The Dark House......... 25 1169: Commodore Junk....... #2 1276 The Mynns’ Mystery.. 145 Books marked thus * are at present in Alligator covers, 1293 In yeaieray. GR aya es *25 1302 es Apes of the Spica 1318 Eve at the Wheel. se 1344 One Maid’s Mischief... 725". 1387 Bli’s Ohildren,........05. +5 1694 The Bag of Diamonds..:*25 1748 The Haute Noblesse..... *25 1749 Story of Anthony Grace.*25 1788). Black. Bloodaxe rene 25 1799 Lady Maude’s Mania. ...#25 1815 A Double Knot...... Eom 1824 A Mint of Money........*25 Octave Feuillet, 66 The Romance of a Poor Young Mans... 00.028 25 886 Led 2118 Joseph Balsamo. By Alexan- ee MSE UURAB eh eles. ae oelstoa sce 20 2119 Memoirs of a Physician, By ay Alexander Dumas............ 25 j 2120 Queen’s Necklace, The. By = . Alexander Dumas BOAT nets ataee 20 H Q121 “Ange Pitou ; Taking ‘the Bastile; or, ‘gfx "Years Later. By Alexander DUNS. Sees (Rb 2122 Countess de Charny, The. By Alexander Dumas . ..:...... 20 - 2128 Andrée de Taverney. By Al- éxander Dumas.............. 25 R124 Chevalier de Maison Rouge. By Alexander Dumas........ 25 R125 First Republic, The; or, The Whites and thé Blues. By Alexander Dumas...........5 25 e126 Company of Jehu, The. "By Alexander Dumas.... ....... 25 j <3 ae She Wolves of Machecoul, The; a ee for two dollars. Address a ae @ 0. Box hie ; Lee nity ROE POCKET EDITION. LATEST ms) we ps Courting of Dinah Shada, The, a 3 f Phidaress postage free, on receipt of 25 cents per copy, or we will send ire oR GEORGE MUNRO’S SONS, Publishers, . 17 to shh ‘Vandewater Street, New York SSUES, By Rudyard Kiplin 2184 Edmond Dantes. pe der Duman uc Powesualeen s 215 WE cm 2135 Hunchback of Notre Dame. (4 The, By Victor Hugo........ Pia ie 2136 Romance of Two Worlds, A. 9 9) By Marie Corelli eel els oes 6 ee oe 2D .? hie 2187 Social Departure, A. By Sara Pane Jeannette Duncan....,....... Dy pik ee Se 2138 Son of Porthos, The. By Al- UR OR exander Dumas............ (ODT a pies 2139 Three Miss Kings, The, By biue Ada Cambridge.....0.0. 0000: 25 2140 asia Royal, By Anthony 5s 2141 Dream Life. By Ik, Mar vel... 25, 2142 Tales of Mean Streets. By Ar i thur Morrisons) avae coun aes 2143 Picture of Dorian Gray, he” By Oscar Wilde... ......204..s005 25 hin nen 2144 Poems by Oscar Wilde.....,4. 95> | 2145 ewe inb The. By Jules Socrae of the Island, The. By | ue Jules Verne, Sead ota Oe at Hie “Hope Jsheis HUG ae Ole ta arene ale 2148 Ninety-Three. By Victor Hugo 25. 2149 Toilers of the Sea, By Victor Hugo. 2150 Beside the Bonnie Brier. Bush. 2151 Uncle Tom’s Cabin. By Ian Maclaren riet Beecher Stowe........... 25 2152 Surgeon of Gaster Fell, The, atelE By A. Conan Doyle... ..... 2... 25 at 2153 Asin a Looking Glass. ay FR, Fae NS Cc. Philips DSP eee Meee dS RR UE RES: ee ee ee ry tee et eee tee ees ya 2155 Per cival Keene. Marryat Soe een ee cee teee’s Pee se eetgevs DB Ly ane 2157 Dr. Phillips. NBs Frank Danby SB i oe x or, The Last Pes By Al- 2158 What Gold Cannot Buy... By )) 9) 4 ba exander Dumas........... .. 25 Mrs. Alexander... .2...0.. 500s pelt me 2128 Corsican Brothers, The. By 2159 Madame Sans-Géue. By Ed- Ss Alexander Dumas,.........., 20 mond Lepelletier..... 04. - 8129 edits Brand, of the Schoon- 2160 By Order of the King (L” Homes Vie ane i Centipede. ” By Lieut. me Qui Rit); By Victor Hugo 25 9 47 i. Pen Wise, iS: Noosa 2 25 | 2161 History of a rata THe. BY ote are 2130 Timar’s Two Worlds. By Maiu- Victor Hugo.. Qa eye aras IPO MODE ol Doak UE a efor sy: 25 | 2162 Gray Eye or So, pe "By Frank vere ait oe. Aig Notes. By Boayere Frankfort Moore..... vie bed auant oe RRDMI DE see wath dae dens 2163 Wide, Wide World, The, By. "2132 ibhdath. By Marie Corehi..... o Elizabeth Wetherell.......... dy a Prenat The foregoing works are for sale by all newsdealers, or will be sent to any >” fi ' .1-A Yellow Aster. ‘‘ Iota.” 2 Esther Waters. Geo. Moore. 8 The Man in Black. Stanley J. Weyman. » 4 Dodo. #. F, Benson. 5 Ships that Pass in the Night. Beatrice Harraden. 6A sere Life. Wilkie Col- ins. 7 The Duchess. ‘“The Duchess.”’ 8 Called Back. Hugh Conway. 9A Wicked Girl. Mary Cecil Hay 10 Back io the Old Home. Mary Cecil Hay maa Wedded x eet Parted. Char- lotte M. Braeme. 12 The Bag of Diamonds. G. Manville Fenn. 18 The Octoroon. Miss M. E. Braddon 14 A Study in eadclor: A. Conan Doyle. 15 rorene the Fetters. Mrs, - Alexander, 16 My Lady’s Money. Wilkie Collins. 1% The Shadow of a Sin, Char- lotte M. Braeme. 18 The Cricket on the Hearth. * > Charles Dickens. 19 The Squire’s Darling, Char- lotte M. Braeme. 20 Singleheart and Doubleface. . Charles Reade. 21 Lady Grace. Mrs. Henry ; Wood. 22 Maid, Wife or Widow? Mrs. Hed Alexander. 23 Black Beauty. Anna Sewell. 24. Ideala. Sarah Grand. '25 Camille. Alexander Dumas. 26 Her: Last Throw. * The ~ Duchess.”? 27 Three Men in a Boat. J. K. Jerome. 28 The Honorable Mrs. Vereker. e Duchess.”’ 29 The House of the Wolf. Stan- ‘ley. J. Weyiman, 3U Charlotte Temple. Mrs. Row- son 31 The Shattered Idol. Char- ‘ lotte M. Braeme, 82 Derrick Vaughan—Novelist. > Hdna Lyall. 83. The Mystery of No. 13. Hel- en B: Mathers. * Bt He Went for a Soldier. John Strange Winter. 85 The Haunted Chamber, ‘‘The Duchess.’’ 86 Cleverly Won. HawleySmart. 87 Doris’s Fortune. Florence Warden. » 88 Dinna Forget. J. S. Winter, 39 The Earl’s Biased Charlotte M. Brae 40 A Golden ‘Heart, Charlotte 41 Her 01 Only. “Sin, Charlotte M. ra 42 The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow. J. K. Jerome. 43 In ren aa Vile. ** The Duch:- 44 A Little Rebel. ‘* The Duch- ess.” 45 A Little Trish, Girl. ‘The Duchess.’ 46 Loys, Lord Berresford. “The Duchess.” 47 The Moment After. Robert Buehanan. 48 A Marriage at Sea. W. Clark Russell. 49 A Mad Love. Author of ‘*Lov- er and Lord.” q 50 The Other Man’s Wife. John Strange Winter, 51 On Her Wedding Morn. C, M. Braeme. 52 Stage-Land. Jerome K. Je- rome. 53 Struck Down. Hawley Smart. 54 AStaranda Heart. florence Marryat. 55 Sweet is True Love. ‘*The Duchess,”’ 56 The Two Orphans. D’Ennery.. 57 A Troublesome Girl. ‘* The Duchess.”’ 58 Two Generations. Count Lyof Tolstoi. 59 At the Green Dragon. Bea- trice Harraden. 60 Singularly Deluded. Sarah Grand. 61 ean, Baby. Marie Cor- 62 The Tour of the World in 80 Days. Jules Verne. 63 Little Pilgrim, A, Mrs. Oli- phant. 64 By the Gate of the Sea.' D. Christie Murray. 65 Maiden Fair, A. Charles Gib- on, 66 Romance of a Poor Young Man, The. Octave Feuillet. [ConTINUED ON Next Paae.] — ops sig Hy “ort The Red Eric, RB, M. Ballan- ih elk tents ne. We Baws Soeline seh Bold, R. M. Bal- mh _ lantyne. 7% Rose Fleming. Dora Russell, i a dasa ee a Bachelor. Ik. 72 Under the Red Flag. Miss M. Ke EK. Braddon. "3 Little School-master Mark, a The. J. H. Shorthouse. | 74 Mrs. Carr’s Poa reae Hs M. G. Wightwick % Diamond Cut Diamond, T, Adolphus Trollope. ed Monica, and A Rose Distill’d, ie “es, * Ouida.”? 8 Master Humphrey’s Clock, Wiles Charles Dickens, ee stories. ‘*The Duchess.” 80 A Great Heiress, R. E, Fran- : cillon FoE rt That ‘Laut Rehearsal,’ and other stories, * The Duch- ess.’ ~ 82 Uncle Tack, Walter Besant.* 83 The Romantic Adventures of - >. aMilkmaid. Thomas Har- ah dy. Suh 84 A Glorious Fortune, Walter Besant. x8 85 ote pred Him ! Annie bom 86 One FF Hise: ‘Both Fair. John sare . Harwood, Be Promises of of Marriage. Emile ¢ 88 Love Finds tie Way, and oth- er stories. Walter Besant Fk ie and James Rice. C 89 The Captain’s Daughter. From the Russian of Push- Pa ean 90 For Himself’ Alone. T. W. . Speight. 91 The Ducie Diamonds. 0, .. Blatherwick. 92 The Starling. Norman Mac- ee leod, D.D oe Captain Norton’s Diary, and gi A Moment of Madness. my! __ Florence Marryat. ‘94 Her. Gentle Deeds. Sarah Hye sD yt. tler. aye —— os brary of Poplar Ne : [ConTINUED ON Next Paas.]} whi 95 Moonshine and Marguerites, * The Duchess.” 96 No *Thoroughfare, Wilkie Collins and Chas, Dickens, 97 jr noah Man. Charles iek 98 Fortune i Wheel. “The Duch- ess.’ 99 Love’s Random Shot. Wilkie Collins. 100 An April Day. Prittie Jephson. 101 Be pene Believe, B. Li arjeo 102 eat ae Galley Fire. W. Clark Russell. 1038 The New Abelard. Robert Buchanan. 104 Old Contrairy, and other stories. Florence Marryat, 105 Dita. Lady Majendie. 106 The scuplon Sun. Fredrika Br 107 Valerie “Fate. Mrs. Alex- ander 108 At the “World's Mercy. F, Warden. 109 The Rosery Folk, George Manville Fenn, 110 ‘*So Near, and Yet So Far!” Alison. 111 A Husband’s Story. 112 The Fisher Village. Anne Beale. 118 An Old Man’s Love. An- thony Trollope. 114 John Bull and His Island, Max O’ Rell. 115 The Picture. and Jack of All Trades. Charles Reade. Philippa 116 The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, | and other stories, Flor- ence Marryat. 117 Readiana. Charles Reade, 118 Lady Clare; or, ‘The Master of the Forges. Georges Ohnet. 119 Love and. Money; or, a Per- ilous Secret. Chas, Reade, 120 Miss Tommy. Miss Mulock, 121 The House on the Marsh, FH, Warden. : 122:The Daughter of the Stars, and other tales. Hugh Conway. 123 A Sinless Seeret. ‘* Rita.’ 124 The Amazon. Carl Vosmaer. 125 Beyond Recall. Adeline Ser- | geant, Poon | 1988 The Sue Nia Star, i‘ 126 Pigdouche, a French Detect- oi ive, F. Du Boisgobey. TaN or The Water - Babies. Rev, - Charles Kingsley. aN Jules 129 Eyre’ é Acantieak Helen B. My Mathers, 130 Miss Milne and I. Author of “A Yellow Aster.’ + 181 Vashti and Esther. By the writer of ‘‘Belle’s Letters.’’ 132 Beyond the City. A. Conan Doyle. | 138 A Sandal in Bohemia. A, Conan Doyle. 134 The Sign of the Foor. A. Conan Doyle. 135 The Heir of Linne. fiobert Buchanan. 136 Treasure Island. Robert Louis Stevenson. 187 The Stickit Minister. §. R, Crockett. 188 The’ Suicide Club. Roliert Louis Stevenson. 1389 The Merry Men. Robert Louis Stevenson. 140 Prince Otto. Stevenson. 141 The Misadventures of John * Nicholson. Robert Louis | Stevenson. 142 An Inland Voyage. Robert,’ . Louis Stevenson. 148 The Silverado Squatters., Robert Louis Stevenson, / 144 The Master of Ballantrae,) Robert Louis Stevenson. ‘\ 146 She’s All the World to Me. | Hall Caine. / 147 My Wonderful Wife! Marie; Corelli. : 148 A Change of Air. Hope. 149 The Dynamiters. Louis Stevenson. 150 Pole on Whist. 151 The Dolly Dialogues. ue thony Hope. 152 The Hock or the Rye. T. ©. De 158 Auld Licht Tdylls. James: M. ‘ Barrie. 154 A Window in Thrums, Jas. M. Barrie. Anthony/ f Robert’ ) -155 When a Man’s Single, Jak, M. Barrie. - 156 The Peril of Oliver Sargent } _.., Edgar Janes Bliss, er). 161 Kidnapped. Robert Louis. 4 172 Dream Life. 457 My | Lady “Sicotine. James arrie. # 158 sags Dead. James M. Bar- 159 The Story of an Atrieat’ A Farm Ralph Iron (Olive — Schreiner). 160 Dreams, Bei Tron (Olive Schrein Robert Louis” Stevenson. 162 The Strange Case of Doctor — MS Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Rob- © ert Louis Stevenson. Ml Seaia 163 The Mystery of Cloomber, A. Conan Doyle. 164 Love Letters of a Worldly Woman. Mrs. W. K, Clif- ford, re fh 165 The Pavilion on the Links.’ hhobert Louis Stevenson. 166 Addie’s Husband, The au- i: 3 thor of ‘ Love and Lands.” ~ i 167 The Captain of the ‘' Pole-. Star.”?’ A.Conan Doyle. 168 The Picture of Dorian Gray. A: Oscar Wilde. 169 L’Abbe Constantin, Ludo- | vic Halevy,. 170 Sport Royal. Anthony Hope. SAM 171 Poems by Oscar Wilde. . By Ik. Marvel, 173 Tales of Mean Streets. are thur Morrison, 174 The Dark House. G. Man- Ht ay ville Fenn. : 175 The Rabbi's Spell. Stuart rah ie Cumberland. 176 Lord Lisle’s Daughter, Char. lotte M. Braeme. 177 The Master of the Mine. Robert Buchanan. ; 178 King Solomon’s Mines. ach une? Mrs. Annie Edwards. 180 Matt: A Tale of a Caravan, Robert Buchanan, ~— 181 Sappho. Alphonse Daudet, 182 The Tinted Venus. F.Anstey, 183 A Man of Mark. Anthony Ho 184 The "Secret of Goresthorpe Grange. A. Conan rapioe 184 A ‘Case a beg nvregt i A. Co- colds Doyle. ae 186 Diary of a Pilgrimage. ‘Je rome K. Jerome, {(Continugp oN 3D Pack oF CoveR.J = ihe! jae f iM