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If an instance is required to prove that public opinion is in favour of abolition, it cannot be better shown than in the constant efforts which are now made by people of all classes for the reprieve of all convicts who are sentenced to death.

Although we might insist that society has no right, under any circumstances, to take human life, it is unnecessary to touch upon that point, but that a less severe penalty would be as effective to repress crime as the punishment of death, ought to be apparent to all. What a secondary punishment loses by its want of severity, it gains by its increased certainty. As shown above, in a case of murder, the odds are six to one in favour of the criminal escaping the gallows, but in other crimes they are only four to three.

It cannot be expected that the present inquiry will result in the abolition of capital punishment altogether, but it is expected that it will lead to a revisal of our criminal code.

. There may be, and often are, "extenuating circumstances" attending a murder. A life could be taken in a manner so savage, that no penalty that we can bestow would be sufficient to satisfy our longing for vengeance; and yet there might be cases in which a nominal sentence is all that would be necessary. Between the one and the other, there are very many degrees of atrocity in the commission of this crime; these all call for a different sentence, and, if possible, delivered direct from the judgH. M.

ment-seat.

SONG FOR THE ENGLISH IN 1864.

BY MRS. BUSHBY.

WE'RE now-a-days poor timid creatures,
Afraid to show our frightened features
Away from our safe island home,
Protected by the ocean's foam.
Speak not to us of cannon's roar!
We never want to hear it more,
Except, perhaps, at a review,
Where mischief dire it cannot do.
Of battles but the prospect dim
Now makes us shake in every limb.
Let Europe call us cowards, we
Will pocket the affront with glee,
Rather than fight but with such foes
As the New Zealanders, and those

Like them, we think we're sure to beat.*

We want no army, or no fleet

Our money we don't wish to spend;

Us English, then, may Heaven defend

From Yankees, Germans, French, Chinese,

And leave us just to live at ease!

*The Maories seem, however, to be demolishing the agreeable certainty of success in this war, which is about as glorious as that waged by the Prussian butchers in Denmark.

176

THE CARNIVAL IN PARIS.

THERE is a story told about a worthy provincial dealer who, coming to Paris, stopped in front of the Opera to read the announcement of the great masked ball. On seeing the concluding words, "les portes ouvriront à minuit," he exclaimed: "The asses! who do they expect will attend? at midnight everybody has been asleep for a long time." Certainly so in such quiet places as Romorantin, my excellent fellow; but in Paris, where the world is turned topsy-turvy, the real life begins at midnight, especially for all those who understand by the term life, amusing themselves and characteristically enough the verb vivre includes both ideas. Speaking honestly, we are somewhat of the same opinion as the aforesaid provincial; we share his tastes, and like to be among the feathers at midnight. Still, we are not rigorous, and allow ourselves here and there an exception from the rule. For this reason we purpose to tell our readers all we saw in dancing Paris during the last saison des bals.

1.-AU CHÂTEAU.

Such was the language used in the good old times, when people talked about the Tuileries, and the style has been brought up again, thanks to the numerous Legitimists, who in the course of the last few years have found their way at length to the château. Messrs. Pastoret and Larochejacquelin were the first to offer a good example, and have found many imitators. The everlasting pouting, with the clenched fist in the pocket, became tedious and monotonous, and the court ball is after all a "ball at court," no matter whether king or emperor gives it. A frivolous sort of logic certainly, but still the logic of many high-born people in France. Under Louis Philippe they did not visit the château either: but the king rejoiced at this, for the balls cost all the less in consequence. The present emperor gives his balls, however, with such pomp and splendour, that he has won over his most obstinate opponents.

About two thousand invitations are issued, and the grand chamberlain's department has as much work during the ball season as the war ministry in a campaign. In these invitations no distinction of rank is acknowledged as regards the nobility. The new nobles of the Empire, or, to speak more correctly, the nobles of the New Empire, are principally bourgeois, and nearly all the ministers and marshals, and more than one-half of the councillors of state and generals, belong to the same class. It is only among the senators that old names and armorial bearings may be found: but they are all Imperialists, or else they would not be senators. No class-right of attending court has existed in France since the revolution of July. The last of the reconstituted privileges disappeared with Charles X.: the tabouret for the ladies of the first class, the stool for the second, and the ordinary chairs for the third: in the first year of Louis Philippe's reign, people even attended court in frock-coats and boots. The Frenchman finds a difficulty in keeping to the right mean. Thus the court costumes of the First Empire, as a contrast to the Sans-culottes of the Revolution and the Incroyables of the Directory, were so theatrically overladen, that now-a-days they could hardly be used at the Grand Opéra.

The New Empire has only retained the train (le manteau de cour) for the ladies, and what is called the court dress for the gentlemen: the latter is a tasteful velvet costume, à la Louis XV., which, however, is rarely to be seen, as the entire male world wears uniform. Still rarer, of course, is the plain black coat, and at a grand court ball only one gentleman appears in it, and naturally attracts all eyes: the North American chargé d'affaires.

The Tuileries look very imposing at a distance on the night of a court ball. The whole enormous façade is lit up from top to bottom, and on the Place de Carousel there is such a throng of carriages that it is difficult to comprehend how the equipages will be able to set down. For all that the most admirable order prevails, and is most visible at the period of the guests departing. The inner court of the Tuileries, la cour d'honneur, is truly splendid: in the place of the gas-lamps you see everywhere the Imperial N, or the Imperial crown in a laurel wreath, blazing with light, and as this illumination is repeated on all sides at least two hundred times, it is easy to form an idea of the splendour and brightness of the courtyard, which is so large that one hundred thousand men can manœuvre in it conveniently. Recently the symmetry of the fine space has been injured by the pulling down of the Pavillon de Flora, and by the erection of a temporary building on the south side, which was required to quarter a portion of the servants and the Cent Gardes. The principal staircase inside the château also produces a grand impression. From top to bottom on every step there stand alternately a twelve armed candelabrum and a Cent Garde, en grande tenue; there is a dark red carpet on the white marble steps, and high above it a gigantic chandelier, gleaming like a sun. The sight is really marvellous.

The reception takes place in the Salle des Maréchaux and the ball in the Galerie de Diane. The apartments, however, are small compared with the number of guests, for the Tuileries, though of extraordinary length, have comparatively no depth. A portion of the emperor's private apartments is also used on the occasion of the court balls, and supper is served in the Pavillon de Marsan. At the latter, only five hundred guests, chiefly ladies, sit down with their majesties, the remainder are spread over various large rooms, where buffets are erected, which of course leave nothing to be desired. Supper is served at tables holding four, eight, or twelve persons, and as about four hundred footmen are employed in the palace on such occasions, the attendance is befitting the exalted company.

As a rule, the emperor opens the ball with a lady, usually the wife of an ambassador. The empress has not danced since the death of her sister, the Duchess of Alba, still she goes to the ball-room, where a special daïs is erected for her. Here she remains, surrounded by her ladies, and this is the moment when the grand chambellan presents to her distinguished foreigners. The toilettes to be seen on the daïs at such a moment are truly the ne plus ultra of elegance and wealth. It is impossible to say how many millions' worth of jewels and precious stones is collected at this small spot. The costume of the empress, though not always the costliest (Frau von Rothschild, for instance, sometimes wears a spencer completely covered with brilliants), is the most tasteful. At the last court ball we attended, she was attired in a white satin dress

with gold embroidery, all the lace flounces were caught up with amethyst loops, while she wore a diadem, necklace, and bracelets of the same stones. Nothing more beautiful could be imagined, and a cry of admiration burst from a thousand lips. The empress never remains long, but retires very quietly before midnight. The illumination then disappears from the south side of the palace, but the ball goes on uninterruptedly till nearly daybreak. The emperor usually remains longer: his private apartments on the ground floor are at times opened to the guests, and at important seasons it has more than once happened that a species of improvised cabinet council has been held, at which matters were discussed bearing no connexion with the ball going on overhead. But the longer the ball lasts, the more guests find their way to the Pavillon de Marsan, where the play-rooms are, and where many an old general goes on punting till six in the morning.

The direct expenses of such a court ball, of which four are given annually, are said to figure in the civil list at 140,000 francs, but the indirect expenses of the guests invited, and specially the ladies, may easily exceed ten times that amount. Hence, the imperial court balls are most welcome to the milliners, silk-mercers, and jewellers.

II-A L'OPÉRA.

A different world from that of the imperial château! Equally full of diamonds and jewels, lace, velvet dresses, bird of paradise and ostrich feathers; but the diamonds are only glittering strass, and the other jewels imitation, which, however, are made nowhere so famously as in Paris, the city of deception and ostentation. The lace enters into the same category as the jewels, it does not cost three hundred francs the yard, as at the Tuileries, but forty sous; and the velvet dresses—well, they are real enough, and probably cost a heavy sum, but have gone through many adventures, at times a perfect Odyssey, before they reached these regions. The duchess, or countess (or a rich merchant's wife, if she had the money), paid a couple of thousand francs for this dress, and wore it once or twice at the most. The milliner then took it back at half-price, or less, trimmed it afresh, and sold it as new to an actress of the Théâtre-Français or the Gymnase., where it made a furore for a time as a toilette ébouriffante. From the stage the dress passed through various hands to a lady of the demi-monde; and when this lady, deserted by her admirers, was unable to pay her rent, and was turned into the streets, the splendid dress migrated to the public auction-room, where an old second-hand clothes-dealer from the Temple purchased it for a trifle. On this long journey the handsome dress had naturally suffered severely and lost no little of its original gloss; but the Parisian clothes-dealers are excellent hands at converting old dresses into new (remettre à neuf, it is called), and thus this dress passed through a new metamorphosis for the third or fourth time. The carnival arrived, and with it the season of the opera balls, the best opportunity for getting rid of the dress again, which, however, is not sold, but let out at a very decent profit. So far the Odyssey of the velvet dress. And now a novice, who has only been a week in Paris, and of course cannot miss a masked ball at the Grand Opéra, nudges us in the midst of the crowd, and whispers, "Just look at that lady behind us in the magnificent velvet dress. Who can she be?

Probably a foreign princess, and how splendidly the diamonds glitter on the crimson velvet. Yes, yes, the brilliants!" Magnifique et pas cher, says a French proverb.

It is the same with the bird of paradise feathers; they, too, have ventured many a soaring flight ere they settled down on the head-dress of one of these ladies.. The ostrich feathers, lastly, are cheap inland goods, which never felt the tropical sun of Africa. Everything almost that we see at the celebrated opera balls is, consequently, false, imitated, hired, borrowed, and apocryphal. We employ the last word out of a delicate feeling for the beautiful cheeks, shoulders, and arms, for "rouged" and "painted" sound much too prosaic and indiscreet.

Les portes ouvriront à minuit is, as we stated before, the principal device of the opera balls, and the ball proper commences at about one o'clock. At this hour from three to four thousand people are collected in the huge building; but the crowd is then so great, and the heat, in spite of the ventilating apparatus, so tremendous, that dancing is almost impossible. The stage forms, with the stalls and pit, one enormous room, in the centre of which is Strauss's band, and the quadrilles are formed as well as the heaving crowd will admit of it.

The masks are insignificant, and characteristic disguises are never seen at the opera balls. In this respect Paris is very poorly off: only now and then a private masquerade in some noble mansion forms a brilliant exception. The Hôtel Castellane is, unfortunately, empty, while the Hôtel d'Albe has been levelled with the ground: these were the two first Parisian houses during the carnival. The most usual masks, repeated a hundred times, are the inevitable pierrot and harlequin; among the ladies, the principal costume is that called the bébé (a child in a gipsy hat, with her waist under her arm-pits: a foolish, ugly disguise) or the débardeur (a collective title for every frivolous woman costumed as a man). This is all; hence no great æsthetic enjoyment is to be found at the opera, and the material ones, though abundant, belong more or less to the class of the above-described brilliants, lace, bird of paradise and ostrich feathers. For the opera balls have sunk for many years, and continue to sink: this decay dates from the time of Louis Philippe, and all the attempts made by the directors to elevate them again have been of no avail. It has come to such a pitch that no modest woman thinks of attending these balls. With the gentlemen it is different, for they possess the privilege of going where they please without lowering themselves.

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"If that is the case," our lady readers may object to us, why do you, Mr. Author, conduct us thither? If the company there be not respectable, we are as little disposed to go as the Parisian ladies."

"I beg your pardon, but I did not mean that. You will soon see that you can attend the opera ball with us in perfect safety. 'Distinguons,' the Frenchman says.”

The public at these balls is divided into two distinct portions simply by the locality into the ball-room proper with the masks, dominoes, and other male and female dancers, and the boxes, the foyers, and upper galleries with the lookers-on. The latter have naturally a right to go down to the ball-rooms, but the masks and dominoes are not allowed to ascend. An exception, however, is frequently made with the dominoes, if they

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