"real" stones, for two sous, or something of the sort. Many go away annoyed, and abuse the humbug, who probably has not breakfasted yet, though it is nine o'clock at night.

In front of all the cafés there is hardly a seat to be had at this hour, and if the procession of Industrials is so great by day, it grows double and threefold at night. Acrobats and wandering musicians take the first place, generally little boys, who stand on their heads, kick their legs, ask us for a sou, and then run off; others stop before us with their violin for a minute, draw from the instrument a couple of notes, and from us a present, if we have not yet lost the inclination to give, and then depart hastily in fear of the sergent de ville, who would arrest them as unlicensed beggars.. This is the shadow and night side of the externally so amusing picture which we offer to the reader. But we have still one last class of Parisian street trades to depict the actual beggars among these poor people, or, if you prefer it, the pariahs among these beggars.

The Industrials, great and small, hitherto depicted, had all more or less a material something, not to say property, which helped them to the daily sou or franc: a fonds de commerce, as it is called in Paris. The reader perhaps will find it funny to see this great phrase applied to such trifling details, but he forgets that in France everything, even the smallest, bears" a pompous and distinguished name. As regards a fonds de commerce and its connexion with the street trades of Paris, I will tell a small anecdote of what occurred to myself:

In the Faubourg St. Denis there stood almost every evening last autumn, under a doorway, a poor ragged woman, like the hundreds who may be seen in every quarter. These wretches scarce beg for alms; they stand as a lamentable memento, and if the passer-by notices them, they hope to get a sou, for they look too wretched. One evening, however, this woman addressed me, and asked me for some soup and bread tickets of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. The poor woman's story was so ordinary that it does not deserve repetition. "If I only had a fonds de commerce," she ended, "I should be helped."

"How so?" I asked: "to begin a business, I suppose? Yes, that I can believe, but it requires money—a capital."

She smiled bitterly. "No more money than you may spend for a supper, my fine gentleman."

I started; but these unhappy beings must be forgiven any remark: they have the most unbounded, most refined luxury daily before their eyes, and hence feel their own unbounded misery the more deeply. The story of the starving beggar, to whom a merry party at the Maison Dorée gave a handful of champagne corks as alms-enough, I really pardoned the poor woman, and went on questioning her.

"Five-and-twenty francs are sufficient," she said; "with that amount I can commence business."

"Five-and-twenty francs as a fonds? How so?"

The matter was thus: for this sum the woman could buy a fruit-stall under a gateway from another old woman who wished to "retire from business," and thus lay the foundation for a daily profit of two or three francs. Perhaps in course of time she could increase her business, but in any case it would keep her from starving. This was done, and the woman is now established" and quite contented.

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Such a fund, then, everybody has who carries on a street trade; but the very lowest sort do not possess this fund, and have nothing but themselves and the hope of some lucky chance for earning a couple of sous. True children of hazard, only hazard can procure them a two or foursous piece; but it does so in a hundred ways.

So soon as one of the thousand carriages that roll along the inner Boulevard from morning till night stops, a gamin hurries up, opens the door, assists the lady very politely to get out, and has earned his fee. Or you want a fly, but have a lady on your arm, and hence cannot run across the noisy chaussée to stop an empty fiacre-our gamin comes up directly, runs off, jumps into the first vehicle, drives up, hands us the driver's number, and has probably received a small tip from him. Hundreds of gamins certainly wait on all the boulevards for such an opportunity; but they present themselves by hundreds every hour.

The chairs on the boulevards on fine afternoons, although there are thousands of them, are all engaged: you seek in vain an empty one. It is of no use: "A kingdom for a chair!" A clean lad at once offers us two for monsieur et madame; he has engaged them at his own risk, and paid two sous apiece for them, so we give him la pièce blanche, for the word "kingdom, "which we uttered in our despair, meant ten sous.

For the following trick two gamins are needed, but they are easily found. An elegant gentleman comes up, who is glad to get off the dirty macadam on to the clean trottoir (the macadam of the Boulevards is always dirty-in bad weather from the rain, in fine from the wateringcarts). The gentleman steps daintily through the mud, but, unluckily, an ass of a gamin stumbles against his stick, which falls in the dirt. Another gamin (the accomplice), however, runs up at once, picks the stick out of the dirt, wipes it clean, and hands it to the gentleman, who is glad, at any rate, to save his new gloves. This service is worth its couple of sous. The reader must not believe that we are inventing; very recently such a case came before the magistrates. A sergent de ville had watched two gamins at this trick, which they played no less than five times in the course of an hour, and then arrested them. voulez-vous," one of them said to the president, "les temps sont si mauvais et on invente toutes sortes de choses quand on a faim et quand on veut rester honnête" The conclusion is characteristic, and the lads were really discharged after a serious reproof.

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"Que

Why do not the rascals work?" the reader may ask. Well, the truth is, the Parisian gamin is a vagabond, and, if he worked like other honest people, the world's capital would be poorer by one of its most interesting types. Besides, the gamins are not so very bad, for nearly all, as they do not know what else to do, volunteer in their seventeenth year, and become capital food for powder.

Lucifer-matches are certainly cheap; they lie about on all the tables in front of the cafés, and the passer-by does not hesitate to take one to light his cigar. Well, who could believe that such a match is worth two sous or more? Of course, under conditions like the following. No sooner is the curtain down in a theatre, no matter which, than everybody hurries into the open to obtain two things: air after the stifling heat of the house, and strength to witness the next act without peril of life. Readers may fancy this exaggeration, but, in the summer more especially, the

theatres of Paris are ovens, on a grand scale if you will, but still ovens. The Prise de Pékin, for instance, the most celebrated spectacle after the Chinese expedition, if witnessed to the end, is a labour of Hercules for which everybody is not competent. Enough, everybody hurries into the air, and what an enjoyment there is in a cigarette at such times, every smoker knows. The great point is to obtain a light, no easy task in the crowd. At this moment a gamin offers a lighted match, and we readily give him a sou for the service, and if we have only two souspieces in our pocket, we generously leave him the entire amount.

The principal omnibus stations in Paris are constantly thronged with passengers on Sundays, especially, you may wait an hour before you get a seat. Everything, however, is done in a most orderly manner; the clerks issue tickets, and everybody waits without murmuring till his number is called. Gentlemen, moreover, prefer a seat on the imperiale, or, as we call it, the knifeboard, but there are only twelve of these to each omnibus, and the latter only start every five minutes. If, then, you have No. 75 or 94, you can learn the value of patience till your turn comes. But there are always gamins to offer us, under the rose, their tickets-No. 5, or 7, or 11-which they have bought on spec. We gladly give them double the price, or six sous instead of three, so as to get away soon. Are not six sous very cheap for riding from the Palais Royal to Passy? At times they ask more for their number, but dare not make a disturbance, for if the clerk catches them, although he is well aware of this little trade, he has them locked up. So, at least, are his instructions, but he compassionately winks at it.

This smuggling with seats extends to the churches; and whenever a celebrated preacher is to be heard, you are safe to be addressed at the church-door: "Monsieur désire une bonne place? En face du prédicateur, tout près de la chaire?" &c. It is worth while paying a franc or two to hear a Dupanloup, Lacordaire, Ravignan, or Père Felix, especially if you are a stranger, and your time in Paris is limited. Our seatseller gives us a number, with which we easily find our chair in the church, from which his accomplice, who has hitherto occupied it, at once rises. This is certainly an abuse-a profanation of the sacred spot. The matter was discussed last winter in the papers with reference to Père Felix's sermons at Notre-Dame, where people crowded into the church at ten A.M., or three hours before the time, in order to secure seats. But another replied very fairly, that this was not so great a scandal as the fashion of the great ladies of the Faubourg St. Germain, who send one of their footmen, or even one of their lovers, to secure a seat for them. Of course, there was nothing more to be said.

One word about the "suiveurs," a trade which the demi-monde has brought up, and which we cannot justify from a moral point of view. Here, however, we are merely telling what takes place in Paris, light and shade as it comes, for only in this way can the behaviour of the people be judged.

We are sitting on the Champs Elysées, and talking and watching the gay carriages, with their still gayer occupants, as they pass us. In an open coupé à la Daumont, green and silver, a beautiful lady is seated— jesting apart-a really beautiful lady of great distinction, and I involuntarily say to my neighbour, "Mais regardez donc cette belle dame?" At

the same moment, like a deus ex machinâ, a fellow leans over my shoulder, and whispers, "Monsieur désire que je la suive?" I opened my eyes, but my friend, a thorough Parisian, laughed, and replied, "Don't you understand what he wants? C'est un suiveur, voilà tout." The reader now comprehends it as well as I did. Such a suiveur will

run after a carriage to the Bastille, to the Pantheon, to the end of the world, if necessary, or if he has instructions, and notices that he has to deal with a gentleman or a gandin. You are certain that the next day he will appear before the same chair in the Champs Elysées, and make his report. The correct address of the lady, then, where the carriage stopped en route, and similar details. A Gandin à la Poinson du Terrail gladly pays several franes for such information, and the suiveur recommends himself for further commissions. This is certainly a Parisian morality of the first class, and original in the bargain. A suiveur may often be seen running after an omnibus, when the latter is full, or if the poor fellow has not three sous to spare, which is more frequently the case, but he runs to the end undauntedly.

But we must break off, though we had much still left to say; for instance, about another Parisian trade, which is equally interesting. Etablissements, where you have a cup of coffee in winter and a glass of ice in summer for a sou; where you breakfast for two sous, and have a dinner for three sous; where, in order to attend a ball, you hire your entire toilette for two francs, and do not require to return the articles, as they are not worth more; so-called hotels garnis, where you can pass the night for a sou, and have a lump of bread in the bargain, and a hundred similar things, which must be seen to be believed, and which the most prolific fancy would be unable to invent.

But we may, perhaps, return to this subject on a future occasion.

DINNERS, WINES, AND DESSERTS.*

WE opened Mr. Kirwan's book at the following paragraph: "The absinthe is an excellent tonic and stomachic. It is an infusion of wormwood, and is an especially favourite liqueur with critics and reviewers, for its extreme bitterness is nearly akin to their own." And we do not know but what Mr. Kirwan is quite right. When we see criticism condescending to such petty resources as the finding fault with an English hero's 'spelling, and carping at a foreign hero's English, we feel that there is most assuredly nothing heroic in criticism, while there is much that is absinthic.

Luckily, however, there is no want of heroism in your gastronome. He is always enthusiastic, sometimes great, and ever eloquent. He has a style of his own. His very words are doré, his paragraphs are sauté, and

*Host and Guest. A Book about Dinners, Wines, and Desserts. By A. V. Kirwan, of the Middle Temple, Esq. Bell and Daldy. 1864.

his book is a purée. Your gastronome has also inevitable Gallic tendencies. With him France is the mother country of Amphitryons, and the " entente cordiale" is, as Carème said of diplomacy, dependent on culinary interchanges. Witness the following striking comparison of the position of the two countries :

The cookery of England is, with the greater part of the nation, an object, not of luxurious desire or morning meditation, but of plain necessity and solid and substantial comfort.

"Due nourishment we seek, not gluttonous delight,"

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to use the words of Milton. Men dine to satisfy hunger in England, and to sustain and strengthen themselves for those avocations-professional, parliamentary, and commercial-into which they throw more eager energy, more properly-directed vigour, force, and intensity than any other nation under the sun, not even excepting the Americans. It may be a humiliating confession, but in England no learned treatises have been written on the art of dining or dinner giving. We are wholly without "meditations" or "contemplations gastronomiques;" we do not spend thousands of pounds in the gingerbread gilding of cafés and restaurants; nor have we magasins de comestibles," in the style of Chevet and Corcellet. Our inventive powers are not turned in the direction of luxury, nor do we make our bill of fare our calendar, nor measure the seasons by their dainty productions. We talk little of dining or dishes, however much the most luxurious and sensual among us may think about it. We can knead and bake, and roast and boil, and stew plain food as well, perhaps better, than our livelier neighbours; but we are not so expert in petits plats, in entrées, entremets, and ragouts, and are therefore justly obnoxious to the pert remark of Voltaire, that though we have twenty-four religions, we have but one sauce. We can compare, combine and search out causes in morals, science, and legislation, but we have given no heed to the canons or combinations of cookery. We have given birth to a Bacon, a Locke, a Shakespeare, a Milton, a Watt; but we are without a Vatel, a Bechamel, a Laguipierre, a Beauvilliers, or a Carème. We have perfected railroads, steam-boats, and canals, but we cannot make a suprème de volaille in perfection, nor arrange des petits choux en profiteroles. We have produced the best quadrants, the best sextants, the best achromatic telescopes, and the best chronometers; but the truffles we grow in Derbyshire and Hampshire are pale and flavourless, and we cannot make larks au gratin. We have built the best steam-ships, the best steam-carriages, the best vehicles of every description for draught, business, pleasure, and amusement; but we cannot fatten frogs with the science of a Simon, and we do not render our mutton tender by electricity. We have beaten the nations of the earth in fabrics of linen, woollen, and cotton; but we are ignorant of epigrams of lamb, and know nothing of salpicons à la Vénetienne. We have invented the safety-lamp, the stocking-frame, and the spinning-jenny; but we hopelessly try our hands at filets de lapereaux en turban, and ignominiously fail in salmis of partridge à la bourguinote. We have excelled in everything requiring a union of enterprise, energy, perseverance, and wealth; but we have no pátés de foies-gras of home invention, and no terrines de Nerac. We have discovered and planted colonies which will perpetuate our name, our language, our literature, and our free institutions, to the last syllable of recorded time; but we cannot make veloutés of vegetables, nor haricots blancs à la maître d'hotel. We have given liberty to the slave, and preached the pure word of the gospel to the nations subjected to our dominion and sway; but we still eat butter badly melted with our roast veal, and we have not invented three hundred and sixty-four ways to dress eggs. Our schoolmaster has indeed been "long abroad;" but though he has so far yielded to innovation and reform as to cast off the cauliflower wig of the time of the great Busby, yet he will not hear of choufleurs au gratin or au jus, but will still eat his esculent boiled hard in plain water.