therefore as much as ever seats and sources of epidemic disease, unless we can employ compulsory means for the correction of the evil at the public expense. A paper by Dr Southwood Smith, on the prolongation of human life, brought out in a striking manner what all must feel to be the great motive and encouragement to sanitary improvements-namely, the fact that, under advancing civilisation, an improvement in the length of life is actually going on. In 1693 and 1790, a loan was raised for the state by what is called tontine. Each person advancing L.100, was allowed to name a life during which he and his heirs drew a certain annuity. There was therefore the strongest inducement for each lender to name the youngest and healthiest infant he could select. The tontine of 1690 consisted of 408 females and 594 males; and that of 1790, of 3974 females and 4197 males. The latter tontine is not yet extinct, and it was shewn that on the 1st of January 1851, there still remained alive, sixty years of age and upwards, 1312 females and 977 males out of the original number; so that the difference between the mortality of the nominees of 1690 and 1790 was not yet so great as it would ultimately be. Taking these data, Mr Finlaison, the government calculator, had worked out in a very elaborate manner the means of making a comparison between them; and the actual prolongation of life in the nineteenth century was proved, first, by the difference in the death-rate at the two periods, and next, by the addition of an ascertained number of years to the life of each individual. It was thus shewn that in the year 1690, the expectation of life in a man, aged thirty, would have been 26:565, while in 1790 it would have been 33.775; while the actual addition of the excess of years, which the persons engaged in the latter tontine had over the former, proved that in 1790 the expectation of life was increased by fully one-fourth; that is to say, that if in 1690 a person, aged thirty, could expect to live thirty years, in 1790, a person of the same age could reasonably expect to live thirty-seven years. An increase in the duration of life,' Dr Smith went on to say, 'was a proof of increased comforts, or increased enjoyment of certain elements upon which human life is dependent, such as air, light, food, warmth, and shelter. In fact, what we called progress in civilisation, was an improvement in the means of securing regularly and unfailingly, in abundance and purity, those physical agents for the bulk of the population. The accomplishment of this object was the main cause of all the activity and energy by which a state of civilisation was characterised. It was a matter of familiar history that an extraordinary activity reigned throughout the eighteenth century. Forests were cleared, marshes and swamps drained, and from the more settled government of the country, cities and towns being no longer fortresses, had extended beyond the walls of their fortifications. At this period, also, special attention began to be paid to the well ordering, cleaning, and paving of towns. The narrow streets were widened, slate roofs substituted for thatch, bricks for timber, and the manufacture of glass so much increased that glass windows, even in the poorer towns, became common. Agriculture made a surprising advance, multiplying a hundredfold the production of fresh vegetable food, and increasing in a still more remarkable degree the amount of fresh animal food by the extension of the comparatively new art of collecting and storing fodder for cattle in winter. The increase of manufactures gave improved and cheap clothing to the people, not only conducive to warmth and health, but almost equally so to cleanliness, the texture compelling frequent washing. Accordingly, disease assumed a milder form, and epidemics in particular became much less formidable.' Dr Smith concluded by asking if the advancing civilisation of the eighteenth century was accompanied by such a prolongation of life, what must have been latterly gained? It was clear that even at present the classes which formed the base of the pyramid of society lost a great portion of life, and it was the duty and noble aim of this Association to remove-for it was removable-this crying disgrace to our country, to bring this unhappy class within the pale of civilisation. Until that was done, the columns of the registrar-general would give no fair result of sanitary improvement. How far the time of life, however, in the aggregate could be extended, they did not know, but it was plain that it was not possible as yet to assign a definite limit.' Our narrow space forbids us to go into any more details; but we cannot quit the subject without a most emphatic congratulation of the members of the Social Science Association on their auspicious commencement of proceedings. If they only, by the external facts of their meeting, reading, and speaking, call attention to the matters they have in view, they will do great good, for in our peculiar political organisation, as is well known, to get the ear and then the voice of the public are essential preliminaries to all improved legislation. It is a great and a sacred cause which they have in hand, and with true earnestness it cannot fail to prosper. At the same time, we may take this opportunity of saying, that we contemplate the efforts of such an association as only the best that the circumstances admit of. It is very well for the upper classes thus to interest themselves, work, and spend in behalf of the humbler; but the results must needs be defective while there is-as there obviously is-a want of motive on the part of the masses to improve and advance in their own life-economy. Something is required to bring them out of antagonism towards their employers, to give them similar aspirations to those of the middle classes, the same inducements to saving and improving money-a hope and aim in life. That given, we should see something in their case like what a great orator alluded to when he spoke of the cheap defence of nations. We should then be at no trouble in improving their condition, for they would improve it themselves. THE MIDNIGHT RITE. THERE is a certain island, Anonyma, beautiful and fruitful, enjoying a far purer air and warmer clime than ours, which does Great Britain the honour of being her ally, and of even forming an integral part of her empire, without copying slavishly her constitution or her laws. The language which prevailed amongst us after the Norman Conquest still suffices, and our Norman code is still in effect among the Anonymese. Determined not to be indebted for new ideas to any of their neighbours, and having little originality of their own, they have been content with such political and judicial lights as gleam, as it were phosphorescently, from the decayed and rotten caput mortuum of eight centuries ago. The president of Anonyma still wears a red gown; the thirty-six who make up the parliament, and are supposed to be representative, are almost all of the same class, and practically elect themselves-twelve priests, who sit in right of their cures; twelve squires, who are legislators for life; and twelve mechanical lay-figures, the popular element, returned by their respective parishes (or squires), and warranted to go for three years. Liberty means its right of rejecting any proposed improvement emanating from Great Britain through the law-officers of the crown; and reform has no signification there whatever. Criminal justice is administered with all the glorious uncertainty' of English law, combined with the former rate of procedure of our Court of Chancery; the accused person who might have been stigmatised by the original prosecutor as a young reprobate, becoming, before his trial is ended, a middle-aged, if not a hoary sinner. After a protracted inquiry of this description, by the time that all the depositions have been written down in two languages, and the court has adjourned the case for the fourteenth time, it not unfrequently happens that the acute Anonymese tribunal has been concerning itself with the wrong man. It is not an easy matter for one, however innocent, to get out of a medieval prosecution conducted upon paper in an extinct tongue. I speak advisedly; and to the extreme length of its proceedings alone, and not at all to the sagacity of the court I am myself indebted for my life. I am an artist, and spent the winter before last in Anonyma practising my profession. Nature is displayed in miniature, in that island, very beautifully, and has a nook-and-dell attire such as perhaps she seldom wears elsewhere; the coast-line, too, is exceedingly grand, and the surrounding sea has deeper colours, and rages with a more terrible wrath than is common to it about the shores of England. In winter-time, in innermost Anonyma, you can hardly find a spot quite out of hearing of the stormy waves. I had been sketching in one of its western bays one December afternoon, while the wind seemed to be goading the whole Atlantic to rise and submerge the little island, and ensconced as I was in as well-sheltered a fissure as I could select, the spray got at me at last, wetted me through, and utterly destroyed the labour of four hours. Several miles lay between me and my lodgings, and a vision of possible rheumatism lending wings to my feet, I started at once homewards. In the second valley from the shore, however, I came upon a spectacle which my professional eye was bound to contemplate at all hazards-to a poor caricaturist like myself, the thing was worth at the least five pounds. In the road before me, and making signs for me to stop and to be silent, were cautiously stealing up a couple of men with guns. They were neither native nor English sportsmen; their gay apparel, their huge shooting-bags hung with tassels, their prodigious moustaches, at once proclaimed them to belong to one or other of those crushed nationalities that are in the habit of making Anonyma their resort in evil times. Their energetic gestures convinced me that they must be either Frenchmen or Italians; no others could have so eloquently telegraphed that game of some rarest species was in view, and that my advance would be dearly purchased at the escape of such a noble quarry. Chilled as I was, therefore, I remained stationary to watch their sport. They had no dog with them, but as they neared the desired object, they both sank down upon all-fours, and crept up the frosty road like wary pointers. I followed as well as I was able the direction of their eyes, which were elevated, with mine, but I could see nothing skywards except one solitary blackbird upon a leafless tree. Surely, thought I, they are never in pursuit of that unoffending songster! An answer was given in the report of both their guns, followed by the hasty departure of the bird himself. Thousand thunders!' exclaimed the foremost sportsman; we have missed him again, mon ami!' 'Where is he gone?' cried the other. Regardez, monsieur, what you call merk, if you please.' But I could not mark; I was so overcome with merriment that I could only sit down and laugh. They were pleased, however, with my stopping for them, and proposed to have some refreshment with me in a roadside cabaret close by. I was in need of warmth, internal as well as external, and agreed at once. Brandy is very cheap in Anonyma, and very good; and the Anonymese are far from being neglectful of their opportunities in that respect. The taverns of the island have the worst looks and the best liquors of any taverns I know. There was a good sea-weed fire in this particular one; and as the wind beat against the crazy walls, and battered vainly upon the grimy little window-panes, I felt no inclination to quit my stool in the chimney corner. There were studies enough in that smoky, floorless cabin, beside my two comic gentlemen-sportsmen: men in dirty blouses and with unclean hands were there, under whose tangled hair lay foreheads heavy with thought; resolute mouths lurked under their shaggy moustaches; and light such as no brandy can bestow, gleamed forth from their eyes. These were political refugees, each with a real or a supposed wrong, and each counting upon not sitting still for ever under its infliction. Anonymese fishermen, bronzed and sturdy, made up the rest of the company, whose conversation, carried on in French, modern and Norman, was remarkably unconstrained. One by one, these different parties dropped away, and at a very late hour of the night, I found myself the last man starting homeward and alone. The wind had almost lulled, still driving the dark clouds hither and thither over the wintry sky, but touching only the tree-tops of the island and the summits of its little hills. I could hear the ocean, like some mighty watch-dog partially appeased, still growl in its half slumber. There was moon, which now and then shone brightly for an instant, making deeper the evening gloom; and my way lying for the most part through great avenues of trees belonging to old ruined seigneuries, or dipping into curved valleys with a stream, should have been just the road to please a painter. Whether the strange characters of the men I had just left, however, had impressed me too deeply, and their lawless anecdotes shaken my confidence too much in the local police, I certainly felt ill at ease, and by no means in the humour for appreciating the picturesque. It seemed a weird, uncanny sort of night to be out in, and I began to wish that I had drunk more brandy, or else none at all. How much I would have given to have been in my own comfortable lodgings, under the protection of my charming old landlady, in the High Street, I daren't say, instead of feeling my way through a— Goodness gracious! what was that? Footsteps that knew the road a great deal better than I did, and some heavy body being dragged along with them—probably a corpse! I shrank into the hedge to let them pass, which they did at a full trot, laughing. 'Just the night for a job like this,' said one. Why, it reminds one of body-snatching in the good old times.' (Evidently a couple of resurrectionists, whose occupation was gone, and who, like everybody else 'in trouble,' were now resident Anonymese.) 'I suppose this would be a hanging business if we were caught at it,' observed the other with a brutal unconcern that made my blood run colder than ever. 'I believe you,' replied the first speaker; and the two together burst into such a guffaw as I should have thought peculiar to demons. The road, almost immediately, got clear of the trees, and swept in a half-circle round a little meadow; but the two murderers dragged their victim over a gate and into the open space without the slightest hesitation, although the moon was just then shining. I kept, of course, under the shadow of the avenue, and watched their movements with a curiosity that almost overmastered fear. They threw the body-it was a body-carelessly upon the frozen ground, and then set to work collecting sticks: it was easier to burn it, it seemed, than to dig a hole for it, and in a very few minutes they had collected quite a funeral pyre. Placing the corpse upon this, and kindling the brushwood which they had set at bottom from a match-box one of them carried, the flame began to spread apace, and soon lit up the faces of the two men, so that I could have sworn to them again anywhere. One was a stout fellow of about forty, not ill-looking, perhaps, if I could have separated him in my mind from his occupation; but nice-spoken, well-conducted young man.' My counsel whenever his eyes chanced to fall upon the fast-con- could only say that it was absurd to suppose that a suming corpse, I saw them gleam with unmistakable landscape-painter, however devoted to his art, could hatred. The second, although almost a boy in years, go the length of burning a man in a lone valley, at exhibited also no trace of pity for his victim. They midnight, to produce effects. On the other hand, the had lit cigars, and were getting so merry in their situation in which I was found, with the skull in my fiendish way, that I could scarcely believe my eyes. I very fingers-the words I used to myself, and the tried in vain to think that, after all, it might be some admissions I made, in the first instance, to those who dead monkey or other animal they were burning, and seized me, combined with the extreme improbability of not a human creature. Whatever it was, the smell the story I had to tell in my own defence, were of from its consuming carcass filled all the little valley, course very convincing proofs of my criminality. That and drove up with the wind into my hiding-place, so a crime had been committed, who could doubt, with the as almost to turn me sick. I longed, like Robinson human head and ashes still in existence, to appeal to Crusoe when he saw the savages at dinner, to run in Heaven for vengeance upon a murderer! Still, who upon these wretches, and destroy them at their abomin- had been murdered? In any other place but Anonyma, able entertainment; and had I had a Friday with me that question would perhaps have stayed the hand of and half-a-dozen others, I might perhaps have made the executioner; but there, where so many strangers the attempt: as it was, I confined myself to making a dwell whose object it is to keep themselves unknown solemn resolution to leave the island of Anonyma, by and aloof from others, the fact that nobody was the next packet, to its smugglers, its refugees, and missing was not deemed at all extraordinary. I its body-burners, for ever. I positively felt as if my say, if it had not been for the providential delays of hair was turning gray. At last the horrid rite was the criminal court, the time that was taken up in over; and the performers, kicking about the ashes, repeating the depositions again and again, in confusing and laughing—always laughing-after their frightful | English and Norman-French together, and in adjournmanner, left the place, and came up the road again. ing the proceedings, I, the writer of this adventure, 'He'll never bother me in this world again,' said the which is, in its main details, a perfectly true statement, elder, as he passed by my ambush; 'but we've had should have been hung. trouble enough and to spare in getting rid of the old Methuselah.' It was an old man, then, that they had disposed of in this awful way, thinking that no eye could see them! When their footsteps had died away, I crept out into the little field, and discovered among the dying embers a skull. I had studied anatomy for some time, for the better knowledge of my profession, and I knew at once that the skull was that of a man. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust-a smouldering heap, which the breeze was already carrying hither and thither, was all which now remained of that human form. 'Poor murdered wretch!' cried I aloud, still holding the skull in my hand, and beginning to philosophise like another Hamlet, 'how little couldst thou have guessed' 'Murdered, was he?' said a gruff voice close beside me, while a heavy hand fell upon my shoulder and clutched it like a vice. 'No, gentlemen,' cried I, trembling like a reed, in the belief that the two wretches had come back again -'no, not murdered, only put out of the way very tenderly; and in the highest and noblest sense of the word, most justifiably, I am sure.' 'What a cold-blooded villain!' ejaculated a second voice. Tie his hands, and march him away to jail at once,' cried a third. 'My dear sirs,' exclaimed I, 'pardon me; I took you for robbers, murderers; I did indeed. Allow me to assist you in detecting the real offenders-they took that road to the left, yonder, through the wood.' And so, at two o'clock in the December morning, I found myself at last going homeward, to the Policeoffice, with my hands tied, and in the custody of three pudding-headed Anonymese. The smell of the burning corpse, it seems, had penetrated to their farm upon the hillside, and they had come down just in time to secure me and to miss the perpetrators of the crime. So horrified were they with its revolting character, that they would not so much as touch me with their hands; but having placed the skull in my pocket, drove me before them with sticks, as though I were an ox; and in that fashion I was escorted past the cheerful fire-light which still streamed from the windows of my lodgings, to the prison-cell. Being much addicted to a roving life, I had few stationary friends, and none at all in Anonyma. My landlady, of course, could only attest to my being a 6 After six weeks, however, Captain Debandeur came back from England, where he had been spending his Christmas, and saved me. He was a naval gentleman of the old school, and didn't like to be contradicted. When anything bothered him, a servant or an umbrella, he would kick the one out of the house, and break the other across his knee, without a moment's warning. He had brought over, in one of his voyages, a certain great curiosity from the east, and very soon got tired of looking at it. He offered it to the new Anonymese museum, and that accepting it, although with some difficulty, for it was by this time broken and imperfect and worth but little, he was appeased, or otherwise he would have probably destroyed the great curiosity out of hand. The new museum failing, this precious wonder came back again to its original proprietor, who was wild with indignation at its reappearance. He and his son, therefore, after many attempts to annihilate it, which were frustrated by the other members of the family, fixed at last on burning 'old Methuselah' in the open air, on the night before starting for England for a six weeks' holiday. If he had taken seven weeks, I should have been a dead man. Now old Methuselah was a mummy. A RAMBLE IN A PARISIAN SUBURB. It is a fine clear warm day, in what we should call in London the late spring, but here in Paris, where the bright green buds on the trees have burst into bright green leaves, is better described as the early summer. I have been lounging and wandering about the Boulevard de la Madeleine nearly all the morning-now reading the Débats in company with a silent synod of black beards-now sipping sugared ice-water, by way of a change-now speculating on the character and destinies of the garçon whose property for the time being I have become-now listening dreamily to the murmur of the flower-market, which goes on under the shadow of the Madeleine, and gladly drinking in the delicious fragrance of its blossoms as the breeze wafts it past. The fact is, that I have been endeavouring to keep an appointment with an unpunctual friend, who, it appears, has forgotten his engagement, and does not come-and at last I have given him up, wondering what his conscience is made of, that he has kept me waiting so long; and have turned my back upon the place of rendezvous, and addressed myself to the pleasures of a solitary ramble. sight of the church-spire, a rather dumpy affair, just surmounting the tops of the trees; and then, ascending a few steps to the green on the left of the road, am standing in front of the church itself, a composite and rather fantastic structure, but a very model of primness and propriety. The door stands invitingly open, and, accepting the invitation, I walk in, and take a seat in the cool, dim-lighted nave. There is not a soul to be seen-all is still as death; solemn sallow faces look down upon me from a dark picture, and beneath the dusky shadow of the roof, a few old and tattered banners hang motionless. I wonder what is become of the Suisse, who ought to be there to shew the lions-to lead me to the tomb of D'Aguesseau-to talk about Boileau, Racine, La Fontaine, Molière, Count Rumford, and the rest of the celebrities who lived at Auteuil, and either were or ought to have been buried there-and to tax me twenty sous in return for his information. Why does not the man come and earn his franc? Suddenly I hear the creaking of a door near the altar-the panel is pushed forward, and out pops the round bald head of a very jolly-looking priest; the eyes are turned towards the open door, where they see nothing; then a not involuntary motion on my part fixes a surprised glance on right or wrong in suspecting that the merry-souled owner of those eyes is very considerably inclined to burst into a laugh? I don't know. If so, he withstands the temptation, and suddenly withdrawing his head, disappears, closing the door. Within half an hour, and without intending it, I find myself standing among a group of stragglers at the south-west corner of the Place de la Concorde, awaiting the arrival of that long-bodied omnibus which plies incessantly between Paris and Auteuil. Of all the omnibuses that ever were conceived, this alone has an indisputable title to the designation. Though drawn but by two little cob-horses, it carries a community of not less than threescore persons, who are the representatives of the three principal classes that constitute the social body. There is the inside, with its seats of cushioned plush, for the gentry; the outside, with its hard benches, for the middle classes; and its two ends, without any seat at all, where the poorest may stand and ride, and save their weary bones and their shoe-leather, at a cost of something less than a farthing a mile. Presently, there is the report of a blast blown through a cow's horn, and up rolls the leviathan machine, and from its roof and entrails a crowd descends and emerges, and disappears at all points of the compass; while the cow's horn blows, and blows, and blows, and a new cargo climbs the roof, fills up the body, and crushes into the standing places, which are as much receptacles for heavy burdens as for their bearers. Meanwhile, the horses are taken out and harnessed to the other end-theme, and for a moment or two our eyes meet. Am I machine being incapable of turning round-and the driver and conductor change places. Thinking I can't do better, I mount the roof, with about a score of outsiders, half of them of the military profession, and in three minutes, off we dash at a ten-mile-an-hour pace, towards Passy. The fat little horses are full of spirits and frolic, and make nothing of the monstrous load, for the simple reason, that the wheels, which are cast of solid iron, run in a tramway sunk beneath the level of the road. Carts and wagons drive across its track at their convenience, but scuttle out of the way with remarkable activity at the sound of the cow's horn. The way runs for nearly a mile through an avenue of trees, the sunlight flashing among the emerald leaves and dappling the sandy road with flickering shadow. Then we come out upon the bank of the river, gleaming like a broad disk of fire, with a surface broken into innumerable ripples, every one of which is a mirror to the sun. approach Passy, the guard comes round and exacts a penny from every outsider, with the exception of the military, whom he accommodates at half-price-the fee for insiders, he tells us, is three-halfpence; and those who stand in the bows and the stern are assessed at a half-penny. At Passy, we stop for a couple of minutes, and make an exchange of passengers-then on again towards Auteuil. As I look across the river, I can see the flashing of arms in the Champ de Mars, and catch a distant echo of the bray of trumpets; but the sound is soon lost in the noise of our own wheels, and the glint of the steel fades out in the distance. A few minutes bring us to the outskirts of Auteuil, where, for the present, the tramway terminates, and I alight, after a ride of about half an hour. As we A short, shaded, and comparatively unfrequented road, winding between the blank brick rears of gentlemen's houses and the high stone enclosures of private gardens, leads up into the village. There is not a footfall audible in the place, and scarcely a figure visible at door or window. The very houses seem to have fallen fast asleep in the hot sunshine, and, with the exception of the regular blows of an axe wielded by some invisible being who is chopping wood, and the gurgling notes of an invisible caged thrush, not a sound is to be heard. The roads, the paths, the little patches of wayside grass, are all exquisitely neat and trim, and every house and stone wall, innocent of placards and posters, presents the cleanest imaginable face that brick and wood, stone and mortar, can be made to put on. By and by, I catch I begin to think that, though I am alone in the little church, I may be one too many not withstanding, and accordingly I make for the door. I happen to be just in time. There comes the Suisse across the green in full fig, with laced sky-blue coat, laced cocked-hat bedecked with a rose of white ribbons, and carrying his ponderous gilded mace before him, from which also white favours are dangling. At his heels follow, with remarkable gravity and solemnity of demeanour, a train of fifteen or twenty persons, all evidently the members and retainers of one family. The first, who walks alone, is an aged patriarch bowed with years, upon whose bare head above fourscore winters have shed their snows. His face is florid with the rose-hues of second infancy, and clear and pure in tint as a young maiden's; and his long white locks, which have not been shorn for more than a lustre, hang in shining waves upon the shoulders of a coat of newest gloss, cut after the fashion of the ancient régime. Crosses, medals, and ribbons glitter on his breast; but there is no consciousness of the scene in which he plays a part in his lacklustre eye; he has been painfully got up for the occasion, and longs to return to his cushioned chair, the retreat of his old age, the cradle of his second childhood. Next to him walks a gentleman of fiftyfive, in official costume, wearing a handsome sword at his side: he also is bareheaded and clad in a courtdress, and his grizzled hair is fresh from the hands of the barber. He holds his arms horizontally in front of his breast, and on them lies a new-born infant but a day or two old, buried in long-clothes of the finest lace, and apparently sleeping. Next comes a young officer-whom I take to be the father of the babewith an elderly lady, who may be his wife's mother, leaning on his arm. Then follow several young people richly dressed, looking charming in flowers and white favours, and walking with solemn demureness in couples. The train is closed by the domestics of the family to the number of eight, all characterised by the same sobriety of expression. Beyond these, there is not a single follower-the rabble, if there be any rabble in Auteuil, are without a representative; and the procession passes on without any other recognition from the inhabitants than a courteous gesture of obeisance from the few who, standing at their doors or windows, watch it go by. Slowly the open church receives them, until the last domestic has vanished within the portal. I am half inclined to go back and witness the ceremony of the baptism; but seeing that although the church-door continues open, nobody sets me the example, I doubt the propriety of doing so, and therefore go on my way. Not far from the church, I pass the open gate of the château from which the baptismal procession started. I peep in. The mansion is large and roomy, with a handsome entrance; the garden and grounds are exquisitely laid out and cared for; the green grassy lawn is smooth as velvet, and the shadows of fine old trees stretch darkly across it. The dwelling seems deserted; but I know that is not the case, for there is a glorious odour of delicious soup, and I feel that somebody is working miracles in the kitchen, and that, however demurely the christening begins, it will end in feasting and merriment. Further on, I accost a damsel standing at the door of a wood-shop adorned with a capital work of art, representing a pile of fuel and the instruments for cutting and sawing it, and request her to direct me to some place where I can dine-the odour of the baptismal soup having awaked an unusual appetite. She points to a low cottage-looking auberge, a little higher up, and in two minutes I enter it. The hostess, a brisk, active dame, of uncertain age, and jauntily dressed, shews me into a little parlour, one window of which opens upon the garden in the rear, while the other looks into the front shop or salon, where she sits at the receipt of custom. The garden is well stocked with fruit and the commoner sorts of vegetables and roots, and a party of pigs are feeding audibly in a sty at the further end. The waiter, whom I suspect to be cook, garçon, and landlord all in one, says he will get my dinner ready in half an hour. Would I like to walk till then? I can walk in the garden, or Jean shall go with me and shew me Boileau's house, and the house occupied by the great Franklin-of course, that is, if I choose. I do choose, for I see the man wants to get rid of me, to have the dusty parlour put in order. So I sally out with Jean, who is a scrap of a boy in a collarless gray blouse, and who is attended by a knowing old poodle twice the boy's age. Jean leads the way to the Rue de Boileau, and points out Boileau's house, about which there is nothing remarkable; and then he takes me to a garden-door, by peeping over which I get sight of a couple of verandahed windows, which he tells me are the quarters of Franklin, but which I suspect to be a piece of sophistication on the part of Jean and the other good people of the place. The boy has nothing more to talk about but the merits of Pompe the poodle, who, according to his version, has reached the summit of canine intelligence, and is a miracle of sagacity, of which I do not care to express my strong doubts. When I get back to the little parlour, I find it neat and tidy, and the cloth laid; and by the time I am seated, the soup is on the table. I dine agreeably, but not alone. Pompe has forsaken Jean, and attached himself to me, and has plainly made up his mind to dissipate the contemptuous opinion I have formed of him. He gets upon a chair to see me eat the soup, at which he looks on approvingly. When the cutlets come in, he assumes the begging posture; that not having an immediate effect, he looks me seriously in the face, and stretches out one paw in the attitude of an orator making a speech. I am inclined to see how far he will go, and still take no notice of him; he changes his position, begs with his back towards me, and looks appealingly over his shoulder. I cannot stand that, and he gets a piece of the cutlet, which he catches in mid-air, and in an instant resumes the successful posture. It will not do a second time, and he tries a third experiment by squatting and crossing his paws over his nose in a way most preposterously touching, for which he gets rewarded again. When the landlord brings in the poulet, I question him as to Pompe's abilities and education. He tells me the dog is of a rare breed, and asks me if I ever before saw a poodle of a chestnut colour, which I certainly cannot remember to have done. As for his tricks, he has been taught them by the young men of the place, who make a pet of him; and he will learn anything readily; which, after the specimens I have seen, I can easily believe. But Pompe is a true dog of the world; though, in return for his performances, I feed him well, I no sooner rise from table, and go to settle my account, than he slinks off, and a moment after is repeating his exhibition before a party of peasants regaling themselves with a ragout in the common room: he has not been educated for nothing, and knows how to earn his livelihood. It is four o'clock when, having left Auteuil behind me, I pass through the gate of the fortifications, and enter the Bois de Boulogne. I find the outskirts of the wood pretty well populated by parties of Parisians, picnickers and others, lounging on the benches beneath the willows, reclined on mossy banks, or feeding the gold-fish in the reedy lakes. I hear their merry voices when I cannot see them; and again, in recesses where all is shadowy and silent, I catch the bright hues of their gay dresses shimmering through gaps in the leafy umbrage. Innumerable pathways winding through the hollows, cross and intersect each other in every direction, and more than once, without knowing it, I trace the same track twice over, in a vain attempt to penetrate to the centre of the forest. Now, when I flatter myself that I have reached a secluded spot, a peal of laughter from a family of children dissipates the illusion; and again, in a darksome glen, that seems a fit haunt for a lone hermit or a gang of banditti, I stumble upon a solitary artist, with his colours spread around him on the grass, silently transferring to his canvas the deathlike repose of the scene. I may have spent an hour beneath the leaves, and may have left nearly a league of the wood behind, when I emerge suddenly upon a broad road track, torn into deep ruts by the passage of wheels, and bordered on each side by a wide sward, in places even as a carpeted floor, and indenting the wood in areas a rood or two in extent. The road winds over a bold swell of the ground, and presents at various points picturesque views both of the near and distant scenery. The spot has evident attractions for holidaymakers, who spread their picnics on the grass, and find convenient seats on the felled trunks of a few trees which the timber-wagons have not yet carried away. In one place, a party of photographers have pitched a yellow-canvas tent, and are pursuing their cunning craft with the alacrity that characterises the profession. In another, lads and lasses are vociferous and explosive in a game at hide-in-the-wood. In a third, there is dancing going on to the music of a couple of fiddles played by boys in blouses, who, I have a suspicion, have not been brought to the spot on purpose; but, like spirits of mirth as they are, habitually haunt the wood in expectation of votaries. And in one of the cleared recesses above mentioned, a vigorous sport is going on, signalised at a distance by shouts from manly throats, and the repeated and rocket-like ascent into the air of a black globe some ten inches in diameter. I make my way towards this up-and-down meteor, to solve the mystery of its dancing flights. Upon a smooth area, of about an acre in extent, but twice the length of its breadth, I find a dozen or more of athletic young fellows, stripped to their shirts, and playing a curious game-with a ball as big as a warming-pan of what is neither foot-ball nor fives, but is yet a modification of both. The ball, which is perfectly globular, is formed of a thick case of India-rubber, |