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those who are not kuown as beggars , to ask for a present in money. I was once called on by a street officer for a present, on the occasion of my opening a school for the free instruction of the children of the neighborhood. The officer seemed to think that I ought to signalize the occasion by making him a present. I sent word to him that, if it was customary to pay money when schools were opened, under the direction of Chinese , I was willing to make a present. I was told in reply, that it was not customary. Os course I paid nothing. The officer knew that the child ren of the neighborhood would be taught free of expense , and instead of appearing willing to assist in the benevolent plan, he was willing that / should pay him for doing the children a favor. 1 related the case to a brother missionary, and ho told mo that it was just the way they treated him, when he opened a free dispensary. Some of the officers of Jtho neighborhood called on him, to signalize the occassion of opening the dispensary by making them presents. They themselves have such sordid views, and the love of money has such a strong hold on their hearts, that it is sometimes hard for them to learn that a foreigner’s motives for pursuing a particular course, are free from selfishness. They are frequently puzzled to know, how it is that a missionary is supported, as they see that the missionary is engaged only in distributiug tracts, preaching and other business of a kindred char acter. They sometimes think that there is some base motive at the bottom of all they do—per haps to obtain possession of the children who attend the mission schools, and send them to England or America and enslave them. When, however, they are led to believe that it is not love of money that rules the missionary, they in a very warm manner express their approval of so much benevolence and acknowledge that our religion must be good. They will sometimes act as if they believe that money will be a consolation to them, when they have lost some of their nearest relations. A missionary, with whom I am well acquaint ed, had under his charge several Chinese little girls. He fed them and clothed them. He went on the water one afternoon with some of these little girls. The boat was capsized and one of them was drowned; the missionary barely es caped with his life. The father of the little girl, on hearing of the circumstance, showed more anger toward the missionary than love for his child. Ho said that the missionary had in tentionally caused her death aud he insisted on a sum of money being paid as a present, on ac count of it Here, at a time when we should naturally have supposed that the all absorbing feeling of the heart was sorrow, do we find that heart the seat of avarice. The base-hearted Chinaman acted, as if money could repay him for the loss of a child. He would, iu all proba bility, have sold that child while it was alive, and now that it is dead, he would make himself richer by its death. The missionary did not yield to his unreason able demands. This circumstance taught the missionary and the missionary circle a useful lesson, and that is, never to receive a child in the manner in which the little girl was received, unless the parents of the child sign a piece of writing, by which they declare that, if the child should die while under the care of the mission ary, the missionary is not to be regarded as re sponsible for its death. The son of a murdered Chinese officer was once bribed with one hundred thousand dollars, to allow twenty men to bo considered the in stigators and accomplices of the murderer. In our country, the relatives wish the guilty person brought to punishment, but in China they sometimes are willing, for the sake of money, to have an innocent person punished. Here is the case of a man who regarded money as a conso lation on the death of a father. If it be said that persons in our country have killed parents for the sake of money, we reply, such instances are rare, and we have never yet known the case here, of a man whose father was murdered, be ing satisfied with punishment falling on any but the guilty one. If we should know of a case of the kind, we should at once conclude that the son himself was a party in the transaction. There is so much selfishness among the Chi nese, that, though sometimes showing them selves capable of the exercise of the best offices of friendship, yet they more frequently desert their friends in time of trouble. They aro very much afraid of being involved in trouble, and will seldom face danger for the preservation either of the character or the life of a friend. They are non-committal iu expressing their opinions and in acting; they seek their own happiness and, for the attainment of this, will resort to the meanest measures, if they believe that there is no probability of suffering for their conduct. They are cruel and hard-hearted. —Of the in habitants of heathen countries it can frequently be said: “ The poison of asps is under their lips, their mouth is full of cursing and bitter ness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruc tion and misery are in their ways.” In China especially, the words of inspired writ are proved true—“ The dark places of the earth are full of cruelty.” Any one who has lived in China, cannot fail to be struck with the hardness of heart which characterizes the people. Some of the laws aro of the most cruel kind. Magistrates are made responsible for crimes committed within their jurisdiction. If criminals are not apprehended, the magistrates are in dan ger of being punished. This gives a temptation to magistrates to lay hold on the innocent, for they are bound to put some one to death, when a crime is committed which, according to law, is punishable with death. The following have reference to imperial in terests : “ Whoever, unautliorizedly and without suffi cient excuse, enters the imperial temple, burying place, hall of sacrifices, palaces, gardens or cita dels of Pekin, shall be punished with the bam boo, and whoever, in like manner, enters apart ments in the actual occupation of the Emperor, shall suffer death by being strangled.” “No person shall presume to travel on the roads or to cross the bridges which are express ly for his majesty, except only such as belong to his retinue, who are necessarily permitted to proceed upon the side paths thereof.” “ During the imperial journeys, all the sol diers and peoplo except those who are attached to his royal person, must make way for his ap proach, and whosoever fails to do so and in trudes within the lines, shall be condemned to death." With regard to fires, the following is the law: “ Any person who accidentally sets fire to his own house, shall be punished with at least forty blows; if the fire reaches other buildings, he shall receive fifty blows ; if it causes the death of any person, one hundred blows shall be inflict ed, and death shall be the punishment, if it reaches any of the imperial buildings.” Iu some cases, a husband my striko a wife (his principal wife) and not be punished, but in all cases, if the wife strikes the husband, she is 80VSXSXUB VXS&S AEB IX&ESXBK. to receive one hundred blows with the bamboo. In Fokien province, a husband cut off the head of his wife and another female, and carry ing them in his hands, went before the sitting magistrate and avowed the deed, expressing his readiness to die, if the law so required. He was not only acquitted, but rewarded for the fero cious act. Now,,it is far from being the case that every magistrate in China would have acted thus, but we hardly think it possible to find in a Christian land any magistrate that would thus have passed by so awful an offence and reward ed the offender. In Sheuse province, a creditor was abusing a young man that was indebted to him. The young man was so much excited that he took up a stone and threw it at him. When the creditor perceived the stone coming, he avoided it by stooping. The young man’s father was behind. The stone struck him and killed him. The young man, for unintentionally killing his own lather, was sentenced to death. If ho had intentionally killed him, he would have suffered the slow and ignominious death of being cut to pieces, but as the act was unintentiona ’, the sentence was exe cuted by the decapitation of the young man. When a man is known to have money, it sometimes happens that crimes are alleged against him for no other purpose than to obtain it from him. He is tortured until he confesses the crime; he is then banished or beheaded, and his accusers receive a part of his property; or, perhaps, before confessing, he promises money if his keepers will release him. Those who are tortured, are sometimes made to place their bare knees upon a coil of chains; at other times they are tortured with fire. Prisoners, too, are allowed to torture fellow prisoners newly arrived, iu order to obtain money, and friends will sometimes pay the money, in order that the sufferings inflicted by their fellow-prisoners may be discontinued. The method of conducting prisoners from place to place, is cruel. They are carried in cages and chained in the cages. They suffer much pain on account of being obliged to sit with the head bent forward. A writer who had visited prisons, in speaking of places of confinement in China, says: “No pen is adequate accurately to describe the hor rors of a Chinese prison. Suffice it to say that they would surprise and shock even those who are best acquainted with the sordid and cruel character of the jkoi’j. Truly, in China a prison is a mine of v .etchedness and woe, a sis ter to the tomb.” One who had witnessed the execution of some Chinese, tells us that the executioners seemed delighted in their work. He says: “ The cool in difference of the executioners, rather approach ing to exultation at the opportunity of exerting their skill and indulging their desire of gain, was of a nature sadly disgusting, and altogether presented a scene of butchery rather than the in fliction of the law.” In the common transactions of life, there is constantly apparent the greatest lack of sympa thy, when their fellow creatures are in suffering circumstances. In going to the mission-chapel one morning, I saw a poor man with his food in an earthen jar. He let it fall. As is generally the case, any thing of this kind is broken that falls on the stone walk; so it was now—the jar was broken. His food was partially spoiled or entirely lost. There was one general laugh among the Chi nese around. None seemed to pity. In addi tion to being under the necessity of bearing his loss, he was likewise under the necessity of knowing the mortifying truth that his loss fur nished amusement for others. At the same time it is very probable that he too would have joined in the laugh, if another and not himself had been the loser. In a Gospel land this would have afforded amusement to some —to playful boys and thoughtless young men- -but here it affords amusement to all. In a Gospel land the poor man would have met with some pity, but here he met with none. Truly is it the case, that ignorance blunts the social feelings of the heart. Nothing short of the prevalence of Gos pel principles will be the means of showing ful ly to the benighted their duty to their fellow men. I once saw an instance of one of the wretch ed methods of punishing children, sometimes re sorted to by the Chinese. A woman put her little boy in the water for the sake of learning him obedience to her commands. She had a bamboo pole and would push him with it, in or der to frighten him, after she had driven him in. A crowd was near, laughiug at him, whenever ho received a fresh fright. She allowed others too to frighten him. One young man threw wa ter in his face, and she joined in the laugh when he cried out from fear of danger. A few days before this I had seen a man tie a rope around a little boy and let him down into the water, while a crowd looked on. The Chinese, in punishing their children, show, alas! a spirit of revenge and not a desire for the good of the child. The propriety of pun ishing a child in such away that others should not see it, does not seem once to enter their minds. Every fresh act of this public punish ment doubtless has the effect of souring the child's disposition. The child that is laughed at by his play mates when he is punished, will daubtless laugh in turn at them when they are punished. Miserable system! With the tenden cy constantly to foster in the rising generation, tho spirit of vindictiveness and to beget an un feeling heart, no wonder that when the Chi nese arrive at maturity, their hearts are so little affected by the miseries of others. There are some parents in Christian countries, who have no objection to others joining them in teasing a child that has offended. For the honor of Chris tianity, it is to be hoped that such cases are com paratively rare. One, who had an opportunity of knowing the truth of what he writes, has said: “The Chi nese, in some measure, even seem gratified in speaking of the distresses of others. They al most invariably laugh, when speaking of the death of people known to them, and even of those they called their friends. They will speak of going to the house of a friend to mourn over him, and speak of it with a smiling, happy face, as if talking of their friend’s approaching wed ding " 1 have myself seen the dead body of the in fant upon the Canton river, and when I have asked, “what is that?” the answer would be given, with a smile on the countenance, of the one who replied to my question. It is sometimes the case that tho eyes of the Chinese aro filled with tears, in relating cases of misery, but it is from excess of merriment and not from grief. I have seen a person fall down in a fit and the bystanders gather around him, none offering the helping hand, looking at the unhappy man, more as if they were looking at a show than at a human being in distress. I have seen the mother punish the child by methods so severe, that it would seem almost a miracle that the child was not disabled for life. The thing that is nearest the parent is at once taken up, although it may be of a most weighty material, and sometimes tho head and sometimes the face of the child receives the heavy blows. On one occasion some incendiaries were sen tenced to be starved to death, as a punishment for their crimes. They were exposed to public view.J and there were those who beheld them that found amusement in the ravings of such as had become delirious from starvation. The treatment which females receive in China, is a proof of the cruelty of the people. The Chinese will sometimes put their female child ren to death, and when reproved for it, will say, “it is only a girl.” Ask a Chinaman who has male and female children, how many children be has, aud he very probably will mention the number of his boys, but say nothing about his girls. Sons are regarded as so great a blessing, that offerings are made to the gods, accompanied with petitions that sons may be born, and that father is considered one of the happiest of men, all of whose children are sons. A missionary, in speaking of visiting a small village in China, says: “ From the number of women in the crowd which turned out to greet us, we were pretty well persuaded that they were under as little restraint as the men in in dulging their curiosity, and upon inquiry found it to be so. We were conducted to a small temple, where we had the opportunity of con versing with many who came around us. “On a second visit, while addressing them, one man held up a child and publicly acknowledged that he had killed five of the helpless beings, having preserved but two. I thought he wms jesting, but as no surprise or dissent was ex pressed by his neighbors, and as there was an air of simplicity and regret in the individual, there was no reason to doubt the truth of what he said. After repeating his confession, he ad ded with affecting simplicity: ‘lt was before I heard you speak on this subject. I did not know it was wrong. I would not do it now.’ Wish ing to obtain the testimony of tho assembled villagers, I put the question publicly: ‘What number of female infants, in this village, are de stroyed at birth?’ The reply was: ‘More than one half.’ As there was no discussion among them, which is not the case when they differ in opinion, and as we were fully convinced from our own observation of tho numerical ine quality of the sexes, the proportion of deaths they gave did not strike us as extravagant." The wives are bargained for, for a price, and tiken to the bridegroom’s house. They do not choose tlieir husbands, consequently they are in effect the slaves, not the companions of their husbands. And so strong is the feeling, in China, that this is right, that even a female writer, in addressing her sex, tells them that they ought to be content with tlieir condition, and that submission will prove that they are good wives. The compressing of tho feet of the females, in China, is a most cruel custom. Those per sons labor under a very erroneous impression, who suppose that this is attended with no pain. The child will frequently tear off the bandages on account of the suffering she experiences.— She is told, however, to bear the pain—that the custom is respectable, and that by means of it she will be regarded as having a claim to res pectability. The eyes of children are sometimes put out; though this is said frequently to be done from a fear on the part of parents that they will not be able to support their children ; yet for parents to act thus is the exhibition of a most unnatural feeling of the human heart. “ Without natural affection,” is one of the marks of some of tho ancient heathen, as given by Paul. It is like wise one of the marks of some of the heathen in modern times, and we frequently behold it among the inhabitants of the Chinese Empire. Improvement. —We should bear in mind, in contemplating these revolting pictures of a heathen nation, that it is only the Gospel of Christ that has made us to differ. It is this that will be the nieaus, in the' hands of God, of causing man to look upon his fellow-man as he should, and feel towards him as a brother and a friend. Blessed Gospel! Such will be one of the many of the mighty changes which thou art destined to accomplish in our sin-stricken world. Go to heathen countries where idolatry reigns. Let the Gospel bo preached, and let the princi ples of the Gospel be carried out, and behold the results: The wife who, before this, has been in a state of almost the greatest possible degra dation, is now honored aud exalted in the eyes of the community: no longer the servant, the slave of her husband, but his confidential friend, his companion, his equal. No longer is the in fant thrown upon the waters of the Ganges; no longer is the aged man left to suffer and die ; no longer do multitudes cast themselves beneath the wheels of the car of Juggernaut, or perish in their devotions at the shrine of Gaudama.— Even the cannibal lays aside his savage heart and savage acts, and lives, by faith, upon “ the bread of life.” Under the influence of this Gospel, the time is destined to arrive when “ men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruniug-hooks, and nations shall learn war no more." The noise of battle will then be ex changed for the song of thanksgiving and praise. Were it not for this Gospel, some of the fathers and sons and mothers and wives and daughters living in our midst, might have been in the same condition as some in heathen lands. The fathers may have been destroyed by their sons, mothers by their daughters, children by their parents, and wives by their husbands.— Were it not for this Gospel, ignorance and su perstition, in their darkest forms, would cover our land; our country would be the abode of cruelty, and the vices which we so much detest, and which are prevalent in the heathen nations of the earth, would be the vices of our citizens, allowed by us, and, perhaps, transformed into gods and worshipped. hbw Papier Mache. —Some improvements in the manufacture of sheets of papier mache have giv en an extended application to that peculiar sub stance. These improved processes are for the manufacture of pressed articles from pressured sheets instead of pulp, and for the production for such prepared sheets. The apparatus consists of a table, having a rack on either side, by which it is traversed backwards and forwards under a roller, so supported as to give the required de gree of pressure to the material, and at the same time capable of being varied in its elevation, in order to reduce or increase the amount of pres sure—or a weighted roller may be used for the purpose. The material used for the manufacture of such sheets of papier mache as are suitable for the panels of steam vessels, and for similar purposes, is composed of thirty parts of flour and eighty parts of water, thoroughly incorpo rated, so as to reduce the mixture to the consis tency of paste, and to this are added at the same time nine parts of alum and one of copperas. With this paste are then mixed fifteen parts of rosin, previously dissolved by heat, also ten parts of boiled linseed oil and one of litharge. These ingredients having been mixed in the order named, are then incorporated with about sixty parts of rag dust, or papermaker-’s half-stuff, or pulp deprived of its moisture. — [Exchange. [For the Southern Field and Fireside.] IDUKT PARNASSUS BT AX AMERICAN IX PARIS. Yesterday I made my semi-annual journey to Mont Farnasse —not the Grecian, but the French one. I never had a call or aspiration to ward the former ; to the latter I love to go as often as twice a year. The difference between tho two is as great as between the winged Pe gasus, bestruddled by poets, and the modern om nibus, atop of which I took my yesterday’s drive ; as between the nine muses and number less grisettes ; as between Bellerophon and your correspondent, or a Pindaric ode and the prose (if not prosy !) eleveuth chapter of My Travels in Paris. Mount Parnassus is the popular name given to the suburban district lying just outside the barrier of the same name on the south eido of Paris, and offers to the gaze of the curious tra veler, on a pleasant Sunday or Monday, a most varied picture—or rather, gallery of pictures— of popular manners. To transfer a copy of them to paper—anything that could claim to be a faith ful copy—would require an art far beyond mine. From all my visits, I have only brought away a few rough outline sketches of the more striking pieces. It would be impertinence, not modesty, to say that they were carelessly made. My re spect for those to whom I now present them, bound me to do my best ; I have not intention ally dashed in exaggeration of drawing or ex travagant contrasts of light and shade as sham substitutes for truthful vigor and effect beyond the reach of my talent. I meant that they should be, if not .completely faithful, at least honest sketches. But they are taken, of course, from my point of view ; and the real “ local color," may be changed in spite of myself by the medium, that is the mood of mind through which I saw the original. [Having been inter rupted at the close of the last sentence a n hour ago, by the entrance of cmcierge Martin with letters from home, I was just running my eye over what I had written, so as to recover the thread of my discourse, and observed that in the above two brief paragraphs the word mod esty slips in once, while tho first personal pro noun finds eighteen occasions to present itself, absolutely or possessively—“ One half-penny worth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack 1” Let me borrow my apology or what, I beg you, sir and madam, to accept as such, from Mr. Thackeray’s Luck of Barry Lyndon —a book, by the way, which though only brought into a little notice by the brilliant success of his later productions is, as a work of literary art, not sur passed by the best of them. “ Pardon me for putting so many I’s in my discourse, said the candidate; but when a man is talking of him self, ’tis tho brightest and simplest way of talk ing 1 In which, perhaps, though I hate egotism, I think my friend was right.”] What I was meaning to confess to, or point out, is the extreme difficulty of describing a thing as it really is. We do not see things, but the images of them reflected, refracted, colored and distorted, as found in us. The Battle of Solferino was one thing : the Austrian battle of Solferino is another ; the French ditto is not dit to by any means. When I last had tho fortune to greet friends at home, after an absence of some years, I found Democrats, Whigs, Repub licans, North and South, Homoepaths and Allo paths, and Christians of all sects among their number; no two of whom agreed in the ac counts they gave of tho political state of the country, or my bilious symptoms, or the shortest road to a better world. Though that they were all honest, sincere, truth-trying-to-tell gentlemen, I am sure. None of us ever read a book of travels in the United States, whether by Mr. Lyellor Monsieur Ampere, by Mrs. Trollope or Madame Grand fort, that we did not find blunders, both of fact and opinion. Do not suppose that American travelers, in Europe, are keener observers or sounder judges. 1 ouly promise to do my hon est possible—considerably worse than Sir Charles Lyell, not so absurdly bad as Madame Grand fort. Apropos of modesty, I shall write only three or four chapters; do not meditate a book ; have ray own reasons for calling this Chapter eleventh; there is not any first. And with this more than enough of prefatory parenthesis, to return to the barriere. Paris is surrounded by a stone wall twelve or fifteen feet high, and a foot and a half thick. It is not this that makes Paris an “ oppidum ab opi dictum , quod munitur opts causa, übi sit though its purposo does not contradict tho rest of the learned Varr j’s definite n: “Et quod opt a est ad vitam gerundam." The great line of for tifications, 22 miles in circuit, which, after the first of next January, will form the new limits of the town, lie much further out. This, of which I speak, is worthless in a mil itary point of view ; but financially, it is a wall of defence for the city and State treasury, and of offense to the pockets of all producers with out, and of all consumers of tho fruits of the earth within. It is the Octroi or customs wall. No edibles, potable or combustible or combusti ble provision can come into the town, save through one of its fifty gates or barrierts ; where it is first stopped, examined and taxed accord ing to a regular tariff. No pleasure carriage, unless it belong to the Imperial Household, that must not pull up there, for an instant at least, that the ferret-eyed officers may see whether, for the nonce, it bo not a business carriage, with a leg of mutton, a basket of fruit, a couple of bottles of wine inside. A pound and a pint— enough for one meal—may pass free. For gros ser vehicles and their contents, the inquisition is closer, and the instruments of it most various.— Every basket is opened, every cask is tapped.— Here comes a stupid looking carter with a solid looking load of sand. The custom officials do not trust to up)>earanees. One of them mounts the cart, and with a long, sharp-pointed iron skewer four or five feet long, worms and writr gles away through the sand in sll directions, till satisfied that it conceals no underlying contra band stratum. But to slightly change the pro verb, “ Man cannot invent what man cannot cir cumvent.” Human law presupposes its violation. Hangmen and gaolers, (not to say lawyers) are the complements of legislators and judges. Jus tice is aptly represented with a sword ready to baste the scamps who are weighed and found wanting in her scales. All of which sententious remark is only a roundabout way of saying that sometimes, though rarely, despite sharp eyesight and keen sent and all sorts of probing irons, a little wine leaks through the barriers, and legs of mutton jump over them in a very ingenious manner. I mean that the conveyance of these articles is very ingenious, not my manner of con veying the statement Thus a pretended market man brought thro’ the Montmartre gate for seve ral successive days last year, a load of innocent looking water melons, which finally excited sus picion, and proved on trial to be sly hypocrites of temperance, each one having its inside filled with anient spirits. The present ample style of female dress (would you believe it madam!) hath been turned to like base uses, gracefully shroud ing flesh, fish and fowl: vt turpiter utrum Desinat in piscem mulierformosa supreme. And here let me relate what I saw the other day with my own eyes, as I rode on the dili gence from Le Puy into the town of St. Etienne. Tne conductor, a merry, good-natured soul, had behind the banquette where two fellow-travelers and myself sat with him, a champagne basket more than half full of different kinds of game, which he had bought that morning at cheap country prices in the little town of Ysingeaux, with the intent of turning an honest penny by selling them forty per cent, dearer at the market rates in the large town of St. But the octroi would reduce the profits oneflH| at least. He laid the case before us, recounting at the same time with great glee and real humor, his lucky escape from the perils of detection, to which he had exposed himself in previous sea sons, ani, opening the basket and showing us the corpora delicti, took us all into consultation how they were to be avoided now. The stout Lyons gentleman who sat next him volunteered to stow four partridges in his small leather trav eling-sack, and put two more in the pockets of his paletot. A hare was wrapped in the goat skin overcoat of the driver, [not coachman, if you please, my hypocritical friend,] puss's head shoved well down into one of the arms, and the shaggy raiment then arranged with an air of negligent ease behind and partly beneath the worthy follower of Jehu. Then, the jovial con ductor, first stauding up to take an observation up and down the road, whipped his blouse over his head, opened his waistcoat to the ultimate button, lined it with eleven birds, and buttoned up over all again, looking now as plump as one of his own partridges. Two fine hares re mained to be disposed of. A poor invalid artil lery man, who was packed away among the bag gage behind the banquette—one of the many reversed glories of the Italian campaign whom we met on our journey—expressed regret that his knapsack was too full to take them in. But, like an old campaigner, as he was, fertile in devices, he suggested a plan for masking from the enemy this attempt at victual ing the town, which was adopted. It was no other than to make allies of the two foreigners, ray friend L. and your servant. The two hares were popped into a bag, which was partly con cealed under the boot of the banquette and ours, and still further concealed from suspicion by our Anglo-Saxon phlegm, by our supposed ignorance of the language, and our national character for honesty 1 I ought to say that, by virtue of our accent, we passed, with the conductor and passengers, for Englishmen. When we reached the octroi, we observed an in nocent silence, as the only reply to the question whether there was anything to “ declarethe cheery conductor did the vocal lying in the most nonchalant manner, and so we all came safely through the gate. As we drove towards the diligence office, the conductor looked hard at a youug fellow who happened to be looking up at him from the side-walk, and who straightway followed our course, and happened to arrive in the court-yard of the office as soon as we. The conductor disappeared for a moment, to return shrunken in his fair proportions, to deliver the baggage and bid us good-bye, and take the pour lories. I noticed that the bag with the two hares was tossed in a very careless manner to the-young fellow, who happened to be standing ready to catch it. I leave it to casuists to decide whether we were wrong or right in the small share we took in that defrauding of the reven ues, and in letting the moral quality of the act go to tlie account of another “nationality." It is high time to get back to Paris. It is plain, from what has been said above, that provisions are cheaper out of town than in. The conse quence is, that just outside the gates, especially of those giving ingress and egress to and from the more populous and poorer quarters of the city, there are established numerous eating houses. These are much frequented by the humbler classes, particularly on Sundays and other holidays, not only for economy but for re creation. For there are dancing halls and gar dens as well, and cases for their amusement. There, too, the suburban air is a little freer than in their close lodgings; and the promenade is enlivened by the performances of nomad jug glers and athletes; by various inexpensive games, aleatory and other, by the facile elo quence of dealers in small wares, who have their stands on the side-walks ; by the brilliant ly painted eidolon of mammoth infant, sesqui pedalian dwarf, bearded lady, learned seal, of the armless man who writes with his toes, or the miraculous mathematician who calculates as fast as you can lisp in numbers, or of some equally prodigious lusus naturae or lusus artis, whose original may be admired within the painted tent for. two sous, etc., etc. And more than all these sights and wonders, there is the chiefest at traction of the crowd, the crowd itself. No ob ject in nature that Frenchman or Frenchwoman so much enjoys as the presence of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen. No people with whom there is such practical exemplification of the proverb: “Like will to like.” Monsieur Ville main, the Academician, the eloquent and learned critic, in an able and most interesting essay on the Souvenirs et Correspondance of Madame Re cauvier, Monsieur Villemain, I say, at the outset of that article, published in the last number of the Correspondant, quotes approvingly from I do not know whom, the following proposition: Si I'homme est un etre sociable, nul n’estplus horn me que le Francais. With all due respect—and great respect is due—to M. Villemain, I will not agree that the French are more social, and therefore more human, than the rest of the world, than we Americans, for example. Social is not the word; but they do seek other’s so ciety more than we; they have an instinct, ten dency, talent, faculty, call it what you will, for being together, which we have not, and which is, to an American observer, one of the most striking and pleasing of their national traits: But here reflections and observations flock in so numerous, that what is to be said of French Gregariousness, will make a chapter by itself. Mais revenons a nos montons. That is to Mount Parnasße; though just let me tell what a French sign-painter, with whom I made ac quaintance on a passage from New York, once told me. He was intelligent enough, had been doing very well in New York—plenty of work and good pjy. Then why undergo the hard ships of a steerage passage, and return to less work and less pay in Paris? You say you lived well in New York; that you think it is a fine city ; that you enjoyed the liberty of say ing what you thought and doing what you would? My steerage friend acknowledged all that freely. Mais Monsieur, vouz savrz — la bas voyez vouz—il n'y a pas de barriers le dimanche, no barrier to go to Sundays. And so ; but this chapter is straggling beyond reasonable limits. A little plant is found upon the prairies Texas, called the “compass flower,” which, un der all circumstances of climate, changes of weather, rain, frost or sunshine, invariably turns its leaves and flowers towards the North, th ns affording an unerring guide to the traveler who, unaided by the needle, seeks to explore those vast plains alone. • _ A >s TV, 219