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thinks, those who take their places have, in general, an eye also on that useful commodity, so why should not their predecessors ?

The Court has left Biarritz for St. Cloud, and thence to Compiègne until Christmas. While at the seaside their Majesties went out for frequent excursions, both on the water and into the adjacent wilds. The Empress has proposed a plan for facilitating the return to honesty of condemned criminals. She proposes a penitentiary very different from any yet existing, an establishment in which honest peasant families are to live and cultivate ground allotted to them: they are to be families chosen for their known uprightness and good morals; they will be entrusted with certain criminals, on whom good example, good treatment, and industrious habits, her Majesty thinks, will have more effect than harsh treatment. Their Majesties set out one day in a char-à-banc, attended by two or three ladies and gentlemen of their suite, to pick out the spot for this building, and a joyous party they were, as they rattled down the road to the woods of Anotz, near the Nivelle, not far from the village of St. See, by the Spanish frontier, on their charitable mission, with the intention of making a little pic-nic party of it. The little Prince was delighted. In this locality there is a vast territory completely in its virgin wild

ness.

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After driving here and there on dreadful roads, the place was chosen, and the Chamberlain in attendance received instructions from their Majesties to give their orders about its immediate commencement. The ground is to be cleared and put into order, and the habitations built. We shall see how it turns out. This business over, the imperial party was getting an appetite for breakfast. "Let us look for a pretty place to sit down in," said the Empress. "Look, look mamma!" exclaimed the Prince, some old ruins yonder!" The ruins were approached-a chapel once upon a time-a firstrate place to breakfast in, as inconveniently as any pic-nic party could desire. Here, on the grass, the company, in great glee, did honour to the provisions set before them, sans ceremonie, Then proceeded to visit the Grottes de Sare and Zuguramurdy, of great renown in the country. Alas! the only path that led to the grottes was impracticable for an Empress but on horseback. Quick! Mdlle. Marion soon turned the Empress's dress into a habit by aid of an elastic from a gentleman's hat, and the grottes were reached-such dark, serpent-haunted looking places, into which it was impossible to see one's way without the feux de Bengale, lighted by one of the party. The Empress and Prince ventured in, in spite of the reptiles that were seen escaping, frightened by the light. The Emperor scolded at their temerity, when they came out flushed with the excitement of having faced danger, and laughing at the fears expressed by his Majesty. After much mirth and plenty of stumbling, the party regained the carriage and returned to Villa Eugénie for dinner.

It was noised abroad that the Empress of Austria intended visiting Napoleon III. at Compiègne this autumn. There are to be four series of visitors during the sojourn of the Court there; but how will they manage the festivities without the Marquis de Caux-he who was always the heart and soul of the dance? Yet I suppose he cannot be received at Court, while he allows his wife to sing on the stage. Many comments are made on this singular conduct of a nobleman. However, they say that Madlle. Patti has still engagements amounting to four million francs, and that not only would she have to sustain great loss by breaking her engagements with different directors, but that her brother-in-law would also sue for damages, and that she has only eight hundred thousand francs fortune. Her husband has only his title, so what could be done?

The invitations to Compiègne reminds me of a comical occurrence that happened a year or two ago to the wife of one of the happy few honoured with an invitation. The author of "Le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre," Mon. Feuillet, after his success, received an invitation from their Majesties. His wife, who is a corpulent beauty, in a small town in Normandy, with no small pretensions, expected to be included in the invitation, so gave out to her friends that she was going to Court, and had several splendid evening dresses prepared for the occasion, and after great preparations set out for Paris.

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Judge of her feelings, and those of her female friends, when she returned to her native town without having received an invitation. had the atrocity to ask her why her name was She answered that she had a sore-throat, so not in the paper amongst the Court company. could not go-worse and worse, the laugh was prolonged !

Her husband, after his visit, thought that certainly his fellow-citizens would wish to give him a public welcome on his return, loaded with the honour of having been the Emperor's guest, so sent a telegram to a gentleman in the town, announcing his arrival for such a day by express. The gentleman wondered and wondered more and more why Monsieur Feuillet, from whom he was not accustomed to receive telegrams or even letters, was so extra polite. Knowing that Madame F. was in the country, he concluded that the telegram was a hint to prepare him a little fête at home in reception; so he went and hired all the pots of flowers he could get, and had them sent to M. Feuillet's, and arranged on either side of the door, and up the garden with wonderful taste. M. F. was highly flattered, and would have made a speech of thanks to his countrymen had there been any to listen to it. The next day, when the gardener went for his flowers and presented the bill, fancy the gentleman's grimace.

The meetings of ladies at Wauxhall to discuss the rights of women still continue. The men are not pleased at it. There is only the

face refuting Monsieur Blanc, and asked Le Temps, the paper to which Monsieur Blanc sends an article every week from London, to publish it. Le Temps would not do so without the editor's consent. Monsieur Blanc gladly acceded, saying that he desired nothing better than to see his work criticised. So the preface has appeared, and it seems that nothing can be more different than the appreciations of the two eminent historians, although both liberals, on the same great event: it is like reading a relation of two different epochs in the French annals. The literary world is for the moment engaged in the discussions of this curious fact.

ladies champion, Monsieur Gagne, who protests | resisted reading it until he had finished his own. in their favour-he who has imagined a religion After the reading he immediately wrote a prein which la Mère éternelle replaces le Père éternel could but vindicate female superiority. | Monsieur Gabriel Guillemot is not so gallant, though ladies themselves can but side with him in his proof of man's superiority. "The question of woman's equality is a long time deciding," says he, "and yet the matter is easy enough. Is man better than woman? or is woman better than man? Let us examine. What are man's tastes ? Man loves woman, does he not? that is to say, a charming being who possesses grace, beauty, sweetness of voice, velvety skin, delicacy and poesy of form. On the contrary, look at woman, her tastes, her instincts, she loves man: that coarse brutal being, with rough voice, hairy chin, &c., &c. Then man is better than woman.' What lady will gainsay him?

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A woman was brought up before the magistrate the other day for stealing a quantity of wood, a log at a time. "It is a longing," she says, "I could not help it; I always have a longing when I am enceinte: pray forgive me, gentlemen." "What! a longing which lasted two months?" exclaimed a judge; "we must not encourage such longings as these: two months' imprisonment may prevent them another time."

Another woman was stopped by her landlady, as she was carrying off a time-piece. Her interesting position was very conspicuous; she also gave for excuse a longing. "If the gentlemen of the tribunal were in my position, they would understand that." Two months' imprisonment was administered to her.

The City of Paris is in great luck. It has just inherited a fine estate at St. Ouen, by the death of the Prince of Beauvau-Craon, who killed himself, either by accident or wilfully, a month or two ago on the Boulevards. It was in the saloon of this splendid hall that Louis XVIII. signed the Charter in 1814: his portrait is still there, on the walls covered with velvet and fleurs-de-lis.

Monsieur Godard was a very inoffensive citizen, who certainly, when he retired to rest with his wife a little while ago, little expected that he would be so unceremoniously snatched from his peaceful slumbers in the middle of the night and lodged in prison, to finish the night by reflecting on the vicissitudes of human existence. But so it was, the police at midnight invaded his abode, and in spite of his wife's entreaties and his protestations that there must be a mistake, he was hurried off without even being told what he was accused of. The next day he was taken before the Préfet de Police. Préfet, as soon as he saw him; "the Godard I "That is not the man," exclaimed the ordered you to arrest is a man of twenty-seven, whilst Monsieur seems to be at least fifty." liberty." When Monsieur Godard arrived home, "Pardon, Monsieur, it is a mistake, you are at

he found his wife very ill from the emotions of the night. Exasperated, he sat down and addressed a lettter to the Préfet, in which he told him a "bit of his mind," which it seems was not exactly to the Préfet's fancy; and instead of feeling that he deserved whatever he got from Monsieur Godard, he has cited him before a police-court to answer the charge of having written an insulting letter to his Excellency, to the perfect astonishment of impartial Ex-judges, who are curious to see how it will end.

This royal gift was a present from the Count of Provence to the Countess de Cayla, who in dying bequeathed it to the Count of Chambord, and in case of his refusal, to the

city of Paris. The Countess of Cayla's daughter, the princess de Beauvau-Craon, threatened the town with a law-suit about it, so there was a

imprisonment; so that the letter was the only Notice, there is no possibility of suing for false little revenge the poor man could give himself.

Nuremburg" was given the other day at a concert, Richard Wagner's "Maitres chanteurs de before all the amateurs now in Paris. The composer himself was present, but the enthusiasm

compromise, and it was stipulated that the was not excessive. Monsieur de Flotow is also last male heir of the family de Beauvau should now in Paris, putting the finishing stroke enjoy its possession until his death, and then the city should have it. Happy Monsieur in December, at the Opera-Comique. The to a new opera, "L'Ombre," that is to be given Haussman, les richesses liu viennent en dor-director of the Chatelet, the theatre renowned mant! Nothing is so provoking as to see a splendid property belong to no one when it would do so much good to a body.

Monsieur Michelet and Monsieur Louis Blanc, both republicans, have been writing a history of the French revolution. Monsieur Blanc's was published the first, but Michelet

for its fairy pieces, has just failed; so I suppose we shall have no more of those kind of spectacles this winter, as they do not pay, and yet the house was generally crowded.

Monsieur Thierry, the director of the Theatre Français, very nearly received a caning from an irritated author, Monsieur La Tour Saint Ybars,

after the reading of a comedy by the commission of actors at this theatre: some say he did receive it. Madame George Sand's "Cadio" has been adapted to the theatre by Monsieur Paul Meurice, and is now played at the Porte Saint Martin. It is much inferior to the novel. Rejoice, oh ye lovers of champagne! They say that this year that terrestrial ambrosia will be exceptionably exquisite, although very dear. The quantities of grapes gathered in one village alone in Champagne is prodigious. Add to that, the good accounts we have of the "truffles," and fancy, with your mouths watering at the thought, what delicious dinners are in store for you this winter; that is if you love "truffles" as much on your side of the water as we do here: they are the ne plus ultra of good things to French taste. The thought of dinner reminds me of a curious detail in Parisian luxury. It seems that the splendid fruit we see on grand dinner-tables is very often only hired fruit-the same as the luxuriant chignons we see on our fair beauties, not only do they not grow on their heads, but often are only hired ones. There is a hairdresser in a very fashion

able quarter who has a card in his window on which is advertised, at moderate prices, "hair to be let weekly, yearly, or even nightly."

The Viceroy of Egypt has sent two of his sons over to be educated in Europe. The eldest past last week through Paris to England, where he is to remain five years; the second remains here the same time, and is under the superintendence of General Fleury, Aide-de-Camp to the Emperor.

Monsieur Courbet is illustrating a book called "Les Gueux." The Beggars-a sequel I suppose to his picture at the exhibition of paintings this summer; decidedly Monsieur Courbet only sees humanity on the dark side.

The velocipede races are becoming more and more the fashion. Horse-races will be abandoned for them. There has been but little company at La Marche this autumn in comparison to what there used to be, while the Champs Elysées were thronged with carriages and fine folks at a velocipede race a little while since.Mille compliments et au revoir, Yours truly,

S. A.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

PERIODICALS.

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an intelligent being with some knowledge of his craft and an aptitude for learning, instead of an ignorant, awkward creature, with no comprehension of his business and no dexterity in his fingers." The last Paris Exhibition has confirmed the humiliating fact that, whereas we held our own in 1851 against foreign workmanship in almost every department, we have fallen grievously behind in the race for excellence, and that the neglect of art-cultivation, if continued in, must seriously affect English industry. On the other hand, the good effects of such schools observed by English artizans in France is borne out by the evidence of highly intelligent and practical writers, who agree in the view taken by the Government and the Schools' Inquiry Comart-missioners; and it is fully hoped that some practical results will accrue from their unanimous reports. The writer goes on to urge the necessity for, and the claims of, women to a share in the advantages we may hope to result from the establishment of similar preliminary art-schools to those in use in France; from which, however, girls are partially excluded. The want of technical training is there so much felt that the Empress has opened one or two such schools for girls. Others have been established by private efforts; but as these were utterly inadequate to the greatness of the task before them, the Government of France has re

THE ENGLISH WOMAN'S REVIEW. (23, Great Marlborough-street; Trubner and Co., Paternoster Row.)-The present number of this Quarterly is full of articles of more than ordinary interest. We specially notice "Technical Education of Girls," and "Special Report from the select committee on Married Women's Property Bill." The first is an ably-written resumé of an article in Macmillan's Magazine for April, giving extracts from the report of the Schools' Inquiry Commissioners, and of the evidence of trained artizans before the Society of Arts, all which evidence goes to prove (what every observing or travelled person has been long aware of) that, in all that relates to designing and decoration, we are far behind our continental neighbours. Previous to 1850 technical schools were established in France. These give preliminary education to boys intended for apprenticeship. Lads who are to be stone-masons, wood-carvers, glass-engravers, china-painters, lace-makers, &c., are taught drawing, designing, and the rules of art. Boys who are to be employed about machinery are taught mechanics in a scientific manner, and the effect is seen in the great improvement made in foreign machines of all kinds. "Thus," says the writer, "when a lad is apprenticed at fourteen or fifteen, he is

cognized that the young girls of the nation at least deserve to receive a small share of the care and paternal solicitude which has so long been bestowed on the boys. Let us hope that here also girls may be included in the system, and receive technical instruction, not only in industrial needle-work, ornamental and industrial drawing, commercial correspondence, arithmetic, sanitary science, and some of those technical arts that a girl could exercise at home, such as painting on china, wood-engraving, lacemaking, embroidery, designing, and even woodcarving, gold-chasing, &c. The writer concludes a very useful article by quoting from Mdlle. Daubie's work, "La Femme Pauvre," written before M. Duruy had issued his circular on the subject:

"In the question we are now considering [the employment of women], the first step towards obtaining apprenticeship for girls is to establish the right of both sexes to attend these schools. *** It cannot be too often repeated that all the ratepayers of a town, and all the taxpayers of a State, for the very reason that they are made to contribute in equal proportions, have equal claims to participate in the benefits of the common expenditure."

"Four Speeches" deserve careful reading, and cannot fail to help forward that most important social question "The Married Women's Property Bill." The bill seems destined to be postponed till woman's suffrage is effected, which, by the way, the following new Parliamentary candidates have promised to support: Dr. Sandwith, Marylebone; Hon. Auberon Herbert, Berkshire; Mr. Dodd, Stockton-on-Tees; Mr. D. Chadwick, Macclesfield; Mr. Christie, Greenock, N.B.; Mr. G. Wilson, Pontefract; Hon. Ernest Noel, Dumfries; Mr. Handel Cossham, Dewsbury; Mr. C. Greening, Halifax; Mr. Illingworth, Knaresborough; Dr. Richardson, Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrew; Dr. Brewer, Colchester; Mr. Edmond Beales, Tower Hamlets; Mr. Muntz, Birmingham; Mr. Pochin, Stafford, &c.

ODD FELLOWS QUARTERLY. (Manchester.) -Looking through the pages of this quarterly, we find them, like the October ales of our forefathers, extra good. There is no moral strychnine in their composition. If a few bitter truths appear they are healthy, inasmuch as, to use the axiom of Emerson, "No picture of life can have any reality that does not admit the odious facts;" and thus Mr. Brierly's "Going to the "Demnation bow-wows" is not more sharp and strong in its strictures on women of the Mrs. Lightoller type than is deserved, and the story is one for which many models may be fonnd, we fear. We were not aware that "betting" had a place among the feminine foibles of the day, or believed that it occurred only in that section of the sex denominated "fast." Now, however, it appears that the mania has taken hold of working women as well as men, and that Thomasstreet, Manchester, is one of its head-quarters. The gist of Mr. Brierly's story may be gathered

from the following paragraph, and will probably be as new to our readers as to ourself:

I have no objection to horse-racing as a pastime. I rather admire the good old English sport when conducted on legitimate principles; but when it is made subservient to the interests of a class of people who take every advantage to fleece honest and wellmeaning men and women, bring ruin upon homes that ought to have been the happiest (sic), I feel that it is time to cry out against it. Wedding-rings have been stripped from fingers, clothes carried weekly to the pawn-shop, loan offices drained to encourage a system that is growing upon us, and which, if allowed to go on unchecked, will have a tendency to bring a whole community to the fate of George Septimus Lightoller and his model wife.

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"An Old Nest," by Mr. Edwin Waugh, promises to be a pleasant sketch. Mrs. G. Linnæus Banks continues her very agreeable papers "Lodges in the Wildness." Miss Meteyard's article, Female Beauty Popularized," exhibits considerable knowledge of physiology; but we cannot quite agree with her, that as beauty extends itself to the middle and humbler classesin which, by the way, it has never been really wanting it is becoming extinct in the patrician grades of society. The Handel Festival afforded an excellent opportunity of observing feminine beauty, and while mere prettiness was the rule, the higher types of beauty were as few and far between as in the days of the handsome Irish girls, after whom the "town was running," in the days of Horace Walpole.

T. BEALE'S FAIRY TALES. (47, St. Paul's Churchyard.)-We have before us a real treat for little readers: "Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp"-old as the "Arabian Nights;" "Ali Baba," "Little Red Riding Hood," and the never-to-be-forgotten "Babes in the Wood"a pleasing quartet of legitimate nursery literature, illustrated with coloured pictures upon an entirely new plan, the whole folding up into a very small compass, yet expanding to the length of each story; while the pictorial embelishments are really prettier than anything we have seen in the oft-repeated editions of these familiar but ever new stories. The four little elegant volumes will be sent, neatly packed, to any address for 28. The publisher, while allowing that one of them-"The Forty Thieves"-may perhaps be regarded as coming under the denomination of the "literature of crime," of which we have lately heard so much, yet trusts that its influence will not be detrimental to the morals of its readers. We confess we find the illustrations to this particular story especially sensational. There are twelve of these embellishments to each story, the text of which is printed in red letters.

THE LIFE BOAT; or Journal of the National Life-Boat Institution.-Once yearly this society takes stock of its dealings with human life and property, and lays the result before the public. Once yearly it opens that awful balance-sheet the wreck chart, and shows the merchants and

it has not already, when the foundering ship,
and the white faces of her drowning crew
will push themselves between him and the
wall, to which his face will then be turned. In
the meanwhile, though the efforts of the Life-
Boat Institution are powerless to meet the con-
ditions under which such vessels meet their fate,
without the power or the means to combat with,
storms or collision: in hundreds of other in-
stances, its boats have reaped a rich harvest of
life and property from the seas. In the past
Life-Boats; and if there has recently been some
failure in daring and noble self-abnegation on
the part of one or two of the crews, the conduct
of the majority may well condone for them with
the public, who must remember the wide field
this grand service covers, and the numerous
volunteers upon its staff. The days are darken-
ing, and nights of storm and danger beleaguer-
ing as it were our coasts. In the name of the
many saved by this national charity, upon
whose deeds the eyes of the whole civilized
world are turned with admiration and gratitude-
in the name of the tens of thousands who are
destined under Providence to owe their lives to
its interposition, we repeat that every aid will be
valued, and all donations, bequests, &c., thank-
fully received by bankers in town and country,
and by the Hon. Sec., Richard Lewis, Esq.,
14, John-street, Adelphi.
C. A. W.

people of England their losses. Losses not always due to tempests or foul weather; but in hundreds of instances to the reckless greed of selfish owners, or the penuriousness of needy ones. Out of the awful number 2,513 shipwrecks on the coasts and in the seas of the United Kingdom during the past year, many vessels appear to have foundered, or to have been otherwise lost on our shores from absolute unworthiness, or from being badly found or overladen. The north of England enjoys a bad pre-eminence in these instances, colliers over-year alone 1,128 living souls have been rescued by laden or in ballast, and vessels laden with metallic ores being the most frequent to perish under these conditions-conditions be it observed, under which they should never have been sent to sea; but the loss (the wretched hull and cargo being well insured) is rather to the owner's gain than otherwise, and causes him little or no regret. Although if tried in the scale of strict justice, he is as certainly guilty of the lives of those who perish on board such rotten unseaworthy craft as if he had been taken red-handed in the fact of their murder. We have known instances where ships have put to sea under protest to the owner of the commander and crew, who never more returned to prove the truth of their representations. No matter, the ship lost would have cost more to repair than she was worth, and he has gained a cool thousand or two by the transaction. But for all that compensation the time will come, if

THE THEATRES IN AUTUMN.-NEW DRAMAS.

A rush of novelties has occurred at the theatres, with the commencement of the autumnseason. New dramas have been produced at DRURY LANE, the LYCEUM, ADELPHI, and other houses. We shall proceed to examine the quality of the more important productions seriatim, prefacing our remarks by observing that the character of the works produced evidences a disposition on the part of the managers of the higher class of theatres to resort to a superior sort of dramatic literature than the socalled "sensation" dramas, which have gained a temporary popularity by means of realistic pictures representing the vices and crimes of a great city in association with familiar objects; such as a suicide on the underground-railway, an abduction with violence on Waterloo-bridge at midnight, the vicious society of a gaseous flaring music-hall of a low neighbourhood, and so on. We believe that the public are now, however, getting somewhat tired of pictures of the metropolis under its criminal aspects and in its deeper shadows. The better taste of playgoers we hope is recognising the fact that the

"last boat" may come into port with her passengers without being the occasion of murders and suicides, and that we may travel on railways by night without the occurrence of horrible immolations by drunkard suicides.

DRURY LANE leads off with a novelty in the form of a new version of Sir Walter Scott's novel of "The Fortunes of Nigel," to which the title of "The King o' Scots" has been given. The great novel has always been a favourite subject with dramatists, and at least half-a-dozen melodramas have been founded upon it, and produced at different theatres with unvarying success. In recent years, however, we have lost sight of the "Fortunes of Nigel," and should hardly have expected to witness its production at Drury Lane. But we suppose it was thought of as affording a contrast between old London and modern London, of which latter we have had several striking pictures in the realistic dramas of the day. "The King o' Scots" employs the talents of the whole company of Drury Lane. Mr. Phelps impersonates the royal pedagogue, James the First of England,

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