be considered that, although the clearness I have described gives a charm, a cheerfulness, and a transcendent beauty to the streets of Paris, there may, and I believe there does, lie lurking within it an amount of impurity which, although it be invisible, renders Paris, on the whole, infinitely less healthy than London. Without tracing the various bad smells which proceed from almost every floor of almost every house to their impure sources, it is evident that in the aggregate they must contaminate although they do not discolour; and it is no doubt for this reason-from the continued prevalence of this invisible agent-in fact, from inferior sanitary arrangements, and especially from defective drainage—that,

While the comparative mortality of the population of London, exceeding two millions, is 2.5 per cent., the mortality of the population of Paris, rather less than one million, is 3.3 per cent.

Again, while the ravages of the cholera in London were in the proportion of 14.601 per cent., in Paris they were 15.196 per cent.

The total average deaths in Paris are from 28,000 to 30.000 annually, which, on a population of 900,000, gives

about 1 in 30.

The deaths in London, varying from 1 in 28 in Whitechapel to 1 in 56 in Hackney, average for the whole population 1 in 42; that is to say, about one-fourth less than at Paris: and thus, from inferior sanitary arrangements, there die annually in clear bright Paris about 7000 persons more than, out of the same amount of population, die in smoky London.

But although I summoned these statistics into my mind to prevent it being led astray by appearances which might be deceitful, yet I must own it was my impression, and I believe that of Lord Ashley, that the poverty we had come to witness bore no comparison whatever to that recklessness of personal appearance, that abject wretchedness, that squalid misery, which-dressed in the cast-off tattered garments of our aristocracy and wealthy classes, and in clothes perforated with holes not to be seen among the most savage tribes-Ireland annually pours out upon England, and which, in the crowded courts and alleys of London I have so often visited, produce among our own people, as it were by infection which no moral remedy has yet been able to cure, scenes not only revolting as

well as discreditable to human nature, but which are to be witnessed in no other portion, civilized or uncivilized, of the globe.

As we were anxious to get into the interior of some of the poorest of the houses around us, we entered the shop of a cobbler, who as usual

"liv'd in a stall,

Which served him for parlour, kitchen, and all."

The poor fellow was not only very indigent, but evidently did not like "rich aristocrats," which our dress, to his mind, proclaimed us to be.-How little did he know that the arch-aristocrat of the party before him was an English nobleman, who, regardless of the allurements of rank and station, had laboured during nearly his whole life to ameliorate the condition of those beneath him!-Accordingly, as he sat hammering away, he gave to our questions very short answers. He was in fact a true republican: still, however, although he wanted exceedingly to get rid of us, he did not use towards us a word approaching to incivility; and I moreover observed that, whatever might be his poverty or his principles, he wore a clean shirt, and was otherwise decently dressed.

In passing along the next street, we entered a very large house, in which we perceived a great congregation of women, all busily engaged, each at her tub, in washing. Over their heads, and the steam that partially enveloped them, there hung from a rafter a large tricolor flag, above which were inscribed the words "Vive la République.'

As our entrance naturally caused some little sensation, one of our party endeavoured to allay it by telling a stout lady, who had evidently the charge of the whole-what, under every circumstance, is always the best-the truth; namely, that we had walked in to see her establishment.

"Voyez donc, Monsieur !" said the stout woman, waving her right hand successively at all her assistants; "il y a des jeunes et des vieilles." After a short pause she added, "Vous en trouverez qui sont jolies. Allez !"

Their beauty, however, not being to Lord Ashley or any

The republic for ever!

Look over it, Sir; there are young and old. You will find among them some that are pretty. Arrah!

us a subject of what is called primary importance, we ventured to make a few statistical inquiries: upon which the lady, evidently suspecting that our object must, in some way or other, be hostile to the flag under which she presided, suddenly became so exceedingly cautious, that, excepting seeing that there were no very distressing signs of poverty in her establishment which, indeed, was all we desired to ascertain-we could obtain nothing in answer to our queries but a repetition of the words "Je n'en sais rien, Monsieur! ça ne m'occupe pas !"* and so we departed.

As in the locality in which we stood we had failed to find any of those painful combinations of poverty and despair we had been led to expect, Dr. M Carty was kind enough to propose to go with us in search of them to another district of Paris, commonly called, "la Petite Pologne." Here, however, we found the general condition of the poorer classes in no way worse than those we had just left. On entering a large house, four stories high, running round a small, square, hollow court, we ascertained that it contained rather more than 500 lodgers, usually grouped together in families or in little communities. In this barrack or warren, the rooms, paved with bricks, were about 15 feet long, 10 feet broad, and 8 feet high. We found them, generally speaking, clean and well ventilated, but the charge for each chamber unfurnished was six francs per month.

Dr. M'Carty now kindly proposed that we should return to the rich west end of Paris, to the most miserable district in that portion of the city. Here also we failed to meet with anything that could be said to add opprobrium to poverty. The inhabitants of the few houses we entered were, no doubt, existing upon very feeble subsistence, but in every case they appeared anxious to preserve polite manners, and to be clean in their dress. In the Rue du Roche, No. 2, we entered a lodging-house kept by a clean, pleasing-mannered woman, and as all her lodgers were out at work, we walked over her establishment. The rooms, which were about 8 feet 7 inches in height, contained nearly touching each other-from three to five double beds; for each of which she charged 10 sous per night, being 5 sous, or 24d. for each sleeper (in Lon

* I know nothing about it, Sir; it does not concern me!

don the charge is usually 4d.). The woman told us that to every bed she allowed clean sheets once a fortnight. Each room had one window, and we found every one in the house wide open.

Although Dr. M'Carty had now shown us the poorest description of people of whose condition he was cognisant, I have no doubt that an agent of the police could have led us to scenes of greater misery than those I have described.

JARDIN DES PLANTES.

ON coming out of the Boulevart de l'Hôpital I found myself close to the Jardin des Plantes, and as I had procured an ordinary order of admission, which happened to be in my pocket-book, I walked into it.

The politeness which distinguishes the French nation is not only retailed by every citizen of Paris, but with a liberality which merits the admiration of the civilized world, is administered wholesale by the French Government to every stranger who visits their metropolis. For instance, the magnificent cabinets of comparative anatomy, the gallery of zoology, the specimens contained in the mineralogical and geological galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, are only open to the citizens of Paris on Tuesdays and on Fridays; whereas any traveller, however humble his station, on application in writing, or by merely producing his passport certifying that he is a stranger in the land of a great nation, is, in addition to the days mentioned, allowed free entrance on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. On Wednesdays the collections are closed for cleaning, and on Sundays no person is admitted. Dogs must always be muzzled, and, to prevent mischief, they are not allowed in any instance to enter that portion of the grounds in which the loose animals are kept.

I had scarcely entered the gardens when I was accosted by a short, active man of about fifty-five years of age, with a brown face and an arched nose- -it arched concavely, snoutwise who in a few words, very logically explained to me

1st, That I was evidently a foreigner;

2ndly, That being a foreigner I must necessarily be totally ignorant of the localities of the Jardin des Plantes;

3rdly, that being ignorant I should be lost in the intricacies of its curiosities;

4thly, That he was an authorised commissionaire; in short, that I knew nothing, he everything, and

THEREFORE that I should gain infinitely by putting myself under his care.

The demonstration was so complete, that by the utterance of "Allons donc !"* I gruffly consummated the alliance he proposed; and the two syllables could not, I am sure, have flown twenty yards, before I and the brown-faced man with the arched nose were walking together rather vigorously along a broad path, shaded by trees, towards the gallery of zoology.

I now discovered-as in hasty love matches has but too often proved to be the case-that my guide and I were unhappily missuited to each other, and the consequence was we had at least six quarrels-or, to state the case more fairly, he forced me to quarrel with him about half a dozen times-before we had proceeded a hundred yards. The subject of our dispute, which I submit to the unprejudiced judgment of the reader, was as follows. I-looking upon the man as my slave, and recollecting the American maxim "that every_man has an undoubted right to flog his own nigger,"-felt I was authorised to put to him little questions as fast as each, one after another, bubbled up in my mind; but every time I attempted to do so, and before I had got out three words, he invariably stopped me full butt by advising me to go and see the animals and the labyrinth, for reasons which I, in return, would not allow him to utter. In fact, just as a new member in the House of Commons, who, having written out his maiden speech, and learnt it by heart, cannot deliver himself of any other, so had my guide only one way of showing me what he thought I ought to see; in fact, my ideas, whether first, second, or third-class passengers, were all to run on his rails.

I told him I would not give a sou to see all the animals in the world; that I detested a labyrinth; and as he began to see I evidently disliked him too, and that I was seriously

Get on then!