The whole number of individuals supported at any one time, at the expense of the city, either in the hospitals, almshouses and asylums of Paris, or in the country, is 31,219.

There are 63,000 persons in the prisons of the department of the Seine.

A

The population of the hotels and furnished lodging-houses may be classed as follows: First, those persons, French or foreigners, travelers and mercantile people, for the most part, who occupy the better order of hotels and maisons meublées. There are about 1,100 of these establishments, having accommodations for 20,000 guests; on extra occasions, such as baptismal fêtes, they stretch their borders so as to take in from 30,000 to 35,000 unfortunates. second and inferior category, numbering 12,000, but sometimes rising to 15,000 or 16,000, occupy furnished lodgings in 1,800 maisons meublées of a plainer sort; finally, there are from 37,000 to 50,000 mechanics, and laborers, and domestics, and other small folk, sleeping in the wretched, ill-furnished rooms of the lowest grade of lodging-houses (garnis), of which there are 3,963 in the capital. Having now some notion of the extent and classifications of the population of Paris, let us see how they support life-how they eat and drink.

There are 29,000 dealers in food and drink within the walls. Of these, 4,408 keep wine and liquor-shops; 1,600 others, as a part of their regular business, sell wine, liquors, or some sort of intoxicating drinks; this is exclusive of keepers of restaurants, cafés, inns, and small eating-houses, and several other classes of shops, in all of which wine and brandy are sold by the glass. I may be permitted to correct here, the grossly erroneous statements, often made and believed by foreigners who visit the boulevards, to the effect that "there is no drunkenness in France;" "you never see a drunken man in France," and the like. There are in this country, or there were, in 1847, 347,328 places for the sale of intoxicating drinks, that is, nearly one for every one hundred men, women, and children throughout the land; there are sold yearly, in these places, over 250,000,000 gallons of wine, and over 17,000,000 gallons of distilled spirits. Now we might reason, a priori, from this enormous quantity of drink swallowed, that there must be some drunkenness in

France. I might add some results of personal observations made at the barrières on Sundays and Mondays, and, what is weighty as authority, the opinion of De Watteville, who, among the fifteen immediate causes of French pauperism and wretchedness, ranks third in order the use of intoxicating drinks.

Paris is noted, the world over, for the quality of its cookery. Paris cooks an enormous deal of victuals in the course of a twelve-month. Paris is gourmet and gourmand, not to say gluttonous. Victor Borie says, that it eats one-fifth of all the good beef eaten in France. The mother city absorbs the best of victuals as it absorbs the best intellects, the best writers, the best artists, and the best artisans of the whole country. The items of the metropolitan bill of fare for a year are of Pantagruelian proportions.

The zeros, and nines, and sixes, and eights, and other of the rotund ciphers, as they parade the quantities of this Gargantuan gobbling and guzzling, seem stouter and paunchier than ever. The reading of them is a feast. As I have set them down here, reducing kilogrammes to pounds, I have not generally regarded such small matters as hundreds of pounds. Round thousands will convey notions of the city's consumption, sufficiently accurate for the purposes of this view, and more easily retained by the reader's memory. Strict accuracy is, indeed, impossible. M. Husson's estimates are for the population of 1851, excluding the garrison and hospitals, i. e., for 999,066 consumers; to-day the population must be from one to two hundred thousand greater. So that the estimates given below should be considerably enlarged to meet the truth of to-day.

In the year 1851, then, Paris ate 360,000,000 pounds of bread, and 143,000,000 pounds of butcher's meat, besides over 23,000,000 pounds of swine's flesh, and nearly 23,000,000 pounds of fowls and game, and more than 29,500,000 pounds of fish, together with 19,140,000 pounds of eggs; to this add nearly 11,000,000 pounds of pastry, and 7,000,000 pounds of rice, macaroni, vermicelli, and other prepared breadstuffs, and 500,000 pounds of gingerbread (very bad is the gingerbread). mass of solids was lubricated and helped on its downward way by 22,500,000 pounds of butter, and sweetened by more than 16,000,000 pounds of sugar, and

This

500,000 pounds of honey, to say nothing of 1,200,000 pounds of bonbons, and about 2,000,000 pounds of sweetmeats; it was washed down by 118.000,000 quarts of wine (or drugs and Seine water, that, according to M. Delamarre, make up one-third of what is drank for wine in Paris), 13,500,000 quarts of beer, 2,000,000 of cider (very bad), 12,000,000 of ardent spirits, 100,000,000 of milk, over 1,000,000 of liqueurs. The town, furthermore, consumes in liquid form nearly 7,000,000 pounds of coffee, and over 2,000,000 pounds of chocolate. In the way of vegetables, it eats 300,000,000 pounds of fresh, and 17,000,000 pounds of dry, "garden sarse," besides about 420,000,000 pounds of fresh fruit, and over 7,000,000 of dried fruits, and 4,500,000 pounds of oranges and lemons. The whole is seasoned with 12,000,000 pounds of salt, 600,000 pounds of mustard, 295,000 pounds of pepper and other spices, and 297,000 pounds of pickles, 4,000,000 quarts of oil, and as many of vinegar. Such are some of the principal items of the table of

Paris.

In the year 1854, Paris chewed, snuffed, and smoked, 3,800,000 pounds of tobacco, for which it payed 17,725,263 francs (more than $3,500,000). This poor justice must be done to the Parisians and to the French in general, that few of them are guilty of our peculiarly disgusting American form of tobacco-vice. The quantity of the weed masticated is to that snuffed and smoked, as one to sixty-two, and has not increased per annum since 1839. The habit of taking snuff is on the decrease; that of smoking, on the contrary, has been of late years, and still is, in course of wonderful development. Formerly it was deemed an essentially vulgar practice, and was mainly confined to the estaminets; from them it spread to students' rooms and artists' attics, then reached the clubs, at last invaded families, and "the totality of the street," and is now à la mode with all classes. As you are aware, the emperor and empress both smoke. If they had not a taste for tobacco, they might still indulge in, or rather subject themselves to, its use, by way of setting an example, which his majesty has strong politico-economical reasons for wishing to, see generally imitated. Between 1839 and 1854, the

consumption of tobacco in all France nearly doubled in quantity. Whatever may be the vicious effect of the noxious weed on the popular health, this increased consumption helps to plump up the government finances curiously. The manufacture and sale of tobacco is, as my readers are aware, a state monopoly; but they are, perhaps, not aware of what M. Husson assures us is the fact, that it produces a clear yearly profit (bénéfice net) of more than 100,000,000 of francs, or one-fifteenth of all the receipts of the public treasury.

After eating, and drinking, and smoking Paris, comes, naturally enough, as if for digestion, riding Paris. I should say here, that this view of Paris on wheels is very imperfect, inasmuch as it does not include large classes of vehicles, such, for example, as those that do the heavy carting and nocturnal dirty work, water-carts, market-wagons, scavengercarts, etc., etc. Of carriages of all sorts for the transport of persons, habitually circulating, though not all owned in the city, there are 11,765, drawn by 40,000 horses. Of saddle-horses, there are 3,000. Place yourself on the Boulevard des Italiens, and you may see pass, in the course of twenty-four hours, 10,750 wheeled vehicles, of which nearly 9,000 are appropriated solely to the conveyance of persons. A curious calculation shows that, in a twelvemonth, 25,000,000 rides are taken in omnibuses, and 18,000,000 in hired carriages. Besides these, 13,000,000 persons yearly pass in or out of the city by the different rail-roads, and four other millions by the diligences and other public conveyances.

So much of Paris as likes, and can afford it, goes after dinner to spend the evening in twenty-two theatres and opera-houses, where there are 29,000 seats, where, last year, 213 new pieces were brought out, where spectators pay annually over 12,000,000 francs for their entertainment. Others go to cafés. circuses, public balls, suburban theatres, concerts, and other numberless places of nightly amusement. Apart from what the public pay directly, there are five theatres, namely, the Française, the Odeon, the Grand Opera, the Opera Comique, and the Italian Opera, which together receive allowances from the state to the amount of 1,500,000 francs.

When all is over, Paris retires to

sustenance in your travels. Take each one. Be absent a twelve-month, and he of you who shall return at the end of that time, having found the greatest fool, shall be entitled to the fair hand you each so earnestly covet."

Not a little loth to be so long separated from the fond object of their desire, they received this announcement with great chagrin each of them, however, consoling himself with the thought, that he only would prove the successful claimant, and thus, in one instance, at least, win an uncontested supremacy over his discomfited brothers.

"There are plenty of fools to pick from," said Romulus, "and it shall go hard but I will find the biggest."

"Among so many, the more difficult the choice," said Remus; "but I doubt not to hunt him out."

"And Flotilda's prayers assist me, while I disappoint you both," said Afri

canus.

Having thus signified their reluctant assent to a decision from which they well understood there was no appeal, and taken each for himself the generous outfit provided for them, they straightway departed, in opposite directions, upon their anxious and curious errand. And first for Romulus. He found, as he had predicted, plenty of fools, but the difficulty of making a selection was far greater than he had anticipated. He had readily gathered some very choice specimens, and made a note of them; but his naturally fastidious temper, now sharpened by the earnestness of his hopes to a severer scrutiny than ever, left him still dissatisfied. At length, however, his doubts were dispelled, and it happened in this wise: Wearied and foot-sore by his wanderings, he seated himself, toward the close of a sultry day, upon the shady side of a large and apparently untenanted building, which stood in the outskirts of the town, still a mile or so distant, where he proposed to pass the night. Hardly, however, had he uncovered his head, that the refreshing evening air might have free access to his temples, and composed himself in a half recumbent position upon the cool door-step, than he became conscious that the building was not as empty as he had at first supposed. To satisfy his curiosity, he gently pushed against the door, already ajar, and, by the dim light which found entrance through the chinks of the

closed shutters, he discovered a man moving about to and fro-now slowly, now with a quicker motion, and altogether in a somewhat mysterious and fantastic manner. He noticed, too, that ever and anon the strange individual approached a large cage which stood upon the floor, and he imagined he could, from time to time, distinguish the fluttering of wings against its wires. At length, his curiosity getting the better of his prudence, he was, contrary to his purpose, obtruded rather suddenly into the presence of the singular person whose movements he had been thus watching. Somewhat surprised, but not apparently offended by the disturbance, the solitary tenant accosted the intruder in friendly terms-a show of goodhumor instantly welcomed by Romulus, since the peculiar countenance and the general demeanor of the man he had interrupted greatly strengthened an already inchoate presentiment, that the specimen he was in search of stood before him. Excusing himself for having thus inadvertently become a spy upon his movements, Romulus came at once to the point which was now uppermost in his mind, and inquired the object of the cage, which, resting upon the floor a few feet from the spot where they were now standing, showed no want of tenants, whatever might be said of the building which contained it.

"The cage, eh? You are a close observer, I see, and for a young man that is well. This cage, as you perceive, is not empty. It is now nearly full of bats. They have been put there by my agency-I might say by my own hands. To you, the imprisonment, doubtless, seems cruel. But it is not so; or if cruel for this handful, it is not so for the race-I mean the race of bats. It is for them I am working. To improve their condition-to elevate them in the scale of humanity, I was about to sayI mean of the brute creation, I spend my days. But it is growing late. I live in the town yonder. Come and see me to-morrow, and I will unfold to you my plan more fully."

Thus saying, he withdrew further into the building, signifying by his manner that he wished to be no longer interrupted; and Romulus, more than ever assured that he had at last stumbled upon the object of his search, readily accepted the invitation thus hastily extended. At an early hour on the fol

lowing day, he failed not to keep his appointment, and once more found himself in the presence of the acquaintance he had formed in so unexpected a man

ner.

"Punctual, I see. That is well. Nothing in a young man like punctuality. Please be seated. You find me with my implements about me. So you will always find me. So I like to be found. It is the business of my life, and it is the pleasure of my life. These poor bats! But, perhaps, you are not acquainted with their nature, or have not considered the deprivation under which they labor. I will explain it. There, you see, is a bat, in what I call his natural state. Come with me. I let him loose. The poor fellow, you see what sad work he makes of flying. There, he has dashed himself against yonder wall. Now, what is wanting is, these bats should be made to endure the sunlight, and my grand project is to give them sunlight-sunlight to the bats. What is light for but to see by? and what are eyes for but to see with? You see these delicate needles, this even thread, these salves, these ointments. These explain my grand design. These eyelids must be kept open, and when these poor bats are made equal to endure the broad light of noon-day, instead of groping miserably in the dull twilight, my final triumph will be achieved, and I shall be hailed as their benefactor-the deliverer of an entire race. It is true, some few cages of them have perished in the course of my undertaking, but what signifies? They will come to it at last. A wonderful discovery, to be sure, but this is the glorious nineteenth century. Haven't we the magnetic telegraph? Haven't we steam? And why not this?"

Encouraged by the close attention of his visitor, who drank in his words like nectar, the speaker continued, in an ever rising strain of eloquence, to set forth the glorious scheme.

"Light dawns upon the benighted bats; the day of their deliverance draws nigh!" passionately exclaimed the oper

ator.

"Flotilda is mine; the day of our betrothal is at hand!" mentally exclaimed Romulus.

Turn we now to Remus. Unlike Romulus, who contended that fools were to be met with everywhere, and unlike Africanus, who maintained they were to

be found only in the country, it was his theory that they chiefly abounded in cities. Accordingly, having selected one of the largest of these, he directed his steps thither. And, as he had foreseen, there was no scarcity of the article he was in quest of, but his perplexity arose from its abundance. He met with the fool religious, who, making a mock of sects in whose ritual forms and ceremonies predominated, yet trusted to forms himself for salvation; with the fool political, who thought to effect a moral and social revolution by his precious dogmas; with the fool mercantile, who, when ninety-nine gallant barques foundered and were lost, made sure that his would be the hundredth that should escape. And, passing from these, whom he termed the professional or classified fools, he found, outside of their ranks, what he designated as the individual fools-the fool pretender, who, glorying in a character he had worn so long as to imagine it belonged to him, supposed others were equally deceived with himself; with the self-sufficient fool, who, with his head only in the sand, forgot that his nakedness was exposed; the moneyed fool who, gathering only of that kind of riches which take to themselves wings and fly away, was often left without riches of any sort; the fool gluttonous; the fool licentious; and so on to the end of the chapter.

In short, in such variety and abundance did the tribe present themselves, that he began to doubt whether he was not himself the greatest fool of all, for attempting to determine, among so many competitors, which should be allowed the precedence. But he remembered the prize he had left behind, and, while he had not thus far "made a note of" a single specimen, he redoubled his exertions, ever holding to the belief, that as nature had formed one such inestimable jewel as Flotilda, to outshine all others, so, being ever equal in all her departments, she must have somewhere created one such incomparable fool as should outtop every other. And such a fool-a fool whose folly was as unfathomable as her loveliness was ineffable-a fool whose lack of wisdom could be measured by her bounteous endowments, he felt assured he had not yet found.

The standard his imagination thus furnished, was evidently a very lofty one, and of difficult attainment, so that