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Meanwhile, gossip was busy with the countess's absence from the world, and the earl came to hear of what had been going on, and actively bestirred himself to collect evidence. He commenced an action for divorce in the Arches Court, and the Ousleys, godfather and godmother, fled to Aix-la-chapelle, to escape serving as witnesses. One day in the summer of 1697, nurse Peglear at Hampstead was visited by Richard Portlock, a baker in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, and his wife, who claimed her nursling as their child, and after some altercation, carried it off, and she never saw the infant more. As the Portlocks did not appear as witnesses in the suit, it is supposed they were bribed out of the way, as was attempted with other witnesses. Leaving the suit undetermined in the Arches Court, the earl took his case before parliament, where a special act of divorce was carried first through the Lords, and finally through the Commons, on the 15th March 1697-8. The divorce was throughout vigorously opposed by the agents and friends of the countess, who, though she lost her title, had her private fortune restored to her in full.

Dr Johnson says the countess publicly admitted her intimacy with Lord Rivers, in order to get rid of her husband, and calls her some hard names in consequence. He also sets her son's birth down as subsequent to the commencement of the action for divorce, namely, 16th January 1697-8. Johnson's information is Savage's, and whenever we quote the one, we quote the other; and these two points are worth noting, because, whilst the truth concerning them was open and easy, they were content to retail inaccuracies, and therefore we might pertinently say, ab uno disce

omnes.

The countess, by her divorce reduced to her old name of Ann Mason, was within two years married to Colonel Henry Brett, a member of an old and respectable Gloucestershire family. With him she appears to have led a quiet life until his death in 1714. She lived until October 1753, and died at her house in Old Bond Street, aged above eighty. Mrs Brett does not appear to have been a beautiful woman. She is described as of middle size, pretty full in the cheeks, disfigured with the small-pox, with thick lips, brownish hair, dark complexion, and little eyes. Colley Cibber, it is said, had so high an opinion of her taste and judgment as to genteel life and manners, that he submitted every scene of his Careless Husband to Mrs Brett's revisal and correction.

The question now is: What became of the child taken in haste from Hampstead by the Portlocks? Here we are left in the dark. Mr Moy Thomas supposes that the Portlocks may have been paid to bring up the child as their own, and that it died. In the register of the parish in which they lived, St Paul's, Covent Garden, amongst the burials, he finds entered 'November 1698, Richard Portlock,' which he presumes may be that of the child; but Richard was the name of the baker, Portlock, and it is likely he would call one of his children after himself. It is, however, Mr Thomas's opinion that the Portlocks were only the agents of the Ousleys in removing the child from Hampstead. The Ousleys had all along made themselves serviceable to Lord Rivers in providing nurses, and looking after his children. They lived in the parish of St Martin's, adjoining the Portlocks, and in the register of burials in St Martin's, about two years after the divorce, is entered '1699-1700-30 Jan., Richard Smith, C.-C. indicating a child. Here is the difficulty. Was this the son of Lord Rivers? Could we ascertain beyond question the fate of that child, Savage's claims would be set at rest. Unfortunately, when Savage appeared on the scene, the Ousleys and Lord Rivers were all dead, and Mrs Brett may have justly feared that any assertions of hers would be distrusted, and hence have concluded that silence was her best policy.

The earliest notice yet found of the existence of Richard Savage is in 1717, when he published a poem under the following title: The Convocation, or a Battle of the Pamphlets, a Poem. Written by Richard Savage. London, printed for E. Young, at the Angel, near Lincoln's Inn Back Gate, and sold by J. Morphew, near Stationers' Hall, 1717.' He then took to playwriting, and in 1719 published one, entitled 'Love in a Veil, a Comedy, as it is acted in the Theatre-royal in Drury Lane, by His Majesty's Servants. Written by Richard Savage, Gent., son of the late Earl Rivers. London, printed for E. Curll, &c., 1719.' On this title-page Savage made his first public claim of relationship to Lord Rivers, a claim which from thenceforth, with amplification, he lost no opportunity of dinning into all ears. Where had Savage been spending his childhood? Lord Rivers's child vanished from Hampstead in 1697, and if Richard Savage was that child, where had he been during the intervening twenty years?

We have no answer to this inquiry except from Savage himself. No one has left us any particulars of his boyhood: neither playfellows nor old neighbours seem to have risen to claim his acquaintance when he was known as a poet and the talk of the town. His own account of himself appeared in many forms in his lifetime, and Johnson gave it a world-wide currency in his memoir, but it was loose and variable; though credulously accepted, no one appears to have tested it; and when we now examine his statements, we are bewildered in contradictions and improbabilities.

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Savage said he had been brought up by a nurse, who received orders from his mother to treat him as her own child, and to keep from him all knowledge of his real parents; which directions she faithfully followed, so that until her death he bore her name, and knew of his right to no other. During these years he was tenderly protected by his grandmother, Lady Mason, and by his godmother, Miss Ousley, whom he calls Mrs Lloyd, who guarded him as tenderly as the apple of her eye,' and whom he describes as a lady who kept her chariot, and lived accordingly. But, alas! I lost her when I was but seven years of age. By the direction of Lady Mason, he had been placed at a small grammar-school at or near St Albans. His mother, Mrs Brett, had made an attempt to ship him secretly off to the American plantations, but by some means failed. She then had him placed with a shoemaker in Holborn, with the purpose of apprenticing him to his trade. When about seventeen, his nurse died, and he, as her son, went to her house, opened her boxes, and examined her papers, among which he found a letter written to her by Lady Mason, which informed him of his birth, and the reason for which it was concealed; whereon he refused to be a shoemaker, claimed a share in Mrs Brett's affluence, was repulsed and denied by her, and then took to authorship for a livelihood.

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As we examine this story in detail, we find how indefinite, unlikely, and, in some respects, manifestly untrue it is. Where did his nurse reside, and what was her name which he bore? Writing long afterwards in 1739, to the learned Miss Elizabeth Carter, he says: That I did pass under another name till I was seventeen years of age is truth, but not the name of any person with whom I lived.' Whilst thus backing out of an early statement, he takes care neither to give his nurse's name nor his own. his Richard Smith, or Lee, or Portlock? Nothing that he could leave vague did he fix. His nurse, his home, his haunts, his companions, we have not one certain word about. The grammar-school he said he attended, and the name of his master, are unknown. These are references which a man with honest claims would have given in fulness and with precision, but to which a clever pretender would avoid committing himself. We need not waste one word over the

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incredible correspondence of Lady Mason with the nurse, for Savage himself obliterates it in his letter of 1739 to Miss Carter, in which he declares the mean nurse' to be quite a fictitious character.' Yet giving up the nurse is about equivalent to giving up Savage as the earl's son. He had boasted of possessing convincing original letters' found in the boxes of his nurse; but if the nurse is a fiction, so are her boxes and the letters in them. Convincing original letters,' however obtained, Savage never produced. He was always ravenous for money to gratify his vicious propensities, and could at any time have obtained some guineas from publisher Curll for his documents; and though he wanted neither delicacy to restrain, nor spite to prompt their publication, yet never a scrap of Lady Mason's writing did he give to the world. In fact, neither by writings nor by witnesses, did Savage's claims ever receive the slightest sanction; beyond his own assertions, they never met with any support.

Miss Ousley, Savage's godmother, transformed by marriage or his fancy into Mrs Lloyd, died, he said, when he was seven years old, leaving him a legacy of L.300, of which he was defrauded by her executors. When did this fact come to his knowledge? Who were the fraudulent executors? Savage was not used to conceal the names of his enemies; why did he hide theirs? The Ousleys were a numerous and thriving family, and they were surely amenable to justice. Newdigate Ousley, his godfather, did not die until 1714, and he and Lady Mason would not surely see the child wronged. But Savage appears to have been in utter ignorance of the name of the Ousleys; and yet he tells Miss Carter that, in a letter of Mrs Lloyd's, a copy of which I found many years after her decease,' he found the comparison of her love for him as the apple of her eye.' If he was allowed to ransack his godmother's papers, he must have known the Ousleys; and if he knew them, he could scarcely have failed to plague them terribly for the L.300 left to him. We fear Mrs Lloyd, the godmother, who kept a chariot and lived accordingly, was to Savage what Mrs Harris was to Sairey Gamp.

Savage must have been to Mrs Brett a cruel visitation. Colonel Brett was dead; she was a widow with a daughter arrived at womanhood, and in the long years that had intervened might reasonably have hoped that the memories of her earlier life were lapsing into oblivion, when Savage raked them out, and blazoned them with aggravations before the world. On such a theme and with such a man controversy was for her impossible; and she was content to oppose to his outcries a silence alike courageous and discreet. At first, his approaches were made with some attempt at wheedling. In a letter to The Plain Dealer, he writes of her as a mother whose fine qualities make it impossible to me not to forgive her, even while I am miserable by her means only;' and describes her as one who, in direct opposition to the impulse of her natural compassion, upon mistaken motives of a false delicacy, shut her memory against his wants; and again in some verses in the same magazine mentions her:

'Yet has this sweet neglecter of my woes

The softest, tenderest breast that pity knows! Her eyes shed mercy wheresoe'er they shine, And her soul melts at every woe-but mine.' But Mrs Brett was not to be beguiled by these soft speeches. Savage haunted her neighbourhood. It was his frequent practice,' says Johnson, 'to walk in the dark evenings for several hours before her door, in hopes of seeing her as she might come by accident to the window or cross her apartment with a candle in her hand.' It was to no purpose that he wrote to her and solicited to see her; she avoided him with the greatest care, and gave orders that he should be excluded from her house by whomsoever he might

be introduced, and what reason soever he might give for entering it. One evening, finding the street-door open, he slipped in, went up stairs, and accosted her in the passage. She, in a very natural and feminine style, screamed 'Murder,' and ordered her servants to turn him out of the house.

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Matters came to a climax in 1727. Savage in a tavern brawl killed a man, was tried, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to be hung. Now commenced a stir indeed. Hang a poet, and an earl's son withal! A short account of his life was drawn up, telling the story of his birth, and the heartlessness and wickedness of his mother, and it circulated by thousands. The Countess of Hertford laid the piteous tale before the queen, who won from the king a pardon, and Savage was set free on 9th March 1728. His rage against Mrs Brett now knew no bounds. As everybody credited his story, he appears to have at length believed it in earnest himself. His charges against her became intensified in malignity; and he said she had interfered to prevent the king's mercy, and to have him hanged. He therefore resolved to harass her with lampoons until she allowed him a pension. In pursuance of this dastardly threat, he published his poem, entitled The Bastard, in which he versified his own wretchedness and Mrs Brett's inhumanity, and which passed through five editions in the course of the year.

At this juncture, Lord Tyrconnel, a nephew of Mrs Brett's, interposed; whether he wished to relieve his aunt from her persecutor, or to possess a live poet for himself, he offered Savage a home in his own house, and an allowance of L.200 per annum, which Savage with readiness accepted, and sung his patron's praise, and dedicated to him his verses. At last, Savage's habits wore out Tyrconnel's patience; he kept outrageous hours, turned his house into a tavern, and Tyrconnel found works he had presented to Savage on the book-stalls, sold by him to purchase drink. In 1735, he revoked his pension, and sent him adrift, whereon he was addressed and defied by Savage as a Right Honourable Brute and Booby,' and told that he had cut his poet because he was hard up, and did not like paying L.200 a year.

Begging, drinking, brawling, Savage now led a more wretched life than ever. Moved with pity, some of his friends subscribed L.50 a year, of which Pope contributed L.20, to keep him in rural economy at Swansea. With difficulty he was got out of London in July 1739. Unfortunately, Bristol lay in the route to Swansea, and some of its literary citizens feasted the poet, and by their gifts enabled him to renew his dissipated London habits. After wearying and disgusting them, he reached Swansea in September 1742, which, as was to be expected, was a place not at all to his taste, and he set out for London, taking Bristol on his way. There his journey was cut short by a Mrs Read, who had him arrested for a trifling debt; and after spending six months in the Newgate of Bristol, he died in that prison on the 31st July 1743.

In February 1744, Johnson published his Life of Savage. The book affords a fine study of the method and temper of Johnson's own mind. He conceals nothing about Savage known to himself, and he repeats all Savage's tales about his birth and the conduct of Mrs Brett in implicit faith. Johnson is at once credulous and truthful, and his tenderness for the comrade of his poverty shut his eyes to the utter meanness of Savage's character, and closed his ears to the despicable whine of a full-grown, able-bodied man for money and a mother! Savage's persecution of Mrs Brett he aids and abets in a style Savage never equalled, pursuing her as an unnatural monster through page after page with all those trenchant epithets of reprobation of which he was master. Mrs Brett, poor old lady, lived to read Johnson's curses for ten years.

As Savage's story is questioned more and more

closely, still further inconsistencies are revealed. From the facts already adduced, many will readily coincide with Mr Thomas in his conclusion: 'I have not, I confess, any doubt that Richard Savage was an impostor.'

BUMBOATS AND BUMBOATMEN. 'By the deep seventy-five fathoms!' is the cry that cheers the heart of poor Jack, who, perhaps, like the sweet little cherub, is perched up aloft, keeping a sharp look-out for the first hazy outline of distant land. After four months of nothing but the waste of waters in its variations from intense calm to surging hurricane, it is with no small delight that the watch on deck hear the mate pass the word to bend the line to the deep-sea lead. Then weary, anxious faces look over the ship's side to watch for a discolouring in the perpetual blue. Listening ears eagerly catch the words sung out sturdily by the man in the chains, as his stalwart arm swings the lead backwards and forwards with gradually increasing velocity, until it has gained sufficient impetus to be swung far ahead of the ship's cutwater. The rest flies round like lightning; the rope slips as rapidly through the hand of the leadsman, till, with sudden jerk, he stops its further progress. The bottom has been found, and when the deep-sea lead is again hauled up and over the ship's side, to it is found attached samples of the ground far beneath the ocean whither its weight has penetrated. The watch down below have turned out a full two hours before their time. But the biscuit and muddy coffee, with the scraps of salt-junk which constitute the daily breakfast, are swallowed with difficulty and disdain. They long now for shore luxuries, and as they near the land, keep a sharp look-out for that invaluable fellow, the bumboatman, who watches the signal-staff with the eyes of a vulture, and will put out to sea at all seasons and hours to meet the coming ship, with his store of looked-for luxuries.

Here we are with a leading wind, steering direct for the beautiful island of Pulo Penang. The high hill in the centre, surmounted by the signal-staff, is distinctly visible from deck, though we are forty miles away from the harbour. But the old signalsergeant has a good glass up there, and has already espied us, as his flag announces to eager Abraham Brown,' that patriarch of all Eastern boatmen, who carries about with him a goodly sized quarto volume full of certificates from nautical customers, which are worded in every vein of humour conceivable, and an exact copy of which would be worthy of a place in the British Museum. Abraham Brown has spied the signal, and though we cannot see him, nor he us, be assured he has put out to sea in his trusty and capacious boat, bringing with him much of this world's creature comforts, and an abundance of fruit and vegetables. The wind is rather against him, but he can work traverse sailing as well as the best navigator, and keep beating about the channel through which only vessels can enter the harbour.

The old black cook, in his blacker caboose; the usually industrious steward, and his hard-worked mate in the cabin, are alike neglectful this morning of their usual routine of duty. But such is the goodhumour prevalent fore and aft, that not a murmur escapes the lips of the most impatient spirits. If the pea-soup is smoked, and the dough boiled into a paste, it matters but little. Under any circumstances they would both remain untasted, for just as the dinner-hour has been piped, the man at the foretop hails the deck, and announces sail ho! on the larboardbow. In less than half an hour afterwards, Abraham Brown and his bumboat are towing alongside, and Abraham Brown gets up on deck; and the odour

any

that pervades the deck fore and aft is no longer that of pitch and tar, and salt fish and slush tubs, and other abominations, but the fragrance of the produce of a grateful soil; for Abraham Brown never forgets, amongst other things, to bring off baskets full of roses, jasmine, and other sweet-scented flowers, which the sailors purchase as eagerly as ball-going damsel; and after cramming as many into a pannikin full of water as it will hold, decorate their hats with the remainder, or sometimes form beautiful festoons all about the ship's rigging. In a very short space of time the bumboat is emptied of its freight, for there are willing hands and strong arms at work, and the baskets containing the goods are carefully ranged along the lea-skuppers, under shelter of the bulwark. What do the baskets contain? What do they not contain? Ask Jack yonder, who is hitching up his trousers, and rattling the dollars in his pocket as he contemplates the rich store before him, and is only at a loss on which particular basket first to commence his onslaught. Shall it be the mangostein, rivalling in flavour, and as cool by nature as the most carefully iced raspberries? Shall it be the plantains, not to be surpassed by the finest cream and strawberries? Shall it be the mangoes, or the guavas; the oranges, or shadocks; or shall it be the huge dhurian, rough and coarse without, and abominable of odour within. Even in the choice made in these baskets, one may discriminate the characters and dispositions of the purchasers. The black cook chooses the dhurian, because it is the largest and cheapest, and good enough, he says, for such old bones as his. But when he opens it near the galley-door, he runs imminent risk of being pitched overboard, fruit and all, for the stench pervades every nook and corner of the vessel, and interferes sadly with the enjoyment of the rest of the crew. The dhurian, however, after being opened and exposed to the air for some hours, loses all smell, and is really a succulent and pleasant fruit; besides which, the kernels make a capital substitute for chestnuts, which are unknown in these parts. But Abraham Brown has other things to vend besides fruits, else would our long-tailed Chinese carpenter fare badly. With the forethought acquired by long experience, the bumboatman has supplied himself with Chon-Chon soup and pork, as prepared by the itinerant vendors of ready-cooked meats that traverse the streets from morning till night in Penang. He has, moreover, for the use of the cabin and fo'castle, butcher's meat in abundance: half oxen and whole sheep and pigs, whilst the baker has furnished him with mountains of well-baked bread, biscuits, cakes, and macaroons. Then, in fifty bottles, he has brought off all the fresh milk he can procure, and in fifty earthenware pots as much fresh butter, and a prodigious quantity of lemons, wherewith to make lemonade this hot afternoon. There never was such a splendid tea-party in any part of the world as assembles that afternoon in the fo'castle deck. They may be provided with better table-linen, finer napkins, more costly china, and far more refined company, but the bill of fare cannot be surpassed, or even rivalled. Such fruit, such flowers, such bread and butter and preserves, such tea, such milk, such 'sudden deaths' and grills, resulting from basketloads of unhappy chickens that have been transferred from the bumboat with very trifling intermediate process to the caboose fire! I repeat, such a meal never was or can be surpassed in the world.

A very different personage from Abraham Brown is Chinatumby-Motoosawing, who boards us as soon as we cast anchor in the Madras roads, and a very differently assorted cargo he brings with him to pander to the tastes of all hands. The high surf running on the Madras beach at all seasons of the year, makes the granting of shore-leave to seamen a matter of sometimes angry altercation between themselves and

the captain, so they are permitted to enjoy themselves as much as they can aboard.

No sooner has the skipper gone ashore, and the sails been carefully stowed, the ropes coiled up, the deck washed down, and awnings spread fore and aft, with a curtain between us and the sun, than over the side comes Mr Chinatumby. After him make their appearance two grotesque-looking figures all but nude, with their dark skins plentifully besprinkled with flour and ashes, and many-coloured stripes drawn down the forehead, and converging at the nose, over which feature one broad dab of yellow extends. These are the snake-charmers. Up comes a juggler in a somewhat similar costume. Up comes the washing-man and ironing-man (for the laundry is exclusively conducted by men in India) in pretty nearly no costume at all. Up comes the dubash, like a tallow candle, swathed in muslin, and with a very bright wafer stuck between his eyes. In one hand he clutches firmly a huge old pocket-book, full of most laudatory testimonials, highly creditable to the bearer, except for the fact of their being invariably either forged or stolen. Up comes a seedy old individual in European costume, with a shocking bad hat, and no shoes or stockings; this is the Fiddle, and after him comes up the Fife, who is his exact counterpart. By and by, when the evening is cool, and every one in a merry humour, we are going to have a little dance upon deck. Lastly, up comes the lion of the bumboat, the Madras jeweller, who, in his sash and manifold pockets, carries about with him marvellous Trichinopoly chains and rubies, emeralds, cat's-eyes, bloodstones, amethysts, &c., set as rings and brooches of very elegant patterns, costly withal, and very beautiful to look upon, so long as the setting will hold together (which will not be many days after purchase), and prevent the glass from rolling out, and revealing the skilfully glazed paper, of divers colours and hues, which have been the cause of the gross imposition. The boatmen hand up the various baskets, and Jack is rather at a loss to account for the hissing that proceeds from some of the flattest of them. They contain the educated cobras, who dance to the music of the Charmer.

There is no end to this fellow's marvellous tricks. When he opens his baskets, and produces hideous music from his gourd-like flageolet, wagging his head from side to side to mark the time, the loathsomelooking masses, coiled up in sand-baskets, begin to shew evident emotion, and slowly raising their hideous heads, expand their throats, and imitate the motions of the musicians, taking instant advantage of any pause to dart spitefully forward, and endeavour to fix their fangs upon the naked arms of the charmer; a proceeding which at first greatly alarms the ship's crew, who make a precipitate retreat from the poop, and only return after the urgent solicitations of the dubash, who acts interpreter, and then only when armed with a belaying-pin apiece. As this entertainment grows to a close, a careful observer may perceive a shadow of doubt cross the charmer's face, as he watches his opportunity to make a sudden grab at the snake's neck, which, having accomplished, he forces it into the basket, and puts the lid on instanter. So he serves the rest; and Jack thinks how delighted his old mother at home will be, when he casts anchor alongside of her some fine evening, and tells her that the charmers spoken of by David are yet extant in the east. The sun is setting when the Tomasha finishes for the day, and the boat-load returns to the shore, highly satisfied with its day's work. The dhoby, or washerman, carries with him huge bundles of clothes, which, if returned at all when in a purified state, will be sadly diminished in numbers, or misrepresented by worthless old rags, so got up and folded, as to look very clean and nice indeed. If the people in the boat are happy, Jack is in his glory, for they have kept the two Portuguese musicians on

board, and mean to retain them as long as they are in harbour.

The most indolent bumboatmen in the world are those at Alexandria, in Egypt. They dare not board a ship until she is at anchor, and has obtained pratique from the health-office, when the captain provides everything requisite from the shore. So they float lazily up and down amongst the shipping, ever and anou shouting out Ebryting,' which is supposed to mean their stock in trade, whereas they have really next to nothing to sell. Sometimes a few oranges or other fruit procures them a customer on board; but it is when a vessel is just on the eve of sailing that they make their grand haul. Then they come alongside with large wicker-cages full of beautiful pigeons, which are sure to be purchased as pets, as will also be the parrots, and the young rabbits and hares. Sometimes they bring off a monkey or two, which prove irresistible baits. Nothing Jack likes better than Jacko's company for a long voyage.

The Maltese bumboatmen principally confine their wares to kid-gloves, and filigree-work in silver and gold, besides a quantity of prettily-got-up charms. But the most audacious villains are those bumboatmen that cruize off Spain and about the gut of Gibraltar: if you won't purchase the bread and meat they have smuggled off at the risk of their own life and liberty, they do their best to give you a parting stick with a stiletto, or, when foiled in this, and made to drop astern, fire a parting shot at the first object that offers itself to their aim. On the whole, however, the bumboatman is a useful institution for us poor hard-worked and badly-fed sailors, who, after months of peril, exposure, and suffering, find in the contents of his cornucopia a panacea for all human ills.

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BETWEEN LONDON AND PARIS. FRENCH people, in general, cannot or will not understand the habits and customs of English society. Their ignorance is almost as great as that of the boy who thought that the late Prince Consort lived entirely on Albert rock.

On the other hand, we must not forget that it is not so very long since we English took every foreigner for a Frenchman, who ate frogs, and was bred up to play the fiddle, and teach dancing.

Some customs in London are entirely contrary to those of Paris. Our soldiers wear red coats and blue trousers; French soldiers wear blue coats and red trousers. Parisians pay their fare in getting into a 'bus, while we pay when we get out. We have all our sewers under the street, but any one who has been in Paris can tell (by his nose) that such a custom is not adopted there. Here the washerwomen stand outside their tubs, and put their clothes into them; in Paris, the women stand in the tubs, and wash their clothes in the river. In England, we take the left side of the road in driving; in France, they take the right. Here military and naval officers wear their uniforms as little as possible, while in France it is the reverse. We say 540 Oxford Street; they say, Oxford Street 540. We in our books put the table of contents at the beginning, they put it with the index. In courts of justice, we have to prove the offence before the prisoner is found guilty; they examine the prisoner himself, and commence the trial by stating that he is guilty, leaving it to him to prove that he is not so. In English hotels, we have chambermaids to clean our bedrooms and make our beds, while in France such chambermaids are men. Our porters carry their burdens on their heads; in France, their backs are employed for that purpose. We forbid altogether begging in the streets, while in Paris begging is a legal calling; or rather, there are 100 or 200 infirm, crippled, or diseased persons, who, being unable to provide themselves with a living, have permission to beg in the streets, this authority being indicated by a stamped plate, which each is compelled to wear. On the other hand, we have plenty of crossing-sweepers, a class of people unknown in Paris.

Paris, however, is rapidly becoming Anglicised and Americanised; everywhere you will hear the English tongue spoken. There is even a place in Paris which resembles the city eating-houses, such as Joe's. In

PRICE 14d.

the Rue Royale, close against the Madeleine, will be seen His Lordship's Larder-a Parisian imitation of the eating-house of that name in Cheapside overagainst Bow Church. There you can have roast-beef and potatoes (called by the waiters rosbif aux pommes), with chop and kidney to follow, with draught London stout half and half, or 'Olesop's Pell Elle.' 'City prices' are also charged-beef-steak and potatoes are 1 franc; chop, potatoes, and bread, 90 centimes; cold meat and bread, 75 centimes; 'portion de pain en supplément,' 15 centimes; sandwisch,' 50 centimes; eggs and bacon, 1 franc 15 centimes; 'Stilgton' cheese, 40 centimes; 'Chester' do., 30; a 'demiChester' being 20 centimes; plumpuding au rhum, 50 centimes; and beer 60 centimes a pint. The garçon expects two sous. The meat is very good, although not equal to ours; but what is wanting in quality is made up in quantity. As may be supposed, this place is much frequented by the mercantile English, and by no means despised by the natives. Scattered up and down the rooms are the Times, Illustrated London News (which is in great demand), the Daily News, the Daily Telegraph, and other periodicals, not detained by the authorities; for although liberty of the press is supposed to exist in France, stoppages in transitu are no uncommon occurrences. Pale ale and London stout are now getting very common in Paris. Other articles of English produce and manufacture are also largely used; and the effect of the new commercial treaty is, generally, very apparent.

In walking through the streets, customs may be noticed which are common both to London and Paris. Advertisements are posted almost everywhere; every blank space, every dead-wall, has its gorgeous postingbills. Every turn you take, you are informed that M. Roques has got the largest stock in the world of left-off garments, selling off at ridiculously small prices. The wording of these advertising puffs is very flowery and grandiloquent, a great use being made of mythological similes, expressed in words of three or four syllables. Indicators, which with us have met with such a decided opposition, are in Paris everywhere to be seen; so shop-roguery is not a whit less prevalent in Paris than it is in London. The shopkeeper has the same dodge of putting à partir de 6 francs,' corresponding with our 'from 58.,' and 2 francs 95 centimes, as we put 28. 114d. So also you can see goods in the drapers' shops to be sold at 1 franc 50 centimes a

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