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pianos for ten sous, and plays at the "Petit Lazari," | style which gives entire families and individuals, at of a night for two francs. Indeed his whole family plays; his grandmother plays the "Mother of the Gracchi." He takes care too of his wife's father, but he dresses him up as a Pair de France, or a Doge, and makes a good deal out of him also. Besides, he has a dog which he expects soon to play the "Chien de Montargis," he is studying; and a magpie which plays already in the "Pie Voleuse." It is by these several industries that he is enabled to clean my boots once a day, take care of my room, and do all the domestic services required by a bachelor at six francs a month; and he has grown into good circumstances. But, alas, impartial fate knocks at the Porter's Lodge, as at the gates of the Louvre. He had an only son, who, in playing Collin last winter, a shepherd's part in a vaudeville, had to wear a pair of white muslin breeches in the middle of the inclement season, and he took cold and died of a fluxion de poitrine! The mother wept in telling this story, and then, some one coming in, she smiled.

One is usually a little shy of these hotels, at first sight; especially if one comes from the Broad Mountain. You take hold of an unwieldy knocker, you lift it up cautiously, and open flies the door six inches; you then push yourself through, and look about with a kind of a suspicious and sheepish look, and you see no one. At length, you discover an individual, who will not seem to take the least notice of you, till you intrude rather far; then he will accost you: Que demandez-vous, Monsieur?-I wish to see Mr. Smith. Monsieur?-Monsieur, il ne demeure pas ici-Que tu es bête! exclaims the wife, c'est Monsieur Smit. Qui, oui, oui-au quatrième, Monsieur, audessus de l'entresol; and with this information, of which you understand not a syllable, you proceed up stairs, and there you ring all the bells to the garret; but no one knows Mr. Smith. Why don't you say Mr. Smit?

The houses here are by no means simple and uniform, as with us. The American houses are built, as ladies are dressed, all one way. First, there is a pair of rival saloons, which give themselves the air of parlors; and then there is a dining room, and corresponding chambers above to the third or fourth story; and an entry runs through the middle or along side, a mile or two without stopping; at the farthest end of which is the kitchen; so that one always stands upon the marble of the front door in December, until Kitty has travelled this distance to let one in. How many dinners have I seen frozen in their own sauces, how many lovers chilled, by this refrigeratory process?-Here if you just look at the knocker, the door, as if by some invisible hand, flies open; and when you descend, if you say "Cordon," just as Ali Baba said "Sesame," the door opens, and delivers you to the street. The houses too have private rooms, and secret doors, and intricate passages; and one can be said to be at home in one's own house. I would like to see any one find the way to a lady's boudoir. A thief designing to rob has to study beforehand the topography of each house; without which, he can no more unravel it than the Apocalypse. There are closets too and doors in many of the rooms unseen by the naked eye. If a gentleman is likely to be intruded on by the bailiff, he sinks into the earth; and a lady, if surprised in her dishabille or any such emergency, just disappears into the wall.

No private dwellings are known in Paris. A

a price that would procure them very mean separate lodgings, the air of living in a great castle; and they escape by it, all that emulation about houses, and door servants, and street display, which brings so much fuss and expense in our cities. I have seen houses a little straitened, that were obliged to give Cæsar a coat to go to the door, another to bring in dinner, and another to curry the horses. To climb up to the second or third story is to be sure inconvenient; but once there your climbing ends. Parlors, bed-rooms, kitchen and all the rest are on the same level. In America you have the dinner in the cellar, and the cook in the garret; and nothing but ups and downs the whole day. Moreover, climbing is a disposition of our nature. "In our proper motion we ascend." See with what avidity we climb when we are boys; and we climb when we are old, because it reminds us of our boyhood. I have no doubt that the daily habit of climbing too has a good moral influence; it gives one dispositions to rise in the world. I ought to remark here, that persons in honest circumstances do not have kitchens in their own houses.

It is in favor of the French style not a little, that it improves the quality at least of one class of lodgers. Mean houses degrade men's habits, and lower their opinions of living. As for me, I like this Paris way, but I don't know why. I like to see myself under the same roof with my neighbors. One of them is a pretty woman, with the prettiest little foot imaginable; and only think of meeting this little foot, with which one has no personal acquaintance, three or four times a day on the staircase! Indeed, the solitude of a private dwelling begins to seem quite distressing. To be always with people one knows! It paralyzes activity, breeds selfishness and other disagreeable qualities. Solitary life has its vices too as well as any other. On the other hand, a community of living expands

one's benevolent affections, begets hospitality, mu- | tual forbearance, politeness, respect for public opinion, and keeps cross husbands from beating their wives, and vice versa. If Xantippe had lived in a French hotel, she would not have kept throwing things out of the window upon her husband's head. The domestic virtues are to be sure well enough in their way; but they are dull, and unless kept in countenance by good company, they go too soon to bed. Indeed that word "home," so sacred in the mouths of Englishmen, often means little else than dozing in an arm chair, listening to the squeaking of children, or dying of the vapors; at all events, the English are the people of the world most inclined to leave these sanctities of home. Here they are, by hundreds, running in quest of happiness all about Europe.

The manner of keeping Sunday is a subject of general censure amongst our American visitors at Paris. There is no visible difference between this day and the others, except that the gardens and public walks, the churches in the morning, and the ball rooms and theatres in the evening, are more than usually crowded. In London, the bells toll the

Sunday most solemnly; the theatres and dancing rooms are silent, and all the shops (but the gin shop) shut; yet the poor get drunk, and the equipages of the gentry parade their magnificence on Hyde Park, of a Sunday evening.

"How do you spend your Sundays," said a Frenchman, condoling with another, "in America?" He replied: "Monsieur, je prends medecine.” A Frenchman has a tormenting load of animal spirits that cannot live without employment: he has no idea of happiness in a calm; and it is not likely that he will remain "endimanché chez-lui" during the twelve hours of the day, or that his Sunday evenings would be better employed than in the theatre and ball room. This is my opinion; but I have great doubts whether a man ought to have an opinion of his own, when it does not correspond with that of others, who are notoriously wiser than himself. I cannot easily persuade myself, that nature has intended the whole of this life to be given up to a preparation for the next, else had she not given us all these means of enjoyment, all these "delicacies of taste, sight, smell, herbs, fruits and flowers, walks and the melody of birds."

THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN AND HIS WATER LOTS.
BY GEORGE. P. MORRIS. 1839.

How much real comfort every one might enjoy,
if he would be contented with the lot in which heaven
has cast him, and how much trouble would be avoid-
ed if people would only "let well alone." A mod-
erate independence, quietly and honestly procured,
is certainly every way preferable even to immense
possessions achieved by the wear and tear of mind
and body so necessary to procure them. Yet there
are very few individuals, let them be doing ever so
well in the world, who are not always straining
every nerve to do better; and this is one of the many
causes why failures in business so frequently occur
among us.
The present generation seem unwilling
to "realize" by slow and sure degrees; but choose
rather to set their whole hopes upon a single cast,
which either makes or mars them for ever!

Gentle reader, do you remember Monsieur Poopoo? He used to keep a small toy-store in Chatham, near the corner of Pearl-street. You must recollect him, of course. He lived there for many years, and was one of the most polite and accommodating of shopkeepers. When a juvenile, you have bought tops and marbles of him a thousand times. To be sure you have; and seen his vinegar-visage lighted up with a smile as you flung him the coppers; and you have laughed at his little straight queue and his dimity breeches, and all the other oddities that made up the every-day apparel of my little Frenchman. Ah, I perceive you recollect him now.

Well, then, there lived Monsieur Poopoo ever since he came from " dear, delightful Paris," as he was wont to call the city of his nativity-there he took in the pennies for his kickshaws-there he laid aside five thousand dollars against a rainy daythere he was as happy as a lark--and there, in all human probability, he would have been to this very day, a respected and substantial citizen, had he been willing to "let well alone." But Monsieur Poopoo had heard strange stories about the prodigious rise in real estate; and, having understood that most of,

his neighbors had become suddenly rich by speculating in lots, he instantly grew dissatisfied with his own lot, forthwith determined to shut up shop, turn every thing into cash, and set about making money in right down earnest. No sooner said than done; and our quondam storekeeper a few days afterward attended an extensive sale of real estate, at the Merchants' Exchange.

There was the auctioneer, with his beautiful and inviting lithographic maps-all the lots as smooth and square and enticingly laid out as possible-and there were the speculators-and there, in the midst of them, stood Monsieur Poopoo.

"Here they are, gentlemen," said he of the hammer, "the most valuable lots ever offered for sale. Give me a bid for them?"

"One hundred each," said a bystander. "One hundred!" said the auctioneer, "scarcely enough to pay for the maps. One hundred-going and fifty-gone! Mr. H. they are yours. A noble purchase. You'll sell those same lots in less than a fortnight for fifty thousand dollars' profit!"

Monsieur Poopoo pricked up his ears at this, and was lost in astonishment. This was a much easier way certainly of accumulating riches than selling toys in Chatham street, and he determined to buy and mend his fortune without delay.

The auctioneer proceeded in his sale. Other parcels were offered and disposed of, and all the purchasers were promised immense advantages for their enterprise. At last, came a more valuable parcel than all the rest. The company pressed around the stand, and Monsieur Poopoo did the same.

"I now offer you, gentlemen, these magnificent lots, delightfully situated on Long-Island, with valuable water privileges. Property in fee-title indisputable-terms of sale, cash-deeds ready for delivery immediately after the sale. How much for them? Give them a start at something. How much?" The auctioneer looked around; there

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