their martial weapons. Here are helmets, cuirasses, shields, sabres, rifles, pistols, Zouave turbans, and other military toys in wonderful profusion. Here, also, we have pictures of the war in the Crimea. In front of these is a large model representing a battle between French and Chinese troops. On one side of the model is a formidable-looking cannon; on the other side is a field battery complete. Some shops sell nothing but military toys. Even as the French girl, from very infancy, is inculcated with a love of dress, fashionable life, and expensive habits, so the French youth, from the moment he begins to toddle about, is rendered familiar, so far as toys can teach him, with the arts of warfare. The military toys of France have a much larger share than is generally imagined in moulding French character. But there are many toys of a wholly scientific character. The influence of the technical education so common in France receives an illustration in the large number of model retorts, blowpipes, and other essentials of the laboratory, which are annually disposed of. Then there are toys remarkable for ingenuity of construction. Here are a couple of frogs fighting a duel, an owl sentencing a sparrow to death, a rabbit playing on the tambourine, a lobster's claw fashioned into the semblance of an odd-looking personage with a remarkably hooked nose, and other curiosities of toy construction. Most of these are of German manufacture, Saxony and Nuremberg supplying the larger portion. From these latter places come also the toy printing presses, magic lanterns, magnetic toys, and other marvels of childhood. "The articles made of glass," says a recent writer, " come from Bohemia; and from the Black Forest the tiny furniture in white or painted. wood, grocery shops, tobacco shops, and kitchens in which nothing. is wanting. The household utensils in pottery and porcelain, dolls' heads of porcelain, bedsteads, toilet tables, jugs and basins, Zouaves, and Imperial Guards in tin or lead, lotoes, dominoes, humming tops, wheelbarrows, shovels, and rakes are the produce of the French departments." According to the Official Catalogue of the French Exhibition, the greater number of toys are made in Paris. They are nearly all made by hand. A large number of women are employed in making dolls' clothing alone. About 2,200 persons are occupied in the manufacture of the small toys, child labour not being resorted to. The French exports of toys now exceed half a million pounds sterling in value per annum. English toys, especially those made of wood, do not command a large sale in Paris. The toys sold in the booths on the Boulevards are almost entirely produced by the stall-keepers, who sometimes contrive to dispose of the produce of several months' labour during the ten days they are permitted to monopolise the Boulevards, the great sale taking place on New Year's Day.

F

But, large as is the sale of toys on New Year's Day, it is considerably exceeded by that of confectionery, principally in the shape of bonbons. It is almost worth the cost and trouble of a journey to Paris merely to view the great confectionery shops on the Boulevards at Christmas time or on New Year's Day. The English are great lovers of sugar, but by them the saccharine delicacy is used principally for flavouring tea, coffee, fruit pies, and similar purposes; while in France a very large percentage, far higher than with us, is consumed in the manufacture of confectionery. It has been stated that the consumption of sugar in France amounts annually to 15lbs. per head. In this country it is about the same. The annual value of the home-made sweets consumed by the French people is estimated at 1,100,000l., exclusive of those imported from England, which are valued at 200,000l. more. The favourite French confection is the bonbon or sugar-plum. The sale of these, on certain occasions, such as New Year's Day, is something enormous. There are several large shops in Paris devoted wholly to the manufacture and sale of bonbons. The most famous of these is in the Rue de la Paix. Here, at the beginning of December, a strange scene of industrial activity is to be witnessed, upwards of three hundred workmen being busily employed in preparing sweets for the coming demand on New Year's Day. A visitor tells us that the entire underground portion of the premises is devoted to the manufacture of bonbons. "On descending the stone staircase one finds oneself in a stifling atmosphere, heavily laden with the aroma of vanilla and other essences. Around are scores of workmen, their faces lighted up with the red glare of numerous furnaces, busily engaged in plunging particular fruits into large cauldrons filled with boiling syrups. More in the shade are other stalwart-looking men, their countenances made pallid by the intensely heated atmosphere, piling up almonds, &c., on huge copper vessels; and so constant is the sound of metal clashing against metal that the visitor might imagine himself in an armour smithy instead of a sweetmeat factory, amongst workmen making bonbons for women and children to crunch. On all sides are piles of sugar loaves, gallons of liqueurs, syrups, and essences-kirsch, rum, aniseed, noyeau, maraschino, curacao, pineapple, apricot, strawberry, cherry, vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and tea-with sacks of almonds and baskets of chestnuts, pistachio nuts, and filberts, being emptied into machines which braize their husks, flay them, and blanche them all ready to receive their saccharine coating." There is no need to follow the process of manufacture; it is more interesting to witness than to describe. Very tempting is the appearance of the fresh bonbons-white, pink, mauve, and other colours-as they are poured into the large boxes where they are kept until wanted. They are of all shapes and sizes, from the tiny comfit to the enormous plum; but, vast as is the stock so rapidly accumulating, the evening of New Year's Day will behold it diminished more than one-half.

The boxes in which the bonbons are sold are of every conceivable shape, style, and price. Some are of a most artistic character and

very expensive. The beautiful boxes, filled with preserved fruits or sweetmeats, so common in the English grocers' shops at Christmas time, are chiefly of French manufacture. Every description of material is employed in the ornamentation of these confectionery receptacles. Silk, velvet, satin, lace, glass, pearl, silver, and embossed leather are largely used. Immense numbers of coloured prints are also employed. The preparation of these prints affords occupation to some hundreds of skilled French artistes. They are chiefly coloured by hand, although the aid of chromo-lithography is annually becoming more and more resorted to. The coloured prints are subsequently covered with thin sheets of bright, transparent, and colourless isinglass, after which they are ready for use. It is impossible to imagine a prettier sight than the interior of a bonbon-box manufactory in full work. Coloured pictures, strips of rich velvet, piles of fancy ornaments, strings of pearls, silken love-knots, rolls of tinfoil, sheets o glittering tinsel, heaps of artificial flowers, and trays filled with small metal decorations surround us on all sides. The long work-benches are lined with rows of young women busily engaged in ornamenting the plain-looking boxes piled up at their sides. In the more 'elaborate details the work of the females is generally supplemented by that of the men. The small boxes, requiring no particular skill in manufacture, are generally made by women and children. Some of the boxes are adorned with small-coloured plaster models and figures similar to those with which we are familiar on the top of twelfth-cakes. These ornaments are also of French manufacture. On the Boulevards there are several shops devoted entirely to their sale. Almost every kind of human and animal figure is represented, chiefly in a grotesque and exaggerated form. The talent of the modeller seems entirely devoted to the labour of discovering fresh modes of distorting the human face and figure. The follies of the day are unmercifully satirised in the shape of toys representing fashionable ladies with enormous chignons, Parisian swells attired in true advertising-tailor style, military dandies, and similar characters. One favourite model is that of the English tourist attired in a suit of tweed, with travelling bag and Murray complete. Sometimes he is represented as accompanied by his wife and daughters, who have a stolid, ungraceful, doll-like appearance. The military element, however, predominates. We have before us almost every branch of the French military profession represented by the art of the modeller. Sometimes his genius takes a more serious turn, but as a rule his love of humour predominates. This year the opening of the Suez Canal has proved a windfall to him, furnishing him with an excuse for filling the shop windows with thousands of Arabs, Egyptians, Turks, camels, and other peculiar and interesting features of Oriental life.

"But why," some of my younger readers may ask, "should there be such a great sale of these expensive trifles on New Year's Day?" Simply because it is the great day for the interchange of presents. Everybody looks to receiving something from everybody else, hence, from daybreak until long after dark, there is a general giving and accepting going on, not merely in Paris, but through

out the whole of France. The toys are, of course, the anticipated perquisites of the little ones, the expensive boxes of sweetmeats being reserved for the adults. Articles of a really useful character seem in little favour. However expensive, the presents must be of a light or frivolous character. This is the dark side of the picture, a feature which seems to cast a gloom over the whole of the scene. Everything appears wholly unreal and artificial. It is as if we were breathing the atmosphere of the stage rather than that of real life. All is show, glitter, and tinsel. There is nothing solid or enduring. The crowd presses along the Boulevards, now halting at some shop more brilliant than its neighbours, now surging onward in the direction of distant musical strains, now gazing at the floods of light which pour from the interior of gay cafés, now listening to the low murmur of curiosity and surprise as the carriage of the Emperor dashes proudly by; but no one appears to see the ragged, evil-featured human ghouls which silently prowl on the outskirts of the multitude. In its fondness for pleasure, in its passionate love of trifles, Paris sometimes forgets that there are more serious matters demanding its attention. But it is of no use to mention this. A grand military spectacle will render the Parisians happy as children, and the excitement of New Year's Day on the Boulevards is sufficient to make them forget everything save the glories of the great festival of toys and bonbons. Yet there are some who reproach us that we do not imitate Continental life a little more closely! Perhaps we are wise in leaving well alone.

THE MOST POPULAR SUBJECT IN THE WORLD.

ADDRESSED TO YOUNG PEOPLE BETWEEN SIXTEEN AND SIX-AND

TWENTY.

LONG before those seven years which Jacob served for Rachel, and which the inspired historian beautifully tells us "seemed but a few days for the love he had to her," "love's young dream" painted life in the brightest colours, and portrayed one object especially as the fairest in all the world. So it has been ever since, and so no doubt it will be as long as the world lasts. It has most commonly been the poet's first inspiration, and very often it has been his last. Whatever other charms romance may have this is its greatest. A novelist would be deemed a very courageous man, and it would be taken for granted that he was conscious of more than ordinary powers of interesting his readers, if he left out love from his story. Writers of fiction know very well that not only young people, but also staid spinsters and bachelors of every age, and grave fathers and mothers-nay, even staid old grandfathers and grandmothers, if the print be only large enough for failing eyes, will follow through a long tale the varying fortunes of the hero and the heroine till they see them triumphant over all obstacles and perils, and fairly

wedded. Let no one, then, accuse us of putting thoughts on this matter into young people's heads. In nearly all cases-if not literally in all—they are there already. One gets a notion now and then of what passes in very juvenile parties. Are we wrong in saying that very old-fashioned attentions are on such occasions often interchanged by very small people? And is it quite an uncommon thing for a part of the pastime of the evening to consist of a mimic wedding? Already, even with them, the dream has begun. It is said-we cannot vouch for the fact, happily not belonging to either class-that maiden ladies and bachelors of fiveand-forty dream quite as romantically as if they were less than half the age-nay, that there are even dreamers of threescore-andten. It belongs, we suppose, to our human nature just as to eat and drink and sleep belongs to it; and to take it away, if that were possible, would be to take away some of the brightest poetry of life. Then, too, how much of human happiness centres in that fairest spot in all the earth, that best relic of the primal Eden, that goal to which true reciprocal affection ever tends the home of wedded love! Besides, the union in which the love of which we are speaking finds its consummation is the great Creator's law; and the marriage-feast in Cana tells us with what interest the Lord Jesus Himself regarded the union of kindred hearts.

Well, now, perhaps you will say, "The natural deduction from all that, is that we are to think about nothing else, to talk about it, and dream about it, and read about it, and scheme about it, and to pair off at once." With all sympathy with youthful dreamers we say, No; and it is one great end we have in view to persuade you not to do that. We should like to say something very prosaic and practical on this subject, respecting which there is so much romance. We want you, as though there were old heads on these young shoulders of yours, to listen to a few things we have to suggest, to weigh them well, and, as they commend themselves to your sober judgment, to act upon them.

There is a phrase which we have already used which we will take leave to use again, for the sake of making a remark or two about it "Love's young dream." Now, everybody knows that there is often a wonderful difference between dreams and waking realities. Many a youth has dreamt that he was going to marry an angel, who has awoke to find that he had married a woman—a woman who lacked nineteen-twentieths of the perfections which he had imagined in his angel, and with some defects not angelic at all. Burns's flames were, it is said, many of them, very common-place young women, and yet how he could sing about them! Those two stout, matter-of-fact, middle-aged people struggling with the realities of life-paterfamilias worried with business all day, and going home at night to nod, perhaps to snore, over his newspaper; materfamilias busy about washings, and darnings, and bakings, and the dressmaker who seem as though they never could have had a spark of romance in either of their souls, were twenty years ago angels in each other's eyes. There are two very passable but really not very extraordinary young people whose supreme delight is in each other's society, and each of whom, it may be, worships