PROSPECTUS

OF THE

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, FOR 1850.

SIXTEENTH VOLUME.

A new volume of this long-established and favorite monthly was commenced on the 1st of January last. In issuing its Prospectus, the Editor does not deem it necessary to publish any long list of contributors or to indulge in any fulsome laudations of the Magazine. Its character is well-known throughout the country. For nearly sixteen years it has occupied the first rank of excellence in periodical literature. The Editor is determined to maintain its standing, by filling it with articles from the best pens in the country. The contents will embrace

Reviews, Historical and Biographical Sketches, Novels, Tales, Travels, Essays, Poems, Critiques, and Papers on the Army, Navy and other National Subjects.

The Messenger will also continue to present articles of a SCIENTIFIC character, such as dur ing the past year, have excited the most marked attention on both sides of the Atlantic. In the forthcoming volume, the Original Novel, of

THE SELDENS OF SHERWOOD, WILL BE CONTINUED.

The Editor has pleasure in announcing that his accomplished European Correspondent will continue to furnish the Magazine with

comprising all the items of foreign intelligence, and critical remarks on all novelties in Science, Literature and Art. The reader will find this correspondence a faithful reflection of Life in the French Capital. The political sagacity of the writer has been commended in the highest terms by the National Intelligencer.

Of the Editorial and Critical Department of the Messenger, the Editor will only say that it will embrace copious notes on current literature, and reviews of all new American or Foreign works of general interest and value. His opinions will at least be always fearlessly and honestly avowed.

CONDITIONS OF THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.

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RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, April, 1850.

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JNO. R. THOMPSON, Editor and Proprietor.

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PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM-JNO. R. THOMPSON, EDITOR AND PROPrietor.

VOL. XVI.

RICHMOND, MAY, 1850.

NO. 5.

I shall give a rapid sketch of what has met my

A Glance at the Streets of Paris during the eyes and attracted my attention, in the course of Winter of 1849--50.

BY AN AMERICAN.

Expectations of an American-Street-SweepersBeggars-Exhibitions--Coachmen and Valets-Vehicles-Abuse of Animals-Funerals—Soldiers-Children-Fondness for Dogs-Parisian Shops-Paris at Night—Historical Associations.

There must be to a citizen of the United States, visiting Paris for the first time, a thousand objects and a thousand usages which strike him with all the force of entire novelty. I speak merely of those objects which one sees, and of those usages which one observes in the streets, where the mœurs of a people can always be studied to the greatest advantage.

my walks, with the hope that so simple a record will produce a juster impression of Parisian realities, than any attempt at elaborate essay, in which truth is so often sacrificed to effect and the details of every-day life to the pomp of language.

It has been only during the winter season that I have seen Paris, and, in not expatiating upon the vernal beauties of the Garden of the Tuileries, or the Champs Elysées, I do not mean to accuse myself of being a Visigoth, as older residents would undoubtedly dub me, did I admit an insensibility to such charms.

which seems to proportion itself to the labor bestowed on the removal of the nuisance. An immense corps of street-sweepers is always at work brushing the liquid mud into the sewers of the

No American has ever sojourned in Paris during the most inclement mouths of the year, without being thoroughly annoyed by the inexhaustible supplies of mud which cover the pavements and sidewalks of every part of the city. An explanation of causes, it is to be feared, will have It is most true, as Washington Irving remarks, no consolatory tendencies, and, it is perhaps unthat to an American, Europe is the land of prom- necessary to say, that the only sure remedy ise: he fancies it the acme of human happiness, against the evil, is to trudge along with a goodas he looks at the Old World through the kalei-natured and never failing patience. The filthidoscope of imagination and the intervening dis-ness of the streets of Paris is chiefly occasioned tance of three thousand miles, to be able to gaze by the plastic clay which forms the natural soil, directly on magnificent palaces darkened by the and which continually works its way up between lapse of centuries, and associated in the annals the paving stones. Though carried off every of history with important political intrigues, with day by the carts of the municipality, a supply is fêtes of incomparable brilliancy, and often with immediately re-formed by an invisible process "midnight murder foul." Vague images also of ruined châteaus, ivy-mantled towers, sequestered vales, inexhaustible treasures of art, tend to fix in his mind ideas of unmingled pleasure. He does not care to reflect that wherever man is, city. These sweepers are usually women, who there are necessarily poverty and misery and wear slouched straw hats and dresses, originally crime. An experience of realities soon opens of every variety of colour, reduced to a certain his eyes, and not unfrequently a powerful reac- uniformity by the nature of their vocations. They tion takes place : he regrets the bright rays of a apply themselves with the greatest imaginable zeal western sun, the deep blue sky of his native land, to their task and attack their unconquerable enemy and at a distance of several thousand miles he dis- with a fureur which evinces a determination to covers unequalled beauties in those scenes which sweep it, (if such a thing were possible,) with the had surrounded him in his thoughtless infancy and besom of destruction. Their activity, the appahad never before excited the slightest sensibility. rent eccentricity of their movements, and the In common with many of our countrymen, I originality of their costume, reminds one of the have experienced these emotions, and I have witches in Macbeth. I saw a corps some days also felt a heart-sinking in vividly realizing that ago drawn up in military array, on the side walk, in Paris-the gayest and most brilliant metropo- under the command of a Paddock or Grimalkin, lis on earth—there is no exemption from inclement seasons, nor from all the various forms of human misery.

VOL. XVI-33

whose duty it was to see that they were all in place and to pay them their daily wages. These poor creatures seem to be perfectly content with

the few sous paid them by the authorities, and [and shrugging his shoulders as only a Frenchnever extend their hands nor direct a supplica-man can. One of this class, to whom I can ting glance to the passer-by. This leads me never find it in my heart tod eny anything, to mention another class of beings that I have is a sleek well-fed fellow who may usually be met in my walks-a class which the relation of found on the Boulevart Montmartre near the population to the means of subsistence makes but too numerous.

Passage du Panorama. He wears a leather skullcap, and has an umbrella in his hand. WhenIt is doubtless true that there are many efficient ever it raius and a carriage draws up to the sideand honest labourers in Paris, who have been walk, he rushes forward from the snug corner thrown out of employment by misfortune, or by where he has ensconced himself, opens the door the political revolutions of France, but how are and offers his umbrella. He awaits patiently the they to be distinguished among those hearty and return, from the Passage or the adjoining shops, able-bodied men who so frequently as "miséra- of those to whom he has so politely devoted bles pères de famille" pour their whining tales himself. My companion, one day that his serinto the ears of strangers in the rue de la Paix vices were more annoying than useful, asked him or the rue de Rivoil. There is nothing more what reward he expected. "Personne," replied calculated to excite all the generous sympathies he, with a polite bow, "n'est forcé de me donner of our nature, and to unloose the clutched hand quelque chose. Je me confie à la generosité pubof Avarice itself, than a poor woman, exposed lique." His politeness and the readiness of his to all the rigors of winter, nursing a new-born repartee quite won me, and I am sure, to judge child; and yet the Parisian journals inform us from appearances, his confidence in public libthat mendicant women are known to hire infants erality has not been misplaced. to increase the emoluments of their deceitful The number of those who endeavour to protrade. A knowledge of the impious frauds prac- cure the means of subsistence by grinding ortised by these simulators of human misery, has gans, playing on fifes, fiddles and a variety of induced me always to drop my little charity into other instruments, is very great. On a jour de the hand of the crippled, the deformed, or the fete I found the Place de la Bastille filled with blind. The other day, after I had been strolling singers of patriotic songs. Each performer was beneath the sombre arches of Notre Dame, I the nucleus of a group of blouses and loitering was coming out of the Church when a poor little soldiers of the line. Not far off on an adjoining deformed woman-not more than three feet Boulevart, was a mendicant musician, who conhigh-appealed to me for aid. I dropped a few stituted in himself a complete band. He wore sous into her hand. She immediately exclaimed, on his head a brass helmet, around which rows in a tone of the deepest fervor, "que le Bon of bells were hung, cymbals were fastened to his Dieu vous benisse !" I know not how it was, knees and drum sticks to his elbows. With the but these words, which the poor woman had per- music of "the ear-piercing fife" which he skilhaps uttered a thousand times before, made a fully played, he harmoniously blended the varied deep impression upon me. I could not help re- tones of clashing cymbals, jingling bells, and calling with what an air approaching to disdain, "spirit-stirring" drums. The notes of street orI have seen in proud Old England, those who gans, accompanied by the exhibition of the marwere not too proud to ask a gratuity, put a shil- vellous accomplishments of dogs and monkeys, ling or a half-crown into their pockets, while this are not quite so frequently heard in Paris as poor creature uttered a fervent ejaculation that formerly; but in so large a metropolis there is God would bless me for the infinitely smaller always enough of the concord of these sweet pittance I had given her. sounds to delight the ears of grinning urchins, or Among the troop of mendicants who do not disturb the delicate nerves of those who do not deserve, as they usually do not excite, sympathy, believe with Shakspeare, that "there is music in are those gamins, yes, and coquins too, whose every thing." Monkeys, in harlequin costume, polite avocation it is to open the doors of car- still make their grimaces on the Boulevarts to riages, to wait on the ladies, and in cases of ab- the strains of some inspiring air, and little dogs, straction of thought, to amuse themselves by ab-seated with judicial gravity on their nether ends, straction from the pocket. I was, on one occa- still divert the passing crowds of the Champs sion, so thoroughly annoyed by one of these use- Elysées, by performing with their forepaws the less and officious brats, that I refused to give him part allotted to the leader of the orchestra. Old his hoped-for sou. · Pas un sou," exclaimed he women and girls still pursue gay equipages with with an air of entreaty. "Non," said I, "pas the offering of fragrant violets-brought from un sou." The boy's countenance assumed an Heaven only knows where in the winter season; expression of intense vexation and disappoint-apple-women and cake-venders, perambulating ment; and as I drove off, I left him gesticulating salesmen of opera-glasses and spectacles, of