that our poor wounded taken prisoners are not treated at Versailles as well as they might be, while we on the contrary would be ashamed to make the least difference; a wounded man is no longer an enemy, Germans and French are nursed in the same hospitals, and receive the same fraternal care and affection.

the street, laugh and chat as if nothing were the matter. On Sundays the throng, instead of visiting the neighbouring villages, take the train that goes round Paris, and visit the fortifications. Hundreds flock to the Bois de Boulogne to view the defence there, and to grieve over our beautiful trees hewn to the ground, and to console themselves with the thought that new branches will spring from those root, and form shade for our children's children. If the eager spectator can only imagine that he gets a glimpse of a Prussian at St. Cloud, he returns home exulting; for so well do they hide themselves, that we are sometimes inclined to think that they are gone, or have never been there but in our imagination. Oh, if a miracle could be wrought in our favour! For my part, in spite of all the harm they have done us, I only desire to know that they are all safe at home in Germany.

May my next be surer of reaching you than this, and be the song of deliverance! Au revoir. S. A.

We are getting a formidable artillery ready. Several immense cannons, sending their balls to a great distance, have been lately placed in our forts. Every battalion of the National Guards have made a present to Government of a cannon the public subscription has given several whole batteries: every society of men, every company, every body of citizens given its cannon. The ladies have given one in their name: two evening lectures of the "Chêtiments," by Victor Hugo, have presented two. In fact everyone is generous, and Government have only to ask to have. Our foundries are hard at work, and deliver several weapons of defence daily. Happily we have plenty of metal, and if that failed there areour public monuments in bronze that would soon be converted into cannons. Perhaps history never presented such a case as ours. Our standing army either traitors or prisoners, or dead, and in two months, by the unheard-of activity of a few men, directed by our governor, we have a new army, It is a graceful habit for children to say to well clothed, well exercised, well armed. For each other: "Will you have the goodness?" and two months we have kept hundreds of thou-"I thank you." We don't like to see prim, sands of victorious troops at bay, when a few days only before their arrival we commenced getting our fortifications ready to defend us! Never was anyone more astounded than the Prussians, who fancied they would enter Paris as they had entered Nancy. At least, if we fall, it will be a glorious fall: but we shall not fall.

I have an old lady-friend here who witnessed the entry of the Allied Armies at the first invasion. In spite of her great age, she says that such a sight once in one's life is quite sufficient, and she would rather die with hunger than see it again. If the aged think thus, what must the young and vigorous feel!

Rumours of negotiations between the great Powers and the King of Prussia continue to reach us; but we have no idea that anything will ensue, nor do we desire it; for the giving up an inch of our territory would certainly cause a civil war, and we Parisians will never consent to it.

One of the balloons we sent off with our letters, containing also two men, was captured by the Prussians. It was the first they have taken since we have been obliged to employ that way of communicating with the world. Report says that our amiable foes have hawks to catch our poor innocent doves that bring us news from the world. But Report says so many unaccountable things; that often falser voice even says that the Prussians make cardboard batteries for us to waste our powder on, and, similarly, sentinels to deceive us when they leave a position. Enattendant no-one in the midst of Paris would imagine that we are besieged. People meet in

POLITENESS.

artificial children; there are few things we dislike so much as a miniature beau or belle. But the habit of good manners by no means implies affectation or restraint. It is quite as easy to say: "Please give me a piece,' as to say: "I want a piece of pie." The idea that constant politeness would render social life stiff and restrained springs from a false estimate of politeness. True politeness is perfect ease and freedom. It simply consists in treating others just as you would like to be treated yourself, A person who actso upon this principle may be said to have "sweet, pretty ways with her." It is of some consequence that your daughter should know how to enter and leave a room gracefully, but it is of prodigiously more consequence that she should be in the habit of avoiding whatever is disgusting or offensive to others, and of always considering their pleasure as well as her own.

THE CHOLERA.-It is much to be feared that the

horrors of pestilence will, ere loug, be added to those lera has appeared at Odessa, Rostow, Kertch, and of war; nor can it be a matter of wonder. The choTaganrog, in S.E. Russia, and will, in all probability, follow its usual track, until it arrives in this country. It is frightful to think of the number of victims which it will snatch from amongst the crowded, ill-fed, and wounded populations which now fill the frontier towns of Germany and France. But are we, who are not suffering from these inflictions, ready to meet the cholera if it comes? Is our health machinery in such perfect order, that we can calmly face the epidemic and defy it ? We think not.-Food Journal,

one.

OUR LIBRARY TABLE.

PERIODICALS.

of the community as well as admirable reading;
we quite congratulate the public as well as the
projectors of the "Food Journal" upon the
utility and success of the undertaking, which we
feel certain will work wholesome social refor-
"Familiar Tropical
mation in many ways.
Plants" is a pleasantly-written paper on a
pleasant subject, and amongst the paragraphs
there are some very good ones that are very
useful to the housewife.

AND

OTHER

ST. MARY MAGDALENE
POEMS. By Wilfred Mennell. (London:
Longmans, Green & Co.)-This volume, or
rather its appearance in the publishing world,
is a mistake, no one has a reason for sending
forth bad verse, still less for altering the simple
story of Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, for the
sake of making a metrical romance.
are the opening stanzas of the poem from which
the volume takes its name, let our readers
judge for themselves if the writer has improved
the text of the evangelists:

In the Christ-trodden land of Galilee,
On the shores of its blue and blessed sea
The castle of Magalon stood:
Here rich Syrus lived with his children three,
Young Lavarus, Mary the fair to see,

And Martha the prudently good.

O, the fairest child that ever was seen
Was the merry young Mary Magdalene,

THE FOOD JOURNAL. (J. M. Johnson and Sons, Castle St., Holborn)-The November part of this journal, the important character of which asserts itself more and more with each successive number, is an exceedingly interesting Still intent on showing English legislators the weakness of our legal code where fraudulent tradesmen are concerned, the articles entitled "Foreign Office Reports on the Adulteration of Food," are continued, and reveal to us that the inhabitants of almost every other nation in Europe and decidedly America, are better protected than ourselves from the practices of fraudulent tradesmen. In the United States the laws are extremely severe upon the venders of adulterated food or drink, but this severity seems to culminate in Georgia; where any baker, brewer, distiller, merchant, grocer, or other person selling unwholesome bread, drink, or pernicious liquors, knowing them to be so, shall be indicted, and, on conviction, shall be fined, imprisoned, or both; accessories after the fact (and we must say it seems very hard upon the second), except when otherwise provided, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed 1,000 dollars, imprisonment not to exceed six months, whipping up to thirty-nine lashes-read this, British butter-merchants, sausage-makers, and milkmen, and congratulate yourselves that you vend your horrible combinations in a whole skin-or (for the local ordinances of Georgia have not yet done with such offenders-to work in a chain gang on the public works for not more than twelve months. Anyone or more of these penalties may be ordered at the direction of the judge. The publication of these papers, we are glad to think, show, as sailors "which way the land lies," and we should not think it wonderful if the collecting or publishing of such a mass of evidence on the laws which regulate justice between buyers and sellers in other countries resulted in the introduction of some such penal code amongst ourselves. If the selling of adulterated spirits in Mississippi condemns the vendor to five years imprisonment in a penitentiary, what should be done to the dealer in adulterated bread, diseased meat, spurious butter, and manufactured Yet another versicle:milk?"The Food Supplies in Paris before Investment" gives a very painful idea of the stress which the city is now suffering for want of provisions. A paper, entitled "The History of English Food Economy," by Hyde Clarke, F.G.S., is an extremely interesting one, and includes much information; and so is that on the "Food Products of the Workman's Exhibition." But, indeed, it would be impossible to point a single article in the number that is not of real importance to the interests

say,

Here

With her long, wavy, golden hair,
And her tearless blue eyes; almost, I ween.
She might have vied with Beauty's radiant queen,
She was so all-surpassing fair.

Out of this rhythm the author diverges into
half-a-dozen others—a divergence in which he
is countenanced by many a true poet; but the
change of versification does not much improve
the poetry.
Hail, hail, all hail,
No longer frail
Thou patron Saint
Of such as go astray:
To thee all hail,

Who bidd'st them mind their way
And not to faint!

Then ye who stray

Far from your way
Fall not, nor faint,
But aye remember her
Who went astray,
And who, though she did err,
Is now a saint.

Here is another mood of our author's music.
The lines refer to the meeting at the sepulchre,

THE TOILET.