to be rapidly hastening their extinction. I
will only add that the Mojanes are the
largest tribe, and once numbered ten
thousand souls.

        ODD WAYS OF GETTING A LIVING.

SOME years since, three eminent statisticians,
who had made the social condition of Paris
their study, came to the astounding
conclusion that every day upwards of five per
cent of the population neither knew how
to procure a meal, nor where they would
sleep at night, and yet nearly the whole
of them contrived to fare, after a fashion,
before the day was over. "How," it may be
asked, "did they manage?" With many this
was their own secret, and too frequently a
terrible one, divulged only before the police
tribunals. Of those who got their living
honestly, though none the less precariously,
there were many thousands, the mere names of
whose pursuits were known to few besides
themselves. Even when you heard them you
were scarcely the wiser, and had to ask for an
explanation, which the chances were you would
not comprehend, until more precise details
were furnished. Supposing you were told, for
instance, that such a person was a "guardian
angel," that another "let out meat on hire,"
or "made soup bubbles," that others were
contractors for  harlequins," dealers in secondhand
bread, "painters of turkeys' feet," and
"retailers of lighted fuel," you would be
puzzled to know the objects of these various
callings, and what possible need there could be
for their exercise; and yet comfortable livings
have been, and are even now being, made from
them all.

Let us take the case of the first retailer of
live fuel in Paris. The market women, who
remain exposed all day long to the inclemency
of the weather, invariably provide themselves
with foot-warmers lined with sheet iron and
little earthenware pots called "beggars,"
which they place on their knees to keep their
fingers warm. These ladies were accustomed
to have their "chaufferettes" and their "gueux"
made up early every morning, and frequently
twice a day by some neighbouring charbonnier,
to whom they paid three sous for the two fires,
and whose good pleasure they were generally
obliged to wait, as he, knowing his services to
be indispensable, naturally enough indulged of
a morning in a late snooze.

A "bricoleur" engaged at the markets on
any odd jobs that chanced to fall in his way,
had noticed, during the long nights he passed
waiting for a job, the negligence of these
charbonniers, and made up his mind to
supplant them. He had an idea which, well
directed, would infallibly realise for him that
fortune which every Frenchman, who is more
than ordinarily poor, is constantly dreaming
of. "If," said he to himself, "I can
only hit upon something better and cheaper,
and deliver it to the consumers instead of
obliging them to come to me while I am snoring
in bed, I shall soon have the entire trade in
my hands. The charbonniers fill the
foot-warmers with charcoal dust, which is more or
less dangerous. In place of this I must find
something which is perfectly inoffensive, gives
as much heat, and burns a longer time." He
looked about him, he reflected, he made
experiments, and at length decided that lighted
tan was the very thing. It gave him one
especial advantage over the charbonniers, for
he could proclaim that every one who patronised
him need no longer fear those distressing
headaches, which the fumes of charcoal
invariably engendered.

He sounded the market women, asked them
what they would think of a man who came
round early every morning and filled their
"chaufferettes " on the spot without their
having to disarrange themselves in any way,
and who would be at their service at all hours
of the day and night.

"We should think him a good fellow,"
replied they, "who would do a service to us and
to himself as well."

"Well, I am your man," said he. "I intend
starting as a fire-seller next winter."

The mere idea of a man thinking of doing
what had never been done before, aroused a
universal outcry as a matter of course.
Before any one had the smallest idea of how
he proposed to proceed, it was decided that
the thing was impossible. Our daring
innovator had to put up with all sorts of jests
and ironical remarks, which he bore with
an equanimity arising from the self-confidence
of genius. He installed himself on the
banks of the Bièvre, in the suburbs of Paris,
almost, indeed, in the fields, in an abandoned
building composed of four bare walls and a
roof. There, with some flat paving-stones
picked up in the neighbourhood, and which
served him for a furnace, and a large sheet-iron
extinguisher, bought second-hand, he
commenced operations. He had selected the centre
of the Paris tanyards, in order that he might
have his raw material under his hand. A truck
served to transport it, and a large wooden box,
lined with tin, contained the manufactured
article. In this modest way our innovator set
to work.

During the summer he passed his days in his
improvised laboratory, almost naked, and undergoing
much the same heat as a loaf in a baker's
oven. Most other men would have died, but
our "bricoleur" was tenacious, brave, and
enterprising; he wanted, too, to have the
laugh on his side, and what was of more
consequence, the profit as well. Despite his
day's labour, he still went to the markets
to do all manner of odd jobs during the night.
Early in the autumn he constructed a cart
covered inside and out with strong sheet-iron,
and as soon as the cold weather began to set
in, on a cool and starlight night he made his
appearance at the markets, dragging behind
him something resembling a large black box