are written for the enlightenment of the curious
in the book of W. H. Bogart, called Daniel
Boon and the Hunters of Kentucky. The last
paper contains an account of the New York
Ledger, its electrotyping, the number of "lightning-
presses" (ten) kept constantly at work, the
number of persons (forty-five about) employed
in the press-room, the amount of their wages
(four hundred dollars) per week, the number of
copies of the Ledger (about four hundred
thousand) printed weekly, and other interesting
facts.

       A FRENCH LOOKING-GLASS FOR
                         ENGLAND.

WE all like to see ourselves: in fact, mirrors
are an instinct, and, before glass and quicksilver
were invented, nature and mother wit were at no
loss for substitutes. Chloe used to make the
quiet pool under the willows and the alders serve
her turn, and the stately Roman matron built
up her tower of frizzed curls, and gave the last
magic touch of collyrium, by help of the polished
plate of steel held up by her ancillæ. We should
retrograde into comparative barbarism without
our toilet glasses to show us the outside form of
civilisation. A mirror of our national English
life lies now before us. It is from the workshop
of M. Larcher, and assumes to be a careful
and distinct representation of the country
wherein you and I were born, and of the people
whom we call our fathers and mothers, brothers,
sisters, wives, and friends.

M. Larcher informs me that my round eyes,
and the round eyes of all my friends and compatriots,
want vivacity; that our lower lips are loose
and pendulous, offering the image of intemperance;
that we wear our beards only on our
cheeks, in the manner of the ancient gendarmes
of the departments; that we know neither
revenge nor hatred, and of love only the love of
money; that we have an insane desire for strong
emotions, as so much mental dram-drinking, and
that our sole object in life is to amass sufficient
wealth to buy these strong mental emotions:
that we live to eat, and drink to get drunk;
that we all dress and look exactly alike, from
young Fitzboodle of the Guards to the crossing-
sweeper at the corner; that the sole
distinguishing mark of our aristocracy is the ill-
humour and insolent disdain imprinted on their
countenances; that we all have the appearance
of monstrous dolls moved by springs, all walking
precisely alike, with arms glued to our sides,
heads stiff and fixed, faces impassive, and
clothes of the same pattern; that the very sight
of us gives a lively Frenchman the spleen,
which he can but escape by remembering that
he is not condemned to live among us for ever;
that we are impolite, dull, taciturn, and rude:
only tolerable when we are abroad and have put
our nationality in our pockets; and that we are
horribly debauched, and not to be trusted with
the hair of a French head. I also find that,
owing to the generally jaded state of the
national temper, and to that need of strong mental
dram-drinking spoken of before, the more
horrible an event, the more it is enjoyed in
England; that the tragic death of the poor Lion
Queen in 1848 met with "an immense success;"
and that the moment is not far off when our
fatigued aristocracy will have recourse, for their
amusement, to the exciting spectacle of men
fighting with wild beasts, as at Ephesus or
Bayonne, Indeed, I learn from M. Larcher,
though I did not know it before, that a society
of capitalists is already formed for the erection
of a vast circus where men are to contend with
bears. Turning over a few pages, I find that I
consider the wife of my bosom as an inferior
creature, and that she submits cheerfully to
her degraded condition. (I always thought it
was the other way; but I suppose I am
mistaken in this also.) I find, too, that I believe
in her fidelity only in proportion to her
coldness and disdain to myself; that she is a
greater slave to dress than a Parisienne, and
that she sacrifices to this inexorable master
every other duty and convenience of life. M.
Larcher says that I did not marry for love.
No one in England does; we only marry for
a fortune, or to change the current of our
griefs. Neither am I jealous—people never are
jealous of inferior things, says M. Larcher, with
his trenchant Gallic logic. Before I married
Mrs. Jones she had had, I am informed,
numerous lovers, so have had her sisters, so have
all my countrywomen, who almost invariably
forfeit their claim to a wedding garment of
white; but we complaisant husbands do not
fret about our ante-nuptial wrongs; we understand
what this ante-nuptial must needs have
been, and accept our portion with magnanimity.
Provided our inferior creatures are faithful to
us when we have got them, we never inquire
into the number or condition of those to whom
they have been unfaithful before us. This is
the quiet, sober, unblushing opinion of an
educated man, within two hours of England,
concerning the morals and reputations of our fair
young English girls! To conclude; woman here
is a degraded being, with few illusions, and of
slavish submission; knowing the fate reserved
for her, and how she will one day marry a
drunkard who will ill-treat her, and how she
will pass the remainder of her life in bearing
and bringing up her innumerable children, holding
only the rank of an upper servant, she
satisfies, embrutes, and stupifies herself by
eating like an ogress and drinking like a fish!

I never quite understood what the ladies did
in the drawing-room after they had retired, and
while we were left to our wine and walnuts;
but I am no longer ignorant. M. Larcher
obligingly explains to me that while I and the
rest of the gentlemen sit in the dining-room,
emptying our bottles of port, Madeira,
Bordeaux, and champagne, my dear Mrs. Jones and
her companions are emptying many bottles of
cognac brandy in the drawing-room. This is a
very different occupation from the mild gossip
about servants, dress, and babies, which we men
have a kind of traditionary faith forms the staple