thousand millions of cubic feet. One-fourth
of this quantity, according to reliable
estimates, is lost by leakage, condensation,
dishonesty, and bad debts; and at least one half of
this fourth— or one thousand millions of cubic
feet— escapes every year into the London street-
earth. Mr. Spencer, as analytical chemist to
the New River Company, has traced this
escaped gas in its destructive action upon the four
thousand seven hundred miles of metropolitan
gas and water mains, until underground London
appears to be one vast grave of iron rotting into
plumbago. The twelve gas-mains, with their
eighty joints, which lie side by side with water-
mains and telegraphic-wire pipes over the sewers
in Cockspur-street, Charing-cross, are not such
a happy family as their appearance would lead
us to suppose. They are crowded together
like tramps in a threepenny bed, and there does
not seem to be room for a rat to run between
them; but there is no real friendship for all this
shaking of hands. The defective joints of the
gas-mains lead to the enormous leakage just
described, and the escaped gas, by its action on
the street-earth, destroys water-pipes in a few
years that ought to last for a century. Apart
from the foul condition of the London street-
earth, we are all interested in saving this
escaped gas and this destroyed pipeage, for our
gas-bills include the cost of the one, and our
water-bills the cost of the other. While the
water-pipes are softened, and the gas penetrates
the tubes, the water is also adulterated with an
undrinkable mixture. I have heard of a letter
addressed to a leading water company, which
ran somewhat in this form:

"Mr. Blank presents his compliments to the
Blank Company, and wishes to know whether
they supply gas or water. Mr. Blank is led to
make this inquiry, because one of his servants
went to the cistern with a pitcher and a candle,
and instead of procuring water, she blew up the
roof of a wash-house."

PROFESSOR BON TON.

IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.

I HAVE been obliged, recently, to spend a
considerable portion of my time in France; so,
being temporarily transplanted, it naturally
occurred to me to obtain some sort of an inkling
of the usages of French society, before I made
my bow in certain French salons whose entrée
was secured to me by certain, letters of
introduction.

But how to obtain such an inkling, that was
the difficulty. It was vain to endeavour to
come at my object by wandering in the Champs
Elysées or the Bois de Boulogne, and peeping
into the carriages which I saw in great numbers,
careering along with magnificently dressed ladies
seated inside them, and drawn by horses which
seemed, in their untamed fury, as if in another
moment they would dash the light vehicles to
which they were attached into a thousand atoms,
and be off to enjoy themselves where bits and
traces were unknown. My observations in the
Champs Elysées only led me into speculations
as to how the astounding luxury which I beheld
was kept up, and doubts whether all the ladies
and gentlemen who were splashing me with mud
from their wheels, and whose coachmen were
howling to me to get out of the way, were in the
habit of punctually paying their debts. This vast
field of inquiry not helping me at all, I thought
I would next try what I could effect by a
constant attendance at the theatres and operas of
Paris, and a close observation of all that went
on there. I found, unfortunately, that this plan,
besides involving a great and ever-recurring
outlay in tickets, hackney-carriages, and the like
vanities, was not a whit nearer to giving me an
insight into French manners, and was a thousand
times more expensive than had been my former
open-air studies in the Bois de Boulogne.

What could I see, looking up from the pit or
the stalls to the balcon or private boxes, of the
goings on of the personages whom I was bent on
observing? I could see, it is true, a number of
ladies and gentlemen engaged in conversation
between the acts, or listening attentively during
the acts. I could see that they were a little
demonstrative in their manner of talking, that
the men were, to my mind, a little wanting in
dignity, and the women in repose, there being a
determined and business-like system of fascination
to which all their energies were devoted,
to an extent which in my eyes, and as far as
my poor judgment went, was likely to defeat
its own object. I have since had reason to
think that with Frenchmen this determination
to be fascinating answers, and that if a lady is
resolved to be considered attractive, and without
being in the least degree pretty goes on as if she
were pretty, they get to take her word for it that
she is lovely, and are ready to receive her airs
and graces, coupled with an elaborate toilette,
as proofs of her charms. It is but one
additional instance, after all, of the success which
attends a reiterated and persistent self-assertion.

Fortunately, by the merest chance, I
happened to come in contact with a little work,
obtainable for the small outlay of sevenpence-
halfpenny (English money), which contained in
a compact form all the information of which I
stood in need.

Manuel du Bon Ton et de la Politesse
Fran?aise: Nouveau Guide pour se Conduire dans le
Monde. This was the title of my sevenpence-
halfpenny treatise, and this was beyond a doubt
the very thing I stood in need of. I wanted to
excel in bon ton; here was a manual of that
mystery, and of French politeness as well. I
wanted to know how to conduct myself in the
world, and here was a guide to show me how
and a new one, too, with all the latest
improvements; a chart with all the rocks and shoals on
which one's social bark might strike, plainly
indicated; so that after due study of it, the voyager
might become his own pilot, and steer his course
securely ever afterwards upon the Great Sea of
Fashion.

From the perusal of the Manuel du Bon Ton,