will read the account of my death, if anybody
takes the trouble to advertise that fact in the
newspapers, and say, "Aha! and so he die. Eh!
I knew his good papa ver well."

Surely we should be careful in keeping up the
breed of little old men at home as well as abroad.
To me they are infinitely more agreeable than
big men, young or old. But they are dwindling
away, they are vanishing fast. The little old
ticket-porters, with their white aprons, are being
superseded by burly middle-aged messengers, or
else by bearded commissionaires. Artists get
into the Academy before they are forty; and
the little old painter who remembers Northcote,
and to whom the Princess Amelia sat for her
portrait, is a rara avis. Among the City
companies you sometimes light upon wardens and
members of the court of assistants, who are
little old men of the true stamp. But their
numbers are waxing small, and it must be written
of them, "Here lie."

I own there is one class of little old men
whom I could well spare from the stage of
existence. I mean the half-palsied, shrivelled,
wobegone little grey atomies in blue smocks and
corduroy shorts, and ribbed stockings on their
shrunken shanks, whom the metropolitan boards
of guardians send out to sweep the streets. They
are always in imminent danger of being run over.
They always sweep the refuse the wrong way.
It is terrible to look at their poor old faces and
bleary eyes, full of drowsy woe, blank misery,—
inane despair. "No Hope, and there never has
been any these seventy years;" these words seem
legibly inscribed on the bands round their
oilskin hats. These little old men are a fear and a
wonder to me, and in decency and mercy I think
they should not be allowed to drift about in the
great river of London street life.

PARIS CAFÉS AND CABARETS.

It is no wonder that Paris should be called
the city of a hundred thousand cafés, when one
reads a confession of faith like that which
follows: "To live, to think, to eat and drink, to
love, to suffer and die at home, are things which
we Frenchmen find excessively boring and
inconvenient. We require publicity, broad
daylight, the street, the cabaret; well or ill, we
desire to exhibit ourselves from home; to talk,
be happy or wretched, to satisfy all the wants
of our vanity or our nature, to love or weep out
of doors, is a necessity of our existence; we
delight in attitudinising, in making shows of
ourselves, in having a public, an audience,
witnesses of our lives."

M. Alfred Delvau, the author of a volume,
lately published, bearing the title of Histoire
Anecdotique des Cafés et Cabarets de Paris, it
is who makes this confession. He describes,
with considerable vivacity, the inner life of a
great number of these places of Parisian resort,
as they exist at the present moment. In this
research of his, aided by some recent personal
experience, we propose to follow him.

Some of the most celebrated cafés of former
days are gone, but where one has disappeared
scores have risen. Amongst those which the
traveller of twenty—even of ten years—ago
will miss, are: The Café de Paris on the
Boulevart des Italiens, once the most
renowned in Paris; the Cabaret de la Mère
Saguet at the barrier du Maine, a literary
and artistic haunt which Victor Hugo and
Alexandre Dumas, Tony Johannot and David
d' Angers, were in the habit of frequenting; the
Café St. Agnes in the Rue Jean Jacques
Rousseau, the place of assembly of Flocon,
Caussidière, and other republicans; the Café
d'Aguesseau in the Place du Palais de Justice, where,
in full costume, the lawyers leisurely ate their
breakfasts while their clients counted the
minutes in the Salle des pas Perdus; the Café
Cuisinier on the Place St. André des Arts—
the site of the superb Fontaine St. Michel, one
of the latest embellishments of Paris—where
Napoleon breakfasted incognito with Marshal
Duroc, and where, when the mauvais quart
d'heure arrived, neither of them had a sou in
his pocket to settle the score; the Café des
Arts in the Rue Coq St. Honoré, the place of
predilection of some literary men; the Café
Achille on the Boulevart du Temple, to which
the actors of that quarter resorted; the
Estaminet de l'Epi-scié—founded originally
by a retired grocer fatally addicted to punning
—on the same boulevarts, a sort of "tapis
franc," where theatrical checks were sold; and
some others more or less noted, whose history
is to be found in the Paris guides of the last
fifty years.

It is a moot question with strangers in Paris
whether they shall first visit the Boulevarts or
the Palais Royal, but the latter generally has
the call. It shall take precedence on this occasion,
on account of the Café de la Rotonde, which
is, perhaps, the oldest, and certainly the best
known in the capital. It was originally called
the Café du Caveau, because it was built in a
hollow at the northern extremity of the garden
of the Palais Royal, and was approached by steps
that led down to it. At that time the proprietor
was M. Dubuisson, and the café was famous then
as now for its excellent ices. In the beginning
of the present century this designation was
changed, in consequence of the garden being
made level; the inequality was filled up, and
the Café du Caveau became the Café du Perron;
but this name did not last long, for Cuisinier,
the new proprietor, desiring to turn the space
in front of his house to account, obtained
permission to erect a semicircular pavilion, such as
we now see, and christened it the Café de la
Rotonde. This appellation, however, was again
altered by the loyal or political enthusiasm of
Cuisinier, who, on the day of the signature of
the peace of Amiens—March 25, 1802—
substituted that of Pavilion de la Paix, words still
inscribed on the building; but words utterly
neglected, and of no greater efficacy than the
peace itself; for, in spite of its formal baptism,
the café has never been called anything but La