After thus making the jury usurp the functions
of the judge, the poet becomes satirical on the
subject of unequal punishment. Poor folks, he
says, are sent to the galleys, when, very often,
they have committed no crime; while persons
of birth, "who can speak like a book," are only
condemned, when guilty, to the same punishment.
He tells the jury that their sentence is
either too much or too little, and that they
should remember the proverb, "A door must be
either open or shut." But the record of this
trial is nothing without a moral, and it is
conveyed in the following terms:

    La moralité d' la chose
    C'est qu' l'arsenic est malsain;
    Outre qu'on n'est pas certain
    Qu'y n' laisse des marqu' où c' qu'on l'pose.
    Donnez-en donc aux souris,
    Et jamais à vos maris.
    Faut espérer qu' la justice
    Va nous dire c' qu' y faut penser;
    Le jug'ment pourra s'casser,
    Mais il est temps qu' ça finisse,
    Et qu'on tire à l'alembic
    Tout c' bel esprit d'arsenic.

[The moral of the affair is that arsenic is
unwholesome. Besides, one is not certain that it does
not leave marks behind it. Give it then to mice,
and never to husbands. It is to be hoped that
justice will tell us what we must think about it.
The sentence may be quashed. But it is time that
this should end, and that we should take out of the
alembic all this fine spirit of arsenic.]

For fear, however, of its being supposed that
the subject has been too lightly treated, the
poet reasserts his personality in a "Conclusion
sérieuse," in which he gives advice to the law-
makers:

    Aux forgeurs d' lois, je m' sens d' force
    A forger un bon conseil:
    Faut, c'est clair comm' l' soleil,
    Au cod' reprendre l' divorce.
    L' mariag' sans amour mutuel
    C'est du poison perpetuel.

[To the forgers of the laws, I feel myself strong
enough to forge this good advice: You must, as
clear as the sun, restore divorce to the code.
Marriage without mutual love is perpetual poison.]

The second of these poems is a full description
of "The Murder of Fualdès," a prose version
of which appeared in No. 223 of this journal
(August 1, 1863). Described as a "Véritable
Complainte arrivée de Toulouse," the ballad is
ornamented on the title-page by a woodcut
representing the head of a man in a little cap and
a high shirt-collar, who is either singing or
preparing to be sick; it is set to the air "Au
Maréchal de Saxe," and the first stanza invites a
rather wide circle of auditors to give attention
to it:

    Ecoutez, peuples de France,
    Du royaume de Chili,
    Peuples de Russie aussi,
    Du cap de Bonne-Espérance,
    Le mémorable accident
    D'un crime très-consequent.

[Listen, people of France, of the kingdom of
Chili, people of Russia also, and of the Cape of
Good Hope, the memorable accident of a very
remarkable crime.]

It was stated, in the article referred to, that
Jausion was one of the murderers condemned to
death, but the last act of his life was not set
forth. According to the author of the
"Complainte," it consisted in his sending to his family
the stockings he wore on the scaffold as a token
of his death, with the following words addressed
to his wife, an accomplice in the crime:

    Epouse sensible et chère,
    Qui par mon ordre inhumain,
    M'as si bien prêté la main
    Pour forcer le secrétaire,
    Elève nos chers enfants
    Dans tes nobles sentiments.

[Dear and tender wife, who by my inhuman order
lent me thy assistance to force open the desk, bring
up our dear children in thy noble sentiments.]

When it is remembered that the noble
sentiments of this lady led her to urge Jausion to
assist in the murder, she being present and
holding a lamp, and Fualdès was taken by the
head and feet and laid on the table, it may be a
question whether the education of her children
would greatly profit them.

A MOCKING-BIRD IN LONDON.

I WAS passing along by the Foundling
Hospital, when I heard a musical cry, "Fine
firewood!" which seemed to me to be worthy of a
concert-room. I walked slowly to hear it again
and again, and I almost thought it was some
fallen star of ancient opera, who had taken to
a street barrow and a load of fine firewood. It
is wonderful how soon we forget. I lost that
man and his musical cry in three minutes, but
ten or fifteen minutes later I was going up
Guildford-street, when he revived himself in my
memory. Again I forgot him, and made my
way to a friend's house in the vicinity of Russell-
square. My friend's daughter was an invalid,
who had left her home and husband in Charleston,
South Carolina, when the unhappy civil
war began. She was an English girl who had
given her fate into the keeping of a young
American, who had been educated at English
Oxford. Little thought he when he took his
fair bride to his Southern home, that in three
short years the storm of war would drive him
into the vortex of a whirlpool, and cast his
wife and their two baby children into the refuge
of her father's home. So it had been. I had
news of him, and I hastened to the wife with
the glad tidings that a month ago he was safe.
I entered the house and stood in the front
drawing-room, which was darkened, while the western
window that opened out of the back drawing-
room wooed all the sunshine there might be, at
noon, in the cheerful month of October.
Suddenly I heard the musical cry of the firewood
man. It rang out loud and clear, as if he had
stood by my side.

At this moment the lady for whom I had
news, entered. In her frail form, and fevered