sent to different parts of India, Australia,
Van Diemen's Land, and New Zealand, for the
use of persons teaching in those remote
regions.

It thus appears that Music is becoming a
regular branch of popular education, and for
the most part according to an uniform and
well-tried method, in every part of the British
empire. The system is of too recent growth
to have brought its fruits to maturity. It
may, indeed, be regarded as in its infancy
when compared with the magnitude which
it cannot fail to attain. But already its effects
are striking and encouraging. Music—well,
badly, or indifferently taught—forms a part of
the business of the great majority of schools,
national, public, and private, throughout the
country. In hundreds of quiet, out-of-the-way
country churches, an approximation is made
to a choral service often purely vocal.
Hundreds of country clergymen are now qualified,
by musical attainment, to superintend the
singing of their choirs and congregations, and
exert themselves to render it consistent with
taste, propriety, and devotion. And it is a
certain fact, that whereas ten years ago, nobody,
in the engagement of a schoolmaster, ever
thought of inquiring about his musical capacity,
men defective in this point, but otherwise
of unexceptionable character and attainments,
find it next to impossible to obtain
employment.

A PARIS NEWSPAPER.

WITHIN the precincts of that resort for
foreigners and provincials in Paris the Palais
Royal, is situate the Rue du 24 Fevrier. This
revolutionary name, given after the last
outbreak, is still pronounced with difficulty by
those who, of old, were wont to call it the
Rue de Valois. People are becoming
accustomed to call the royally named street by
its revolutionary title, although it is probable
that no one will ever succeed in calling
the Palais Royal, Palais National; the force
of habit being in this instance too great to
efface old recollections. Few foreigners have
ever penetrated into the Rue de 24 Fevrier,
though it forms one of the external galleries
of the Palais Royal, and one may see there
the smoky kitchens, dirty cooks,—the night-side,
in fact, of the splendid restaurants whose
gilt fronts attract attention inside. Rubicund
apples, splendid game, truffles, and ortolans,
deck the one side; smoke, dirty plates, rags,
and smutty saucepans may be seen on the
other.

It is from an office in the Rue de 24 Fevrier,
almost opposite the dark side of a gorgeous
Palais Royal restaurant, that issue 40,000
copies of a daily print, entitled the
'Constitutionnel.'

Newspaper offices, be it remarked, are
always to be found in odd holes and corners.
To the mass in London, Printing-house Square,
or Lombard Street, Whitefriars, are mystical
localities; yet they are the daily birthplaces
of that fourth estate which fulminates
anathemas on all the follies and weaknesses
of governments, and, without which, no one
can feel free or independent. The ' Constitutionnel '
office is about as little known to the
mass of its subscribers as either Printinghouse
Square or Whitefriars.

There is always an old and respectable look
about the interior of newspaper establishments,
in whatever country you may find them. For
rusty dinginess, perhaps there is nothing to
equal a London office, with its floors strewed
with newspapers from all parts of the world,
parliamentary reports, and its shelves creaking
under books of all sorts thumbed to the
last extremity. Notwithstanding these
appearances, however, there is discipline, there
is real order in the apparent disorder of
things. Those newspapers that are lying in
heaps have to be accurately filed; those books
of reference can be pounced upon when wanted
on the instant; and as to reports, the place of
each is as well known as if all labelled and
ticketed with the elaborate accuracy of a
public library.

Not less rusty and not less disorderly is the
appearance of a French newspaper office; but
how different the aspect of things from what
you see in England!

Over the office of the 'Constitutionnel' is
a dingy tricolor flag. A few broken steps
lead to a pair of folding-doors. Inside is the
sanctuary of the office, guarded by that flag
as if by the honour of the country; for the
tricolor represents all Frenchmen, be he
prince or proletarian.

You enter through a narrow passage flanked
with wire cages, in which are confined for the
day the clerks who take account of advertisements
and subscriptions. Melancholy objects
seem these caged birds; whose hands alone
emerge at intervals through the pigeon-holes
made for the purpose of taking in money
and advertisements. The universal beard
and moustachios that ornament their chins,
look, however, more unbusiness-like than
are the men really. They are shrewd and
knowing birds that are enclosed in these wire
cages.

At publishing time, boys rushing in for
papers, as in London offices, are not here to be
seen. The reason of this is simple: French
newspaper proprietors prefer doing their work
themselves,—they will have 110 middlemen.
They serve all their customers by quarterly,
yearly, or half-yearly subscriptions. In every
town in France there are subscription offices
for this journal, as well, indeed, as for all
great organs of the press generally. There
are regular forms set up like registers at the
Post-office, and all of these are gathered at
the periodical renewal of subscriptions to the
central office. The period of renewal is every
fortnight.

Passing still further up the narrow and dim
passage, one sees a pigeon-hole, over which is