of Natural History, besides a Gallery of Art.
Liberal assistance is expected by those who
are engaged in forming the Liverpool Free
Public Library.

Other towns, we have reason to think, are
also stirring. In each town to which the
movement has not yet extended, one man of
influence has only to bestir himself—to sacrifice
a little ease and leisure—and he will soon
find coadjutors. Abundant aid is to be had in
a good work disconnected from all party
prejudice.

Meanwhile let us look abroad. There—
even no farther off than France—everything
appertaining to education presents a favourable
contrast to what exists in this country.
Paris, for example, abounds with Reading-
rooms, which, though not exactly free, are so
inexpensive as to be accessible to all readers.
A correspondent gives us the following account
of one of the finest and most expensive of
them:—

"I am," he says, "at this present moment
in a Salon de Lecture, or public Reading-room,
on the first-floor of one of the finest houses on
the Boulevard Montmartre, the very centre of
Parisian fashion and activity. Comfortably
ensconced in one of the numerous writing
niches in a sort of archway or unglazed Gothic
window, I command, as from a box at a
theatre, a view of the principal saloon. It is
a large room, furnished and decorated with an
elaborate and appropriate elegance. In the
centre of the room is a long and broad table,
covered, firstly, with green cloth, and, secondly,
with newspapers, reviews, magazines, and other
periodicals of France, England, Germany, and
America, not to mention a few Dutch, Italian,
and Spanish publications. In the middle
stand a handsome pair of globes and a large
china inkstand. The side of the room facing
the Boulevard is one vast window from floor
to ceiling, whereat, lounging on sofas of dark-
green velvet, the idler may contemplate below,
perhaps, the most favoured and populous
urban promenade in Europe. We know
nothing but Regent Street, during the season,
and 'Under the Lindens,' at Berlin, to
compare to the Boulevards des Italiens and
Montmartre.

"The other three sides of the room, with the
exception of six archways (two of which form
doorways, and four writing-niches), are lined
with mirrors, and completely invested by a
sumptuous divan covered with velvet, and
divided by broad stuffed arms into a row of
lounging seats.

"On the chairs around the table, are the
real newspaper devourers, men of insatiable
appetites for leading articles, debates, law
reports, criticisms of new dramas, or reminiscences
of old actresses. They are of all
nations, Paris being the 'City of strangers.'
Every tenth man is either a soldier or a
foreigner, say the statists. Thus, at the time
I write, I observe an Englishman suppressing
a titter over 'Punch;' a German naïvely
grinning over 'Kladeradatsch,' (a desperate
attempt on the part of his Fatherland to set
up as a humourist), and a French place-hunter
frowning savagely at the 'Charivari,' whose
stinging humour will occasionally penetrate
even the tough hide of reactionary politicians.

"All this we observe; and we turn round
upon another room equally spacious, leading
into further apartments at present preparing,
owing to the rapid increase of readers. Its
walls are hung with the latest and most
expensive embossed maps. Here, too, is a
large green-cloth table covered with periodicals,
divans, and at night gas-lamps, with
broad shades, to throw the light downwards
in the most convenient manner. One end of
this room is also entirely of glass;—light is
cheap in France.

"This room is never devoid of readers,
who, like myself, avail themselves of the
library, which offers a considerable choice of
classical and popular works in various
languages. These books, all handsomely bound,
the writer takes down himself, and hunts
over at his leisure.

"In an ante-room at a table sits the
proprietor or his wife, with a supply of paper,
envelopes, &c., for those who wish to write,
whilst an intelligent lad is in constant attendence
to seek for any books or periodicals the
readers may require.

"Having thus described the scene of our
labours, I can imagine you exclaiming—

"'What is this, after all, but the drawing-
room or library of a London club, with
perhaps a somewhat larger assortment of
periodicals?'

"A moment's patience. I am tired of writing:
I shall get up and take a stroll upon the
Boulevards. As I pass the table in the anteroom,
I shall take from the pocket four sous—
twopence sterling, to be precise—and lay
them on the table, with a polite inclination to
the dark-eyed lady, who smiles graciously in
return, because I am a regular customer; and
those four sous are one day's subscription to
an establishment which saves many a poorer
customer the expense of firing by day, and
candles by night, and which provides every
frequenter with an amount of personal
convenience, amusement, and information, not
perhaps attainable by any other conceivable
method in which twopence could be
disbursed."

The French Salon de Lecture differs from
the English literary institution in two chief
points. Firstly, it gives its subscribers
unlimited option as to the duration of their
subscription, from a day up to a year, increasing
in proportional amount according to the
shortness of the period. Secondly, it is
a reading-room, pure and simple, as they
say of the order of the day in the French
Assembly.

There are nearly four hundred of them in
Paris, the price of admission to which varies