ladies and gentlemen? How would you like
to see your banns put up in the local Mercury,
with your names, residences, and majority or
minority at full length? "Publications of
marriage, marriages, births, and deaths." And
here I find my happy couple—the lady's age
stated to a month. It would ruin any
English newspaper, not excepting the Times,
to dare to throw such figures in the face of a
fair reader. It is a shame! Here is our
bride's age (her Christian names are Claudine
Melanie) stated to be thirty-five years and
two months.

I cannot help liking the way in which the
births are inserted. With us it would be:—
" On such a day, the lady (thanks to improved
taste it is now usual to say the wife) of Samuel
Smith, Esq., of a son." Of a son is an elliptical
and barbarous expression; it is also an
unpolite way of receiving the poor little
stranger; of a son—of a nameless thing that
happens to have a sex: for they might almost
as well print it, of a child. Will anybody
take the hint, and raise our babies to their
proper place in literature, after considering
the good sense of the following French
method of inserting Naissances? " April the
Twenty-seventh: Françoise Désirée
Desombre, daughter of Charles François, saddler,
and of Eugénie Petronille Lecoustre.—April
the Twenty-eighth: Louis Jules César
Terbone, son of César, carrier, and of Marie
Louise Antoinette Mongin." The new worker
added to the world is thus ushered into
society with due respect.

Deaths are published in much the same
form as with us, only more briefly; thus,
" Deces: May the Fourth, Marie Josèphe
Bourdon, eighty years four months, born at
Saint Pierre, widow of Adrien François
Macron." But the advertisements further
illustrate the funereal customs of France. It
is usual there, not only for the relations of
the deceased to be present at the interment,
but friends and connections make a point
of following the procession in considerable
numbers. For this purpose numerous mourning
letters of invitation are issued; but to
prevent misunderstandings amongst captious
acquaintances, advertisements like the following
are not unfrequent:—  " Monsieur and
Madame Depuit and their family, have the
honour to thank the persons who had the
kindness to be present at the funeral and
interment of Charles Alphonse Depuit, and
they beg those who, through forgetfulness,
did not receive letters of invitation, to have
the goodness to excuse them."

I did not think to find so much as that in
a French journal. The ice is broken; let
us look a little farther. There is always real
life in advertisements; now here is one not
to be matched, perhaps, at home? " Madame
Julianie Blitz, dentiste, from Paris, Rue de
l'Abbaye, opposite the Rue Sainte Croix,
Arras, has the honour to inform her patrons
that she has returned from that city. Persons
who will have the goodness to continue to
honour her with their confidence, either for
the fixing of teeth without hooks or ligatures,
or for their extraction, are begged to apply
at her residence. She stops hollow teeth with
the mineral succedanéum, a cold paste, by
means of which extraction is avoided." A
lady dentist!

Why not? If one's teeth must be drawn,
they may as well be drawn by a woman as by
a man, if nature has but made her
sufficiently strong-fisted. The gentle sex of the
operator would inspire a degree of courage
in the men who suffered torture: they
would be ashamed to appear timid in her
presence. If the lady were a particularly
charming person, and there were no other
convenient way of making her acquaintance,
it would always be an admissible excuse, if
she were a dentiste, to go and have a tooth
drawn, whenever we desired her conversation.
We complain in England of the few means
of gaining a respectable livelihood, which are
left open to women. Our unprovided dames
and damsels must do as they do in France;
that is to say, boldly seize and take possession
of any position—such as this profession of
dentist—which is likely to suit them. People
will laugh a little at first; but it is better to
be laughed at for a while than starve for a
lifetime. It is almost better to be starved outright,
than to lead a long life of anxiety
and half-starvation.

Another point which this advertisement
will illustrate has yet to be explained. At
the side of the title of the paper there appears
in small print this announcement:—
"Advertisements twenty centimes "—or twopence
English—" the line." The above advertisement
fills eight lines, costing, therefore, one
shilling and fourpence. It will be seen at
once that the moderate price of the advertisement
is a saving to the customer. What
Madame Blitz's charges are, I know not;
but her first requisite is to get a living. That
secured, she can afford to draw real teeth
and to supply false ones, at a much lower
rate, when her advertisements only cost her
one shilling and fourpence each, instead of
half-a-guinea and upwards.

Another paper, whose advertisements are a
little dearer, namely, twopence-halfpenny a
line, announces the " Sale of four horses. On
Sunday next, May 9, 1852, at two o'clock in
the afternoon, at Saint-Laurent-de-Brévedent,
on the farm cultivated by Madame Letestu,
widow, M. Duflo, bailiff, of Angerville l'Orcher,
will proceed to the public sale of four carriage
and draught horses. Three of them are five
years old; one, two years." It is not unusual
in France to hold auctions on Sunday
afternoons or evenings. Such things are not
regarded as sinful acts of sabbath-breaking, as
they would be considered in England, and
especially in Scotland; but are tolerated and
practised on the Roman Catholic principle
that the laity, after attending mass, are at