top has been removed from your writing-
table, and is rolled into a corner. In despair,
you take up an odd volume, and seek solace
in your wife's sitting-room. Here, at least,
you expect comfort. On entering, you find
two maids, with outstretched arms, folding
window curtains in lengths; the table is
covered with a variety of finger-plates,
curtain-bands, screws, and bunches of gilt grapes
from the ends of the curtain-rods, scattered
upon a thick layer of brass-headed nails.
You express a decided conviction that this
is a little too bad; but you are sternly
reminded that if you wish to see the heavenly
villa at all comfortable within a week after
your arrival therein, you must bear these
preliminary proceedings. As you have made up
your mind to live and die in the heavenly
villa, you comfort yourself with the reflection
that this is the last time these nuisances can
come within your experience. You go to
bed; perhaps a little sulky. About six o'clock
the following morning, you are aroused from
your sleep by a noise as decided as thunder:
you are informed, in explanation, that it is
only a window-cornice which has tumbled
down and smashed a Sèvres vase of great
value.

Presently you hear a knock at your
door: the maid wishes to know whether you
will be good enough to get up soon, as the
upholsterers are ready to take your bedstead
down. Painfully you reflect that you have
another night to pass in this horrible
house; and you wonder how and where you
will next night take your rest. You would
not be surprised, after your past experiences,
if you were shown to a door-mat. This
morning you discover that all that is left in
your wardrobe is a faded bunch of lavender
sticks.

To chronicle all the miseries of "moving,"
would be to draw a picture too harrowing.
From the hour when the parlour curtains
are taken down, to that when you are
requested to take your last meal in the old
house upon a hair trunk, the lot of man is
misery.

In this age—when mansions, replete with
every comfort for a highly genteel family,
are to be had any fine morning at a merely
nominal rent, "the present tenant having been
ordered to Madeira;" when a thousand gentlemen
have larger houses than they require,
and will, therefore, admit you to the best part
of them for any odd change you may happen
to have in your waistcoat-pocket; when a
substantial house, of moderate size, with a
fine view of the Surrey hills (which have long
been a blessing to metropolitan landlords),
and a large garden well stocked with fruit-
trees, can be rented for thirty pounds a year;
and when house-agents require no fees—it is
not astonishing that, as every Quarter-day
approaches, we are afforded glimpses of the
legs of various chests of drawers packed
between feather-beds, and surmounted with
stacks of chairs, passing slowly about our
London streets.

Well, we know what "moving" is; and we
wish all who may be sleeping on the floor to-
night, preparatory to a removal to-morrow, a
hearty night's rest, and health in that earthly
paradise—the new house.

THE THEATRES OF PARIS.

IF the world were some day to become too
proud to be amused, what device would it hit
upon for causing circulation of the coins that
carry life with them in all directions? A very
large class of people in all ranks depends for
bread and meat on the world's willingness to
take some wholesome recreation in the
intervals of toil. It is our present purpose to
show how money paid for an Opera-box, or
deposited at the pit-door of a theatre, if it can
be spared fairly by him who spends it, is not
spent in waste. There cannot be too many
honest occupations in the world, for every one
tends to prevent wealth from remaining idle,
and helps to cause those very necessary bits
of silver or of copper, which are taken in
exchange for meat and bread, to find their
way into the many pockets of the hungry.

There has been published in Paris, during
the present year, the result of an elaborate
inquiry into the statistics of the theatres.
They have facilities in France for finding out
the details of such matters, which are not
likely, for a long time, to be afforded to
inquirers in this country. The general details
of a theatre are, however, in all countries
alike, and what is true of theatres in Paris
may be regarded as, in the main, true also
of theatres in London. In London the
prices of admission are generally higher, and
the payments made behind the scenes are
larger. The London Operas find work for
many more people than the single Opera of
Paris; but, in Paris, on the other hand, the
actual number of theatres is greater than in
London, and the proportion of theatre space
to population is, of course, very much greater.
In Paris, for a population of one million and
fifty or sixty thousand, the number of theatres
provided is twenty-six, including some that
are small and some that are habitually
unsuccessful. In London there are provided, for a
population of two millions, not more than
twenty-three theatres, and to make up so
large a number as twenty-three, we must
include such temples of the drama as that
which is attached to the Eagle Tavern, and
must count, of course, as a theatrical establishment,
the vacancy in Drury Lane.

The Parisians, therefore, are evidently a
more theatre-going people than the Londoners.
The aggregate of space provided in the
theatres of Paris is calculated to
accommodate thirty-four thousand play-goers, one
in thirty-one of the whole population, from
the great grandfather—if towns contain such
things—down to the babies. The largest of