bowls. There are our theatres, the
Funambule and the Porte St. Martin.
Gamblers among us play at bowls in the
Elysian fields, or they stay at home losing and
winning more than they can properly afford
to risk at écarté.

Then there are our holidays. The best
used to be "the three days of July," but
they were lost in the last scramble. Yet we
still have no lack of holiday amusement,
our puppets to admire, and greasy poles to
climb for prizes, by men who have been
prudently required to declare first and register
their ambition at the Bureau of Police.
Government so gets something of a list of the
men who aspire, who wish to mount. It
must be very useful. There are our water
tournaments at St. Cloud and at Boulogne-
sur-Seine; where they who have informed
the police of their combative propensities,
may thrust at each other with long padded
poles from boats which are being rowed
forcibly into collision. We are not much of
water-birds; but when we do undertake boating,
we engage in the work like Algerine
pirates. We must have a red sash round
the waist or not a man of us will pull a
stroke.

To go back to our homes and to our wives.
When we do marry, we prefer a wife who
can support herself by her own labour. If
we have children, it is in our power to apply—
and very many of us do apply—to the Bureau
of Nurses; and soon after an infant's birth, it
can be sent down into the country at the
monthly cost of about ten shillings and two
pounds of lump sugar. That saves the child
from hindering our work or pleasure; and, as
it is the interest of the nurse to protect the
child for which she receives payment, why
should we disturb our consciences with qualm
or fear?

In Paris there are few factories; some that
have existed were removed into the provinces
for the sole purpose of avoiding the dictation
of the workmen in the town. The Parisian
fancy work employs a large number of people
who can work at their own homes. In this,
and in the whole industry of Paris, the
division of labour is very great; but the
fancy work offers a good deal of scope
for originality and taste, and the workman
of Paris is glad to furnish both. He will
delight himself by working night and day
to execute a sudden order, to be equal to
some great occasion; but he cannot so well
be depended upon when the work falls again
into its even, humdrum pace. On the whole,
however, they who receive good wages, and
are trusted—as the men working for jewellers
are trusted—become raised by the responsibility
of their position, shun the wine-shop,
live contented with the pleasures of their
homes, dress with neatness, and would die
rather than betray the confidence reposed in
them. With all his faults and oddities, the
workman of Paris is essentially a thoroughly
good fellow. The solitary work of tailors and
of shoemakers causes them of course to brood
and think, and to turn out of their body a
great number of men who take a foremost
place in all political discussions. But the
French workman always is a loser by political
disturbance. The crisis of eighteen hundred
and forty-eight—a workman's triumph —
reduced the value of industry in Paris from
sixty to twenty-eight millions of pounds.
Fifty-four men in every hundred were at
the same time thrown out of employ, or
nearly two hundred thousand people in
all.

But there are some callings, indeed, wholly
untouched by a crisis. The manufacture of
street gas goes on, for example, without any
change. There are others that are even
benefitted by a revolution. After the last
revolution, while other trades were turning away
men to whom there was no longer work
to give, the trades concerned in providing
military equipment were taking on fresh
hands. To that class in Paris and to that,
only, there was an increase of business in
eighteen hundred and forty-eight to the
extent of twenty-nine per cent. The decrease
of business among the printers, although
almost no books were printed, did not
amount to more than twenty-seven per
cent, in consequence of the increased
demand for proclamations, handbills, and
manifestoes.

Without any extra crisis, men working in
all trades have trouble enough to get over
the mere natural checks upon industry, which
come to most tradesmen twice a year in the
shape of the dead seasons. Every month is a
dead season to some trade; but the dead
seasons which prevail over the largest number
of workmen in Paris are the two months,
July and August, in summer, and the two
months, January and February, in winter.
The dead season of summer is the more
decided of the two. The periods of greatest
activity, on the other hand, are the two
months, April and May, and next to those the
months, October and November. Printers
are busiest in winter, builders are busiest in
summer—so there are exceptions to the rule;
but, except those who provide certain
requisites for eating and drinking which are in
continual demand, there are few workmen in
Paris or elsewhere in France, who have not
every year quite enough slack time to perplex
them. They can ill afford the interference
of any small crisis in the shape of a
strike, or large crisis in the shape of a national
tumult.

Finally, let me say that the French workman,
take him all in all, is certainly a clever fellow.
He is fond of Saint Monday, " solidarity,"
and shows; but is quickwitted at his work,
and furiously energetic when there is any
strong call made upon his industry. In the
most debased form he has much more
vigour and vivacity than the most debased