cattle market is not only out of the town, but
close behind the abattoir. The butcher
having made his purchase in the market, goes
at once to the adjoining slaughter-ground,
and so the animals are brought into the town
only as meat. In the heart of the town,
though there is no Smithfield, there is a
handsome covered fruit and vegetable market,
a legacy left of old time to the community by
one of its rich citizens.

There is another thing to be said about
this well ordered town, in which they have
placed the baths up-stream, the slaughterhouse
down-stream; the theatre half-way up
the principal street; the fruit-market in the
town, the brute-market out of it; in which
the dyers and fell-mongers have canals to
themselves; and every body has green walks
and parks in addition to his own private and
domestic garden.

How do the people of Amiens bury their
dead? Sensibly, of course. There are no
intramural grave yards. The cemetery is not,
indeed, within a stone's throw of the living.
If the visitor would walk thither he must
take up his staff and stretch out quite into
the country. It is to be found by the side of
a swelling hill, where it has been established
on a subsoil of chalk, that the beds of the
sleepers may be dry. One sees but little of it
from the road. Trees, and shrubs, with a not
too gay admixture of flowers, screen the
tombs from the eyes of passers by.

To make the story quite complete, let me
now follow the prevailing fashion, and show
my hotel bill to the public. The railway fare
from Boulogne to Amiens is eight shillings
and one half-penny, second-class; and second-
class travelling in France is very comfortable,
the seats and backs of the carriages are
stuffed, the number of places is limited, and
smoking is forbidden under a fine. I had
been recommended to an inn at Amiens, the
Hôtel de I'Ecu de France, by a friend who
knew that I wished for every reasonable
comfort, but that I could not afford to be
extravagant. My party consisted of four
persons—my sister, her daughters, and
myself. The ladies occupied a double-bedded
room. We were not thrust into out-of-the-way
back apartments; but our windows (we
had two in each bedroom) looked into the
handsome little Place St.Denis—a neat square,
with a statue in the middle, and bordered
round the edge by rows of clipped acacias.
These apartments were well furnished, with
arm-chairs, marble-topped tables, and so forth,
and with bedding, as I have always found it
in the north of France, of the most scrupulous
purity and neatness. For these accommodations,
I was charged a franc a bed. Our
breakfasts were twenty-five sous, or a shilling,
a head; for which we were supplied with
coffee, milk, and sugar, eggs, and ham,
beefsteak, and wonderfully well-fried potatoes,
according to the caprice of appetite. Our
dinners were fifteen-pence a head, and our
bill of fare on the last day of our dining there
was this: vermicelli soup, boiled fowls with
exquisite white sauce, fried soles admirably
executed, a brace of partridges, apple
conserve and cream tarts, followed by a dessert
of Gruyère cheese, pears, and sugar biscuits.
Beer at discretion was included in the charge;
and, still more marvellous, two of my ladies—
one seven years of age, the other a young
miss in her teens—were set down in the bill
as having but one head between them. The
cookery in general was first-rate; for the
cook, who almost always sang over his work,
was evidently happy in his mind, and frame
of mind always operates very much on the
result of work done by all artists. The wine
that we took was, of course, an extra. We
had very good light Bordeaux for fifteen-
pence the bottle.

During our stay, I invited to dinner a
Frenchman who had obliged me, and we
fraternised with a bottle of champagne (four
shillings), and a more sumptuous dinner and
dessert than usual. I had told the landlady
that I should not be nice about the spending
of a few francs, if she would but do her best
for me. We were served accordingly, and
had grapes, peaches, fresh figs, and other
dainties. For this grand, epicurean outbreak,
I had only to pay twenty-pence a head. On
that occasion, and on the day of our arrival,
it being market-day, we had a small dining-
parlour to ourselves. At other times, we
ate in the public room. We spent five days
at Amiens. My bill on leaving, which was
made to include, with wine and all extras,
the service of the house, amounted to less
than four pounds English! Go, therefore,
O Briton needing rest, to Amiens for a
holiday, to Amiens in the happy valley of the
Somme.

                    CHIPS.

     THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS.

THE life and adventures of the Cornish
clergy during the eighteenth century would
form a graphic volume of ecclesiastical lore.
Afar off from the din of the noisy world,
almost unconscious of the badgewords, High
Church and Low Church, they dwelt in their
quaint gray vicarages by the churchyard wall,
the saddened and unsympathising witnesses
of those wild fierce usages of the west, which
they were utterly powerless to control. The
glebe whereon I write has been the scene of
many an unavailing contest in the cause of
morality between the clergyman and his
flock. One aged parishioner recals and
relates the run, that is the rescue, of a cargo
of kegs underneath the benches and in the
tower stairs of the church. "We bribed Tom
Hockaday, the sexton," so the legend ran,
"and we had the goods safe in the seats by
Saturday night. The parson did wonder at
the large congregation, for divers of them