the top of it. His establishment is now
one of the largest in the City of Palaces.
His nautches are on the most magnificent
scale; the Governor-general was present at
the last. His clients are more numerous than
those of any other banian; his monetary
transactions more extensive; and, in speaking
of his wealth, people talk not of thousands,
but of millions of rupees.

This Bean-stalk is not an imaginary plant.
It is not culled from Arabian romance or
fairy legend, but is taken from the veritable
records of Indian every-day life. It grew
yesterday; it grows to-day; it will grow on
to-morrow, and will continue to grow until
the axe of Indian Reform cuts it down for
ever.

THE PHALANSTERIAN MENAGERIE.

One evening lately I found myself at Paris,
without being exactly able to remember how
I got there. I ought to have been on the
north coast of France, philosophising on the
beach at regular hours, or perhaps unphilosophically
contemplating the freaks of the adult
and infant bathers there. For I had a tiresome
book in hand to be forthwith edited,
and my last letter from England contained a
severe demand for "copy." Moreover, there
was a convalescent nursling in the way, for
whom Channel breezes were urgently
prescribed; nor had I any clear recollection of
having settled with my native landlady before
thus abruptly quitting her comfortable board
and lodging. But railways are such leaders
into temptation. "To Paris and back for
twenty francs" had been placarded about for
a fortnight past. I have substantial proof
that it is a vulgar error that "rolling stones
gather no moss." In short, at Paris I seemed
to be, without my French mother—and they
are a sharp-sighted set—having the least
suspicion that I was out.

It is a luxury of ecstatic degree to make
this kind of sudden escape, and to break loose
out of the mill-round of duties which have
daily to be done from morning till night. A
new set of faces, a new set of streets, a new
set of hedges and ditches and fields, are most
effectual tonics. There are people in the
world who would die, or go mad, if they
could not freely and fairly take wing now and
then. I am closely related to that family of
migrants; and that, I suppose, was the reason
why I happened so oddly to be strolling about
Paris, unconscious of the means which had
conveyed me.

I had no object on earth to take me there,
and I wandered along in delightful carelessness.
As it was getting dusk, I reached one
of the quays. Before me flowed the rushing
Seine; behind me rose a large and dingy
building, which bore some resemblance to a
publisher's shop. I leaned over the parapet,
gazing at the river, and musing on some
strange notions about electricity that had
been proposed to my consideration, when a
sudden glare of light interrupted my thoughts,
and made me turn round to ascertain the
cause. The building was brilliantly and
instantly illuminated—could it be by the electric
light?—and through the windows I could
see that it contained, besides books, a large
collection of living animals. Of course, in
Paris all such treasures as this would be
open to the inspection of a well-behaved
public, and I at once determined to ascertain
the prescribed form of obtaining admittance.
But, as I approached the door, it was opened
wide to receive my visit, and a handsome,
brown-bearded, full-eyed man invited me in
with pleasing yet dignified looks and
gestures.

"I only occupy a portion of this establishment,"
he said. "My fellow-labourers, not
less enthusiastic than myself, have each their
special department assigned them. Mine,
just now, is to exhibit the Menagerie. The
public will not arrive quite yet in any
numbers to require my attention; so, as I
perceive you are a stranger and an Englishman,
it will afford me pleasure to act as your guide
for a private view, during the brief interval
which I have to spare before lecturing to my
usual audience."

Only one reply—a bow of thanks—could be
made to this obliging offer. I followed my
Mentor, charmed with his manner and amused
with his matter, but often seriously asking
myself whether or not I were in company
with an escaped lunatic. Still, at many a
remark which he made, I resolved to try and
remember that, and give some report of his
observations.

Let us first—he said—inspect the animals
which have rallied around the standard of
man; some of them as auxiliaries, others
merely as domestic slaves. What a pity that
I should have so few to show you! With
exceedingly rare exceptions, every living
creature, whether bird or beast, sincerely
desires to fraternise with man; and during the
space of six thousand years, with several
thousands of animals to work upon, we have
only succeeded in attaching to us some forty
of them, at the very outside calculation. I
do not know of any fact which is more
severely condemnatory of the actual phase of
society, than the simple comparison of these
figures respectively.

Here you observe a goodly collection of
dogs, all admirable for their special merits.
God having in the beginning created man,
and beholding him so feeble, gave him the
dog; and in order that the dog might entirely
belong to man, he exclusively endowed him
with friendship and devotion. He instilled
into his heart the most profound contempt
for family joys and paternity. He limited
his sentiment of love to the animal instinct of
reproduction. He left love and familism, the
passions of the minor mode, to the inferior
canine race, the Fox. The dog is the noblest