containing about forty-five per cent, of
sulphur: the produce has amounted, in part of
that period, to one hundred thousand tons
per annum, and is capable of increase. This
ore has been extensively used by the various
alkali manufacturers instead of Sicilian
brimstone, and has greatly reduced the cost of the
latter. It is now considered an important
product, and has been the means of giving
employment to great numbers of otherwise
destitute persons. If this substitute for
Sicilian brimstone had not been found, that
article would now be at an enormous price,
instead of from five to six pounds sterling per
ton.

POULTRY ABROAD.

WHEN a fear was expressed to a very
high personage that the late revolutionary
proceeding in Spain might have the effect
of unsettling things in France, he
sagaciously replied that there was no real cause
for anxiety. "France," he said, "often gives
the plague, but never catches it." Still, there
are several remarkable exceptions to the
general truth of this imperial dictum. The
notorious and historical Anglomania which
naturalised such things and words as jockei,
the boxe, redingote, sport, boulingrin, bifstik,
plompudding, stúpide, and confortable, is one
of them. English seeds for French gardeners,
English pigs and oxen for French farmers,
English needles, pins, and thread for French
seamstresses, English muslins and print dresses
for French budding demoiselles, are all matters
of desire in their absence, and of pride in their
possession. Two items of live stock—sheep
and poultry—have as yet remained in the
primitive state in which chance and nature
left them two or three hundred years ago.

It may be as well to state that on the
continent poultry-fancying is a thing unknown.
Whatever national advancement may be
made in the education of young men and
women by means of polytechnic and other
schools and colleges, the bringing up of cocks
and hens is sadly and grievously neglected.
They are allowed to run about and do just as
they like, without control or discipline.
Breeds, strains, and distinctive markings thus
become confusion worse confounded. The
seaports often contain two or three households
of respectable game fowls, brought over by
steampacket captains, messengers, and other
English birds of passage; but they are soon
lost and merged in the multitude of mongrels,
when their importers and owners take their
flight elsewhere. There are districts in
France which are (locally) celebrated for their
poultry; but, as has appeared to our judgment,
generally without sufficient cause. On
eating them, an ordinary amateur would say
they were hardly so good as the average of
farmers' fowls at home; and as to looking at
them, they will not bear the looking at.
Le Mans in Maine, the Pays de Caux, and
the neighbourhood of Le Havre in
Normandy, and other parts of France, are loudly
vaunted for the poultry they produce. The
kinds reared are either ill-bred Polands, an
offshoot of the Spanish breed called Crevecœur
fowls, or barndoors of unaccountable
extraction. The immense multitude of eggs
laid, the surplus only of which sent to
England is astounding in its numbers, is to be
accounted for without attributing any
unusual merit to the hens, first, by the warmer
and drier climate of France; and, secondly
(what is too often forgotten when the
respective produce of France and England is
compared), by the immensely greater area
which affords the supply. Englishmen, until
they begin to travel, do not suspect how much
greater in extent than their own snug little
island are the interminable plains of the
continent.

The best species of poultry in France, with
reference both to the eye and the palate, are,
first, the turkeys, which are excellent, being
pure types of the genuine old black Norfolk
breed. Mainly in consequence, it may be
presumed, of the dry, warm, and long summer,
they attain very considerable average weights,
and appear very early on the table in the
shape of poults. They might easily be
kept and fattened up to great weights;
but, it is not the fashion of French, and
especially of Parisian dinners, to take
pride or pleasure in mountains of meat. A
moderate-sized hen turkey, stuffed with
truffles, if possible, is there the acme of
excellence. Prime Ministers are reputed to have
been bribed by the timely present of a dinde
truffée. Turkeys, too, are almost the only
birds which can be advantageously imported
into England as stock; and they run so equal
and so high in merit, that the merest tyro
can hardly go wrong in making his selection.
We therefore strongly advise all persons
whose turkeys have not done well for the last
few years, most likely on account of some
hereditary weakness, entirely to get rid of
their ailing patients, to make a careful
inspection, reparation, and cleansing of their
poultry-houses, and then to repeople them
with healthy birds obtained direct from the
north of France. Perhaps, as will be seen
from what we have further to say, facilities
will be hereafter afforded in the way of
exchange.

The next best volatile thing which our
Gallic neighbours have to boast of, but which
they do not sufficiently appreciate
themselves, are the wild-coloured call-ducks, or
canards de rappel, which are to be found in
several of the northern departments. They
are not seen further in the interior, simply
because, as a general rule, central France is
comparatively deficient in water. These
French call-ducks (the introduction of which
would prove a valuable acquisition at home)
are both admirable mothers and excellent