salves and ointments for the poor, since good
and charitable ladies do commonly make this
part of their housekeeper's business.

There are no rules for housemaids; for
this class of servants was unknown. There
were no carpets to sweep; for the few that
were used were the small Turkey carpets,
and these were laid down when required,
and taken up and shaken and beaten; there
was no furniture to rub,  for mahogany was
only very slowly coming into use; and there
were no bright stoves to clean, for the stove,
even in the withdrawing room, was, as we
have said, merely a fire-basket on four legs.
So the tew remaining housemaid duties were
performed by the chambermaid, and very
specific is the enumeration of her duties.
She must first have some knowledge of dressing,
that, in the event of the absence of the
waiting gentlewoman, she may supply her
place.  She must keep the chambers clean,
and well-dusted, attend to the bed-linen, do
plain needlework, and know how to wash
lawn, point, and laces, those three most
valuable articles of a lady's wardrobe,
which were never allowed to go into the
laundry. She must also be able to wash
white and black sarcenet; and minute directions
are given how this is to be done.  The
sarcenet of this time was very different to the
modern. Its texture was almost that of
gros-de-Naples, but much more glossy, owing to
the fine Italian silk of which it was made,
and its price was proportionably high. This
sarcenet was used for hoods for summer wear,
and this style of head-dress continued down
to the days of the Spectator, where the reader
will probably remember the gratification he
expresses at the introduction of hoods of
various colours, remarking that the pit at the
theatre appeared like a gay flower-bed. The
chambermaid is also to be able to wait at the
table if need should require. This was
doubtless only when the lady dined with her
female friends, in her own chamber.

The chapter contains some excellent advice
to mistresses, urging them to watch over the
welfare of their servants, and encourage the
deserving by little presents. They are also to
watch as much as may be, that they do not fall
into bad company; and if the young woman
is likely to rnarry suitably, to be sure and
make her some useful present towards
housekeeping, and, if a valued servant, to give
her her wedding- dinner. These are pleasant
traits of domestic life in the past, and
of the kindly feeling that existed between
mistress and servant.

TO HANG OR NOT TO HANG.

IF you walk up that handsome street the
Fosses du Chapeau-Rouge, Bordeaux, you
will pass, on your left, the shop of Monsieur
P.Chaumas, Libraire-Editeur, or bookselling
publisher; and you will probably inspect his
window on your way, if you do not step in
to turn over his stores. At the publishers in
provincial towns in France, especially in
those which are the capital of their department,
you will often light upon curious information
which you may search in vain for
in the metropolis. M. Chaumas may fairly
boast of his departmental treasures, having
rendered good service to the literature of the
Gironde. He now announces, in three sous
numbers, an autobiography which, when
completed, will prove one of the most remarkable
illustrations of criminal justice hitherto
recorded—injustice was the word at the tip of
my pen. It is to be completed with portrait,
correspondence, fac-similes, and all the rest
of it. I am not aware whether the first
number of this stirring history has yet
appeared—I believe not. Meanwhile, I
sketch the leading events of the drama,
which one of its principal actors proposes
shortly to relate in full:—

Claude Gay, an old man of seventy, ailing
and infirm, lived alone in an isolated cottage
in the midst of a wood in the commune of
Le Fieu, in the arrondissement of Libourne.
He had sold this cottage and the small
piece of land belonging to it to Lesnier the
Son, a schoolmaster, for the moderate life-annuity
of six francs seventy-five centimes
per month. In the night of the fifteenth to
the sixteenth of November, eighteen hundred
and forty-seven, the inhabitants of the bourg
of Le Fieu were awakened by a conflagration
which burst forth from Gay's dwelling. The
cottage, which was built of clay and wood,
was soon destroyed by the flames. The body of
the proprietor was found stretched at the
entrance, with his feet on the threshold and
his head on the floor of the only chamber of
which his house consisted. After a post-
mortem examination, the medical men
declared that death had been occasioned by
violence.

One Louis Daignaud deposed that, that
same night he had been stopped by Lesnier
the Son, the schoolmaster, and his father.
Worse than that, Marie (born) Cessac (a
married Frenchwoman never so completely
drops her maiden name as an Englishwoman
does) Marie Cessac, the wife of a public-house
keeper named Lespagne, but who was
not living with her husband, having
apparently been discarded by him, and who
had entered into an improper intercourse
with the younger Lesnier, denounced him,
her paramour, as the murderer of Gay.

This double testimony, added to the interest
which the younger Lesnier had in the death
of his annuitant, Claude Gay, were the cause
of his being condemned, on the second of
July, eighteen hundred and forty-eight, to
hard labour for life by the Court of Assize
of the Department of La Gironde. In
England he would probably have been
sentenced to death, and the sentence would
have been carried into execution. Mister
Calcraft's experienced adroitness would