to the follies of youth. Crinoline will have
risen, triumphed, and fallen, without having
blockaded our thoroughfares or burst our
public vehicles. An Englishwoman once made
a desperate attempt to get a baby-perambulator
pushed along by her side; but the very
stones rose in indignant protest against such
a revolutionary movement. Our cows and
cattle are safely housed at night within the
town; our corn and hay are stored inside
the circuit of what were once our walls; and
our farmyard manure has to be carted out of
it exactly as if our governor were still at
mortal feud with the Governor of St. Omer,
or as if we might any day have to stand a
siege at the will of Edward the Second or the
Due de Guise.

WE HAVE NO GREAT CRIMES. Sadleirs and
Doves; masked and black-faced burglars,
who bind their victims to their beds (when
they spare their lives), and jeeringly feast in
their presence; Notting Hill miscreants, who
defy a neighbourhood, and laugh at a body of
police; adorn the pages of our romances, the
small-sheeted newspapers, and frighten us
pleasantly on November evenings, as we read
of them with an incredulous stare. It
is the same with American difficulties, and
revolver encounters. We have no Royal
British Banks; we prefer a coffee-cup in
a closet, a stocking hid under the mattrass,
a seed-sack in the attic, or even the purchase
of a cottage and garden. We have
no Funeral Clubs or Burial Societies, to
tempt us to domestic assassination, but are
content, when needs must, with a deal-plank
coffin, and the regulation grave in the cemetery
which the law accords to every one. I
close my shutters when candlelight comes,
for a little privacy, although it is running
counter to the spirit of the place; most other
householders leave theirs open,—probably to
help to light the streets. I fasten the said
shutters before retiring to rest, only when
the wind is high and I expect to be disturbed
by their clapping to and fro. Petty offences
are not unfrequent; such as destroying a
young growing tree in the forest (which is
equivalent to murdering a codling in the
ocean), in the winked-at act of gathering
firewood, or gleaning potatoes before the farmer
has completed the carting away of his crop,
and similar grave misdemeanours, punishable
by fine and imprisonment. The time at
which the latter penalty is inflicted, after
sentence, is considerately made to fall in
with the convicted person's private
convenience. Has he family affairs to settle, a
pig to kill, or carrots to store? Well and
good; let him finish his task, and then swallow
his dose of imprisonment. A groceress,
condemned to twenty-five francs fine and six
days of prison, for selling drams across her
counter under aggravated circumstances, has
just returned from the Palace of Justice to
her household gods, and will put herself into
durance when her Penates can best spare
her. Nevertheless, we have a determined
and unscrupulous band of garden-robbers,
who prowl by day, disguising themselves
under the form of cocks and hens. If caught
in the fact, the law visits them severely. A
private mode of revenge is to set hempen
snares for them, to catch the hen-like thieves
by the leg; to keep them without victuals
and drink for four-and-twenty hours, and not
to permit their return to their disconsolate
families till they have paid for their ransom
an egg or two each.

It is only consistent with the universal
knowledge of passing events, which pervades,
like a subtle creeping mist, every street, lane,
and cottage of our town, that we should
dispense in a great measure with inscriptions
and signs over shops and doorways. Of
what use to publish a fact of which every
soul is cognisant?—that M. Grattebarbe
shaves by the month or the year; that
Mademoiselle Ferafeu goes out ironing, and
takes in fine linen? To compensate for the
general absence of such things, some of the
signs that do start forth, are wonders. A
shoemaker's tawny lion (with a countenance
bearing a happy resemblance to its owner's,
—and which, indeed, might pass for a flattering
likeness) is running away with a red
morocco boot, beneath a rainbow-shaped
legend, " He may tear it, but he can't unstitch
it." An enormous wooden shoe, hung
out in mid air, plays the part of Hen and
Chickens; for, it is surrounded by a family of
little sabots, whom you expect every minute
to see nestle beneath their mother's instep.
But, these are exceptions: the displays of
sanguine, enterprising, over-anxious young
tradesmen. In general, " Maison à louer
presentement " remains stuck on the shutter
of a tenement, after the house has been
occupied, for a lease of three, six, or nine (years),
at the pleasure of either party. " Marchand
de grains," which is matter of history only to
be verified in our town archives, continues to
decorate the frontispiece of a shop devoted
solely to hardware and tin. "Epicerie,"
announcing grocery to sustain the inner
man, overhangs a tailor, who confections
clothes to warm the outer man. Still more
important luminaries are hidden under the
bushel of obscurity; that is, not hidden—only
un-placarded. A dame, mostly known by a
soubriquet meaning, " Wisp-of-fish-straw,"
has epicurean treasures in store—wild-duck,
woodcock, snipe, partridge, hare, and every
furred and feathered game, except pheasant,
you can think of—without the slightest external
indication of what she sells, or that she
sells anything. Why should she be expected
to take the trouble of hanging a brace or two
of birds outside her door? Where were you
born, if you don't know that Wisp buys the
contents of the chasseur's gamebags after his
day's pleasure; that wild fowl from the hut-
shooters in the marais come to her by the
dozens and the scores? that she travels three