England. At the outset, they were mainly
supported and set a-going by the patronage
of people in easy circumstances, enjoying a
certain amount of education beyond the mere
faculty of reading printed type. You find
them, subscribed for or taken in regularly,
in the houses of leisurely people living on
their incomes, with means enabling them to
scorn halfpenny prints, unless the prints had
been to their taste. This is to be accounted
for by the nature of the greater part of their
matter, — continuous narrative, reproduced,
translated, and even meritorious originals.
But for such publications this small public
had been prepared long beforehand by the
feuilletons at the foot of the newspapers,
which serve out to their customers a slice
of a novel fresh and fresh every day, which
slices admit of being cut off from the paper,
to be stitched together and reunited to
serve as a provision of future romance-
reading. There were, moreover, and still
are, feuilletons critical and scientific, as well
as romantic. It was likely, therefore, that
the cheap innovation should be accepted
by feuilleton-readers, if only as a more handy
form of feuilleton. They were accepted;
and now they are penetrating into rustic
interiors. They vary the monotony of the
Primary-Schoolmaster's routine; they are to
be seen in the one-storied farmhouses of
peasant proprietors; and no one can guess
what importance they may yet attain.

The French small periodicals, acting in
direct opposition to the political plan of the
nation, seem to have adopted a representative
system. Each journal appeals to a particular
class of constituents or subscribers,
consults their tastes, and makes itself their
organ. There is even one entitled The
Billiard. To whatever set of readers you
belong, you may find the paper exactly
to suit you, at a price varying from a
halfpenny to twopence; for, when journals
devoted to special objects—politics
excepted, which find no place in the cheapest
literature—rise to the enormous price of half
a franc the number, they are reflected and
imitated in a more economical form, and so
pass into humbler hands. Thus, L'Ami des
Sciences, The Friend of Science, a very able
weekly periodical, conducted by Victor
Meunier (which is subscribed for by the
year at the rate of ten francs in Paris, twelve
in the departments of France, and fourteen
in England, and which is well worth taking
in, as it really does keep its readers up to the
mark in respect to the novelties of scientific
progress) does not, notwithstanding its
cheapness and its merits, suit either the
arrangements or the pockets of every
customer; nor, perhaps, I may add, their
intellectual capacities. Consequently, there are
second-chop instructive publications for the
million, such as the Musée des Sciences, The
Museum of Science, at two sous a number,
and five francs a year, with no less a person
than Monsieur Lecouturier for its chief
conductor, which gives you, accompanied by
very fair woodcuts, the newest acquisitions
of natural history; the influence of fatigue
on the quality of an animal's meat, thereby
indirectly inculcating that cruelty is contrary
to the interest of the butcher; fish struck
dead by the effects of submarine volcanoes;
the metamorphoses of crustaceans; with a
final faggot of scientific facts; all for the small
price of one penny. Another learned illustrated
periodical, La Science pour Tous, Science for
All, procurable for the same moderate outlay,
takes as wide a range as the poet's eye
itself when rolling in its finest phrensy. It
glances from heaven to earth, from earth to
heaven. It sweeps over sea and land, and
boldly dives into the abysses of the one and
the inside of the other. This week it will
give you a plan and elevation of a model
stable; next week, it will display copies of
photographic images of a solar eclipse. One
number will display the miniature likeness of
a drawing-room aquarium, whilst another,
embracing aquatic matters on a somewhat
larger scale, illustrates the line to be taken
by the submarine tunnel between England
and France, and gives you an excellent idea
of what the central station will be, one of
these days. Whether you wander in the
sunshiny glades of the Jardin des Plantes, or
take a moonlight stroll in the Champs
Elysées to profit by the ambulant telescopes
on hire by open-air astronomers; whether
you wish to grapple with the mysteries of
the laboratory, or to amuse yourself with
light mathematics, or to dally with
magnetism and electricity, taking also a little
astronomical chronology and improvements
in gas-lighting by way of sauce to the more
solid dishes—only subscribe to La Science
pour Tous, or to Le Musée des Sciences, or,
better still, to L'Ami des Sciences, and you
will have a guide to your steps and a light to
your path.

L'lllustration, corresponding to our
Illustrated News, is not what can be called an
expensive publication, still its price has
evoked cheaper rivals—Le Monde Illustré,
The Illustrated World, sold for threepence
a number, and printing from fifty to sixty
thousand. More recently, L'Univers Illustré,
The Illustrated Universe, in the hope of
annihilating the illustrated Monde, although
of larger dimensions than itself, offers its
attractions for three-halfpence a number, and
prints already from sixty to sixty-five
thousand. Our neighbours are fond of titles
which imply a vast scope of action and a
wide-spread reputation. Nothing is more
common than a Café de l'Europe, a literary
Monde, and an Hôtel de l'Univers.

The Journal Amusant, or Amusing Journal,
is dear, comparatively, and so there is a
Petit Journal pour Rire, or Small Journal to
make you Laugh, with a coloured cut on the
first page, price ten centimes, or exactly