watch. The time was seventeen minutes past three. I had been in the tunnel no more than two minutes, little more than half the average time a culprit is dying under Mr. Calcraft's hands!

PARISIAN FEMALE EXTRAVAGANCE.

ALL Paris has been fermenting in a turmoil (and the hubbub has not quite subsided yet), because It will doubtless be objected, that it would be im- somebody has stated and criticised facts of which all possible for the quantity of thought which it has Paris is fully aware. It is as if the senile world taken so many pages to describe to have passed should rise up in riot when told that old men have through my mind in the space of two minutes. But gray beards; for we are informed by certain apoloI have stated only the fact. It should be remem- gists that the circumstances alluded to are as inevibered, that the reminiscence of any scene or act is table at the present day, and under the present state not brought to the mind in words, but by that rapid of things, as the effects of time on the human hair. intelligence we obtain in picture reading. For ex- French women, who move in good society, will not, ample, when gazing at Horace Vernet's magnificent and cannot, just now, be anything else than spendpicture in the Luxembourg, of the massacre of the thrifts, mangeuses d'argent, 66 eaters-up of money,” Mamelukes, a scene is presented to us in an instant according to the somewhat coarse native expression. which it would have taken pages to describe. The The better class of French philosophers, however, restern, abstracted look of the pasha, the apparent in-garding the phenomena more coolly, consider them difference of the old minister beside him, the man- as manifestations of an epidemic not altogether perner in which, at the same time, he clasps his sabre-manently established in the land; but which, having sheath till the muscles of his hand stand out like had its causes, may also have its remedies; and which cords of iron. The anxious expression of the black at least may one day pass away of its own accord. slave, the smoke from the firing below, the bril- The above-mentioned "all Paris" requires some liancy even of the jewels on the pasha's dagger, all little definition. That clever writer, Auguste Villeare read and understood in a moment. In like man-mot, tells us that when events occupy "all Paris," ner the various scenes I have narrated passed across we know what "all Paris" often means. It is tout my mind with equal vividness and rapidity; and so Paris minus the reader, perhaps; minus himself, far from having exaggerated the measure of thought assuredly; minus whoever reads, of writes, or works, which rushed through my brain, I have greatly un- or thinks; which reduces tout Paris to the proporderstated it. tions of a special group. It is thus that tout Paris is daily utilized, to serve the interests of trade, or the gratification of vanity. A retailer of fashionable novelties announces that tout Paris is rushing to his a statement clearly open to a slight reduction. You read in your newspaper that, fast night, tout Paris was at such a theatre. Now, addition and subtraction duly made, it turns out that tout Paris is composed of twenty claqueurs, or paid applauders, thirty young men from the country, a few tradesmen to the theatre who have obtained orders for their families, forty check-takers, fifty female box-openers, and other employés; besides six firemen and four gendarmes, without whom tout Paris would be incomplete.

And must not the same phenomenon occur to a culprit when dying under the hands of the hangman? Or, from the peculiarity of his position, would not his thoughts flow with still greater rapid-show-rooms, ity? and of what a description must they be? Scenes long past, crimes he may have committed and not repented of, fear that the next moment he may stand before the great Judge of heaven and earth, all press themselves on him. Even to the last moment this must continue, for the nearer his end approaches the more desperate must be the efforts of the mind to preserve its dominion, feeling but too strongly that the longer he thinks the longer is the terrible moment of his death postponed.

I would now candidly ask our rulers whether some steps ought not to be taken to abridge the terrible mental torture of the dying criminal, and whether we are justified in continuing our present method of execution? A short time since a man was hanged at Leeds or Sheffield, who it was stated was twenty minutes in dying. True it was afterwards attempted to be explained that this was an exaggeration; but the explanation was of the most clumsy description. Let it be granted that the poor wretch was only half that time in dying, and what must have been the state of his mind during it? Would it be possible for the ingenuity of a sensation novel-writer to invent anything more terrible ?

To return to my experiment. After leaving the tunnel I felt as great a disgust at the idea of being present at the execution as I had felt curiosity before entering it. I resolved to show my friend Mr. Calcraft a clean pair of heels. This resolution I carried into effect, leaving him to find another assistant as he best could. The question of capital punishment I leave to wiser heads than mine; but I trust the reader will admit that we are totally inexcusable in not taking means to abridge as much as possible the sufferings of the criminal at the time of his execution.

It is also customary to say, "Last Sunday, all Paris was at Madame de X.'s soirée." Now Madame de X. occupies an entresol which, in case of need, will hold some sixty people. Never mind; on that particular evening, those sixty amateurs represent all Paris; exactly as in tragedies at the Théâtre Français, six figurants represent the Roman people. In short, all Paris does not know which way to turn itself. Everybody wishes to have it for his guest, and to boast of the honor of its acquaintance. The mark of fashionable eminence is to know all Paris, and to be known by it.

A portress of M. Villemot's acquaintance had a daughter who in her personal decoration had no objection to exceed her just rights and step a little out of her rank.

"My daughter," said the sensible woman, "when you show yourself in a hat instead of a cap, you do not perceive that all Paris shrugs its shoulders at you."

All Paris, for this portress, was the groceress, the fruit-woman, and the baker's wife; who might truly make a few spicy, rich, and crusty remarks touching Mademoiselle Gibou's coquetry. But the rest of Paris troubled little about it. In the first place, Paris is not surprised at such trifles. It is only too much in the habit of beholding portress's daughters disdaining cotton print for muslin and silk, mounting from the porter's lodge to the tapestried entre

sol, lolling in their open carriage, and parading their | done by remonstrance, hitherto, is to get back a tu finery in the box of a theatre. Paris is amused, quoque. "You are as bad yourself." When the rather than angered, at the spectacle. ladies are told, "Reform your dress," they answer,

At the theatre of the Porte St. Martin, at the" And you, gentlemen, reform your morals." Such representation of "Capitaine Fantome" (all Paris is the upshot of Madame Olympe Audouard's, "Rewas there), a double-distilled cocotte arrived late, ponse d'une Femme à M. Le Procureur-Général and boisterously installed herself in the avant-scène, Dupin," which one of her compatriots has criticised in the midst of the emotions of the drama. There as "de mauvais goût,"-in not good taste. were several disapproving "chuts"; and then the innocent and silver voice of a spectator in the gallery exclaimed,

Tiens! "Tis my portress's daughter! Bonjour, Mam'zelle Rosalie! Cordon! Pull the bolt, to let us in, s'il vous plait!"

Poor Mademoiselle Rosalie was considerably out of countenance. She tried hard to crush all Paris with her disdain. But when once all Paris takes mischief in hand it behaves no better than a London errandboy. All Paris that evening was in the mind for a bit of chaff; and the unlucky cocotte was obliged to give way before the flood of raillery which, like the rising tide, overwhelmed and extinguished her airs and graces. She retired, saying audibly to the amiable but somewhat bashful young man who accompanied her, "Come away, Ernest; there is nothing but racaille, low people, here to-night." All which has not prevented Mademoiselle Rosalie's brilliant sucShe appears in public every day, in the most aristocratic attitudes. She has her box at the first performance of every new play; her calèche at the races; and, at two in the morning, she sups on prawns at the Café Anglais.

cess.

But a couple of foolish acts, simultaneously performed, by women on the one hand and by men on the other, do not, like acids and alkalis, neutralize each other, making up one wise, or even inconsequential act between them. Were it so, the world's stupidities would be easier to remedy than they are. We should only have to match one folly with another, - a task agrecable enough to certain temperaments.

Madame Audouard's views of crinoline are droll; men, however, do not understand its æsthetic bearings. In their ignorance, they look upon it as an accoutrement which clothes without warming, and covers without concealing. Crinoline, she allows, is inconvenient, especially for gentlemen - whether they offer their arm to or waltz with a lady, or find themselves in a carriage in company with three crinolines. And the ladies; are they on a bed of roses? Certainly not. Why keep it, then? Why? why?

Because-because- before crinoline, some eight or ten years ago, they, as school-girls, wore a little petticoat and a scanty skirt, a frock, a scabbard, a scissors-sheath, a razor-case, which allowed many a contour to be guessed at, or rather revealed it in well-developed outlines. They, the school-girls, like Eve in her innocence, were not shocked, being still ignorant of that thing of mystery, that immense veil larded with strips of iron, vulgarly called a cage or hencoop. But now, she says, they are like Eve

reveal the secrets which we have kept concealed for ten long years. Sometimes, by way of experiment, we try on in private the simple petticoat and skirt of olden time; but we find ourselves too slightly clad, and presto! we on with the crinoline again." It is logical for our authoress to add, "Modesty is a matter of custom."

Instances of "money-cating,” in upstart creatures, who eat, not their own, but other people's money, ought not so much to astonish sages. Set a beggar on horseback, and he will ride- you know where. But the accusation, which has caused so much excitement, has been made against women moving in good society. In the French senate, the late M."after the leaf. We cannot make up our minds to Dupin (occupying a position analogous to that of our attorney-general) made a short but spirited speech on "the unbridled luxury of women.' He complains that respectable and high-bred ladies copy the fashions set by females who are neither high-bred nor respectable; that, every winter, every season, facts come to light, proving that dressmakers' bills amount to totals which the handsomest fortunes cannot meet. The desire to make a brilliant figure causes finery to be bought on credit, without the knowledge of the husband; bills, letters of change, are signed; and for those bills indorsers have to be found, who take advantage of their position. Such is the state of French society, which sumptuary reformers are endeavoring to correct. La Fontaine committed an error in laughing at the frog who tried to inflate herself to the bigness of the bull; for in this current year of grace, Froggy would easily attain her object. Finally, according to M. Dupin, the best thing that could happen would be for influential matrons (without ceasing to present themselves in decent and even rich attire, when the occasion, and their rank and fortune require it), to form themselves into a Ladies'-Dress Temperance Society, pitilessly retrenching every superfluity. Example, he holds, is the only means of saving husbands and families from shame and ruin.

Of M. Dupin's many reviewers, not the least sensible, fair, and acute is that able and well-known author, M. Edmond About, who admits that M. Dupin, quoting and imitating Cato the Censor, has, with a single blow of his tusk, stirred up the weightiest question of the present day. But M. About neither blames nor praises him for his attack on crinoline; he refrains from discussing the elegant rhymes which are passing from mouth to mouth in the streets of Paris. Crinoline, according to his notions, is nothing more than an irresponsible scaffolding; it is a peg which cannot be called upon to answer for what people choose to hang upon it. It conceals and displays in turn woman's secret riches and leannesses; it creates illusion respecting living broomsticks who walk up and down the town; but next Sunday, on the steps of the Madeleine, it will betray the physical poverty it was intended to hide.

Crinoline alone, he holds, has never ruined anybody; quite the contrary. It is an economical enThe ladies, it seems, were but slightly affected by gine which supplies the place of four or five pettithe eloquence of their magisterial censor; and had coats, or thereabouts, per day. It costs fifty francs, M. Dupin taken his walks by night through the and suppresses an outlay of eighteen hundred and Champs Elysées unattended, he might have incurred twenty-five (thirty in leap year); for it is easily the possibility of a bath in one of the fountains, ad- made to last a twelvemonth. The crinoline quesministered by avenging female hands. All the good | tion, therefore, may be set aside as irrelevant to

female extravagance, and our whole attention de- | fathers of families quit their homes every evening in voted to woman herself.

66

A fair correspondent reproaches him with having too long neglected this "capital" theme. But two years ago, he published a thick volume, entitled Madelon," in which he pictured the dissolving action of one single female money-eater on the purest hearts and the firmest characters. Since the 2d of October, 1864, he has written three big octavo volumes, in which high-life money-eateresses swarm as thick as gold-fish in a dealer's aquarium. But he has not yet said the hundredth part of what there is to say: witness the pleasure, ever new, with which he returns to his flock of sheep-shearing ewes.

the week, return long after their children are gone to bed, and, as soon as they are up in the morning, rush without delay to the places where their business calls them. The grand dinners which begin at eight, the balls which break up at daylight, the theatres, the club, the Bourse, the bureau, the counting-house, calls of digestion (at houses where one has dined), of politeness or canvassing, business appointments, rides and drives in the Bois de Boulogne for purposes of health or vanity, form altogether a passable amount of obstacles which interfere between a parent and his children. But the mother? In wellregulated families the wife goes almost everywhere with her husband. In ill-regulated families it is not likely that the girls will have the best possible maternal example or instruction afforded them.

There is also published, within two steps of the Bourse, a journal exclusively devoted to female prodigals, to prodigal daughters, prodigal wives, and prodigal other things. It is called La Vie Pari- There are in Paris several thousand wealthy, honsienne, "Life in Paris," because it is only by accident orable, well-assorted couples, who dine out six days that the important interests it discusses extend be- in the weck, and who receive dinner visitors on the yond the limits of Paris. "Heaven be praised for seventh. The children do not go out to dinner with it!" may Frenchmen exclaim. This paper, attrac- the parents, nor do they dine with them at home tive in form and illustrated with woodcuts, has not when half a score guests are seated at table. They fewer than six thousand subscribers, although it es- dine apart with an English nursemaid (such is the chews scandal and malicious personality. Whence fashion) until they are provided with a governess or comes such extraordinary vogue? From this: La a tutor. But breakfast, at least, it will be supposed, Vie Parisienne is the money-swalloweress's Moni- is partaken of as a family meal. Rarely. Paris teur, Moniteur in both senses of the word. Not life, at the rate at which it is going now, tends to only does it publish their decrees or their fantasies become, for adults of a certain rank, a nocturnal life. (which are one and the same), as the Moniteur Uni- The parents submit to this reversal of the natural versel prints the imperial decrees, but it also gives state of things simply because they cannot help it; them smart raps on the knuckles. Every week it but almost all of them try to carry out the principle tells them little truths, and threatens them with the of making their children get up and go to bed at cane, exactly as a preparatory-school monitor would. reasonable hours, taking their four meals per day at The director in chief is Marcelin. The writers- proper and wholesome intervals. The old-fashioned M. About is one of them-compose a curious group. regularity which maintained the great-grandfathers You would see, if they took off their masks, that this of the present generation in good health and spirits ultra-mundane journal reckons two philosophers for is renounced by adults; but children are still made one man of the world; so that M. Dupin has not al- to conform to it, that is, almost all children, for together had the first-fruits of the "Dupin question." exceptions already exist. You may now and then The originality of his discourse consists in its having meet with little gentlemen as tall as your boot, and been spoken before gentlemen who are especially little ladies as big round as your fist, who lie late in skilled in the knowledge of men, not of women, see-bed, sit up till midnight, toss off glasses of chaming that their time and thoughts have been almost exclusively devoted to politics.

pagne, and who, it requires no conjurer to guess, wither before their season of coming into bloom. M. About goes further than the writers who sim- Setting these melancholy phenomena aside, and reply signalize the facts of prodigality; he traces the turning to the ordinary multitude of cases, it may be causes of female extravagance to the manner in asserted as a general axiom that nine tenths of the which French young ladies are educated. Without rich children in Paris are brought up by their doencroaching on Fénélon's ground, or even on Rous-mestics. The papas will exclaim that this is a calseau's (who created a Sophie to match his Emile), umny; and the mammas, what will they say? he confines himself to Paris in 1865, and inquires Yes, madame, it cannot be denied that you dehow they bring up young persons, who will one day vote one hundred and twenty minutes per day to be women, in the metropolis which M. Haussman the training of your little family; from one till three has given to the world. It will be understood that in the afternoon; there is no gainsaying it. And he leaves out of the question the indigent or simply the effort which you make to do it is so very credlaborious classes. It is not amongst artisans or small itable that you deserve compliments instead of reretail dealers that we are to look for the expensive proaches for the shortness of the interval. You live ostentation which called forth M. Dupin's censures. in a world in which bustle, noise, ostentation, and At the outset we may eliminate from the discussion | ubiquity are matters of absolute compulsion. Your everybody who does not possess, or earn, an income of twenty thousand francs (eight hundred pounds). With a few exceptions, which are unfortunately very rare, the father of a family is unable to superintend the education of his sons; how, then, should he find the time to attend to his daughters' bringing up? Every placeman is completely absorbed, not only by the duties of his place, but also by official obligations. When you read in your newspapers that such a minister holds a reception on Monday, such another on Tuesday, and so on up to Saturday, you may boldly conclude that two or three thousand

existence is caught in a set of implacable cog-wheels, and it is really meritorious on your part to steal out of it a couple of hours per day.

As to you, dear monsieur, you throw the fault upon the urgency of your affairs; and everybody, alas! has his affairs now-a-days. Millionnaires have as many, perhaps more, on their shoulders than poor devils who have to work, or write, for their bread. If one could make up one's mind to have only a single child, one could turn one's back upon affairs. The child, sooner or later, inherits his patrimony, and does not find his position much lowered, al

Jan. 27, 1866.J

though the twenty-franc piece (which, during the last few years, has fallen to the value of ten) is insensibly dropping towards five. But people have families of three or four, if only out of prudence, remembering that all are mortal. It is wished that they should not be more to be pitied than their parents; money must be got for them through the instrumentality of "affairs." There are affairs of all genera, species, and varieties, from speculation at the Bourse to politics and place-hunting.

ter;

take the precedence of all things; that they should most look up to the persons who give them the handsomest veils and the heaviest étrennes, is only in the natural course of things. It would be folly to be scandalized or astonished at it. They are what their lot and their education have made them. But that a parent should abandon his sons and his daughters to such liveried preceptors as those, is quite a different affair.

According to French ideas, it is a matter of great A good French father, at present, works, even if importance that a young lady should reach her wedrich, to insure the further welfare of his children. ding-day with her eyes covered with a bandage. It He wants to scrape together a dowry for his daugh- is impossible to say that angelic ignorance is not the he rushes into politics, and performs the twelve height of girlish perfection. But then, O charming labors of Hercules, to obtain a good sinecure for his and brilliant mammas! take your daughters out for son. For, be it noted, contemporary Parisian fathers walks yourselves, instead of sending them to the do not seem to reckon much on the activity of Mes- Tuileries under the wing of a maid who is looking sieurs their descendants. In times past Michel Le-out for her soldier sweetheart. By and by, you will tellier reckoned on his son: he made him work like put your daughter to school in a convent. The cona railway laborer, and so the son became Louvois. vent will teach her nothing; but do you fancy it Colbert did not spoil the Marquis de Seignelay, who will make her forget what she has already seen and under his eyes grew into an excellent minister. heard? The grand precaution of the convent comes too late; it is locking the stable-door after the horse is stolen. Admirable is the consistent prudence of mammas who hesitate to take their daughters to the Gymnase Théâtre, after they have been to the Café des Aveugles with their nursemaid. A young married lady, belonging to a very wealthy family, told M. About that she had danced for money in the Tuileries gardens. It was her nursemaid who produced her in public, and who pocketed the contributions of the crowd.

Just now the beau-idéal sought after by provident fathers is some easy and well-remunerated employment, such as tax-receiving, either on a large or a moderate scale. This requires no great educational efforts. If the boy do but grow strong and healthy, and reach his majority without accident, it is all that is needed. The father worries himself, intrigues, intrudes, courts favor, obtains it, keeps it, grapples on to it, and from time to time inquires at home how his son is going on.

M. About exaggerates, he is well aware. But if In the company of servants, future female spendyour blood be tainted by disease, it is no use show-thrifts learn the absurdest form of vanity at the ing it to your unassisted eye; you must be aided by present day; namely, pride of cash. It is stuck a microscope. And he confesses it is through a mi- into their heads that a rich man is of more intrinsic croscope, if you will, that he has inspected the early worth than a poor man; that the best things are education of little Parisians abandoned to their ser- those which cost the dearest; that the most honorable occupation is that which implies spending the greatest amount of money. Little French girls still have dolls; but not to play with. They are for show; to give them importance in the eyes of other little girls; to boast how much they cost; and to humiliate every other child who has not so handsome and expensive a doll.

vants.

The race of domestics, it is a well-known fact, has been greatly modified in Paris. Where are those servitors of the olden time who formed part of the family? You might fearlessly trust them with the care of a boy, nay, even of a girl. True, they tutoyaient, used the familiar "thee" and "thou" to their young masters and mistresses; it was a liberty which little young ladies and gentlemen only three years of age would not tolerate now. But, as a make-weight, they loved them dearly. They guarded those innocent ears and those virgin eyes with affectionate respect and jealous care. The children, on their part, entertained a sort of filial feeling for those ancient, intelligent, and devoted fixtures belonging to the parental mansion. They looked upon them in the light of poor relations, but without unkindness or jealousy. The type of servant here evoked has not disappeared from France; it has migrated, that is all; you will find it in the provinces. But in Paris, masters and servants have neither the time nor the wish to become acquainted. They take, and they quit each other, mutually giving the eight days' warning, Many a master, every summer, turns his whole establishment adrift in a lump before leav-"have four sweethearts." ing town for the country. Almost every servitor is on the look-out for a better place, that is, more luerative in wages and perquisites. That many of these unfortunates put the screw on tradesmen, turn the market-penny, get a profit out of everything, gamble with their savings at the Bourse, await the prize of lottery after lottery; that greediness should lie at the bottom of their heart, and cynicism on the tip of their tongue; that money, in their talk, should

Set a couple of little maidens face to face, each with one of Huret's dolls in her arms; the fortyfranc doll will put the thirty-franc one to shame, in the first place because its arms are articulated, but secondly, and especially, because it cost ten francs more. A little girl elegantly dressed, disdainfully regards another who is romping in a linen blouse; but the other instantly has her revenge.

"How many horses does your father keep?" "Not any."

"Well, mademoiselle, my father keeps four."

There is not a single word more to be said; the young lady in linen ought to take precedence of the other. Ask all the valetdom and all the wealthy children in Paris.

Two little she-monkeys are chatting together about the boys of their acquaintance. "I," says one,

"But which will you marry? For, you know, you can only accept one of them."

"Do you suppose I don't know that? But, my dear, I am in great embarrassment. Jules will be very rich; he will have plenty of horses. But Edouard is an American; he will return to his country; and travelling, for a woman, is jolly good fun. Paul has only one defect; he squints: but he will be a baron, and I should be a baronne."

"And the other? You do not mention the fourth."

"Ah! Prosper?" (with a blush.) "He is very handsome. He is the handsomest boy I ever saw in my life. Unfortunately, he is not noble; he is not American; and his father has not a sou. I will not marry him; but I will love him dearly all the same." Six years afterwards, listen to the same girl murmuring her prayer before the altar of a fashionable convent. Holy Virgin! Let him be rich, let him be titled, let him do whatever I bid him, and I ask you for nothing more."

66

Amongst the corruptors of the young fair sex, we cannot help reckoning the friends of the family. Formerly, trifles were given to the children of friends, for the sake of conferring pleasure; presents now are made with the object of displaying the donor's wealth and generosity. A little Parisienne commences getting together her stock of jewelry before she is ten years of age. It is no longer on wedding occasions only, but on all occasions, on her birthday, her fête-day, at Easter, and at the new year, that friends amuse themselves by showering gold upon her. Diamonds are not yet upon the list; but, never fear, they will be before long.

that among all nations, ancient and modern, possessing any claim to civilization, the precious metals have been, in theory at least, the standard of value and the medium of exchange. The reason of this is tolerably obvious, -gold and silver combining a greater number of the necessary qualifications than any other article of value. The material of which money is to be made should be one which every one desires to possess; and though widely distributed, the supply of it should be limited enough to maintain a high relative value, which should be as little subject as may be to variation. It should be as imperishable as possible, and readily divisible into small portions. Its bulk should be small and its value easily ascertained. Gold meets all these requirements, except the last, more perfectly than any other substance, and silver in a not very inferior degree. In addition to all this, gold and silver are almost the only metals found in the metallic state, and when pure are always of the same quality.

On

Coined money is, speaking comparatively, of only moderate antiquity. Herodotus (I. 94) attributes its invention to the Lydians. The earliest known coins are of the age of Xerxes, and are so very primitive and rude as to lead to the conclusion that It looks something like crying down the present the art of coining was then in its infancy. The for the glorification of the past; but any Frenchman earliest mention of coined money in the Bible is in or Frenchwoman can recall the respect with which, Ezra ii. 69, and viii. 27, i. e. Persian coins. in their childhood, they regarded a five-franc piece; the other hand, the use of uncoined money is traceand, in the previous generation, baby folk were still able to the remotest antiquity. Thus Abraham, more modest in their expenditure. A certain lad when purchasing the field of Machpelah, weighed entered the Naval School of Angoulême with a to Ephron "four hundred shekels of silver, current forty-sou bit which his mother had given him; he money with the merchants" (Gen. xxiii. 16). Jokept the coin two months in his pocket without dar-seph's brethren brought their "money in full weight" ing to break it up. Contemporary children, who (Gen. xliii. 21). Achan secreted "a wedge of gold of have gold and bank-notes in their till, will shrug fifty shekels weight" (Josh. vii. 21). The Egyptians their little shoulders at this. Well, dear infants, the had no coined money, but appear to have kept their forty-sou school-boy grew into a real man, and suc-gold and silver in the form of rings; of which, howcessfully pursued an honorable career. There are ever, the weight was variable. (See picture in many things in this world which are gained by de-Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," II. 406.) sert, and not by money. But your domestics have never told you that. It is a slight omission.

The French of that day were not avaricious, in spite of their superstitious reverence for coin. But they regarded it as a scarce and costly ware, which ought not to be lightly spent by those who are not in the way of earning it themselves. It was also imagined that a child had nothing of his own; that his half-frane piece was subject to the parents' will, just as much as the possessor who carried it in his pocket. At present, a little girl has no hesitation in saying to her mother, "Ah! you do not choose to give me that dress? Make your mind easy! I have a hundred francs; I will go and buy it."

Eight or ten years hence, the same little person will perhaps say to her husband, "I do not ask you for that diamond necklace; I purchase it. Have I not my marriage portion?"

HER MAJESTY'S MINT.*

The trouble of weighing the uncoined money, and the almost impossibility of testing its purity, must have rendered buying and selling a difficult matter. Both difficulties were overcome by the simple contrivance which gave a government guaranty for the weight and fineness of each piece. The process of coining was at first extremely rough, and the results were anything but artistic. A ball of metal of the required weight and value was placed on the die, which bore the device to be impressed on the coin. A punch was held in one hand against the back of the ball, and struck with a hammer held in the other, till, after repeated blows, the impression was sufficiently worked up. Only one side of the coin, therefore, bore a device; the rough, irregular mark of the punch being all the impression on the other side. The edges, too, were rough and lumpish. Gradually the punch itself came to bear a slight design, till at last another die, equally artistic with the first, took its place. The same method of producing the impression continued in the main down to the time of our own Queen Elizabeth, or, indeed, of Charles II., the lower die being fixed, and the upper fastened into a handle, being held by the workman.

--

FROM the earliest times, and among nearly all nations, gold and silver have been adopted as the most convenient form of money. And though, in more than one country, furs have been employed for the same purpose, and in one cubes of hard- The earliest English coins artistically, at least, pressed tea, and though at this day shells form the deserving the name- are of the reign of Edward currency in one part of Africa, and lumps of rock-III. They include the first issue of the famous gold salt in another, yet the exception proves the rule nobles, worth 6s. 8d. each. The obverse of these beautiful coins represents the king in a ship, a sword in his right hand, in his left a shield with the quar

*The word mint is from the Ang lo-Saxon mynet, and thisprob

ably from the Latin moneta.

Mill's "Political Economy," Book III. Chap. VII. Sect. 2.

The word translated "drams" seems the same as darics.