the information that matters dramatic are managed in this way in
bizzare England--prints in a line apart, and by way of most humorous
comment, these words, 'English spoken here.' Conceive, my dear, an
English humorous writer interlarding his picture of a French incident
with the occasional interjection of _Parlez-vous Francais?_ Yet the
comic writers of Paris imagine that they show wit when they pepper their
comments with disjointed, irrelevant, and misspelt ejaculations in our
vernacular. We have a friend here (we have made dozens) who has a cat
she calls To-be--the godfather being 'To-be or not to be! 'All right'
appears daily as a witticism; 'Oh, yes!' serves for the thousandth time
as a touch of humour. The reason is obvious. French critics are wholly
ignorant of our language. Very few of them have crossed the Channel,
even to obtain a Leicester Square idea of our dear England. But they are
not diffident on this account. They have never seen samples of the
Britisher--except on the Boulevards, or whistling in the cafes--where
our countrymen, I beg leave to say, do not shine; and these to them are
representations of our English society. Suppose we took our estimate of
French manners and culture from the small shopkeepers of the Quartier
St. Antoine! My protest is against those who judge us by our vulgar and
coarse types. The Manchester bully who lounges into the Cafe Anglais
with his hat on the back of his head; the woman who wears a hat and a
long blue veil, and shuffles in in the wake of the _malhonnete_ to whom
she is married; again, the boor who can speak only such French as 'moa
besoin' and 'j'avais faim,' represent English men and women just as
fairly as the rude, hoggish, French egg-and-poultry speculators
represent the great seigneurs of France.

[Illustration: SMITH BRINGS HIS ALPENSTOCK.]

"I say I have, by this time, more than a tolerable experience, not only
of French _salons_, but also of those over which foreign residents in
Paris preside. I have watched the American successes in Paris of this
season, which is now closing its gilded gates, dismissing the slaves of
pleasure to the bitter waters of the German springs and gaming-tables. I
have seen our people put aside for Madame de Lhuile de Petrole and the
great M. Caligula Shoddy. The beauties of the season have been
'calculating' and 'going round' in the best _salons_, and they have
themselves given some of the most successful entertainments we have ha