n ---- treats of the suffering of wife and children, can he suppose
that these mistaken men don't feel it in the depths of their hearts, and
don't honestly and honourably, most devoutly and faithfully believe that
for those very children, when they shall have children, they are bearing
all these miseries now!

I hear from Mrs. Fillonneau that her husband was obliged to leave town
suddenly before he could get your parcel, consequently he has not
brought it; and White's sovereigns--unless you have got them back
again--are either lying out of circulation somewhere, or are being spent
by somebody else. I will write again on Tuesday. My article is to begin
the enclosed.

Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. Mark Lemon.]

49, CHAMPS ELYSEES, PARIS, _Monday, Jan. 7th, 1856._

MY DEAR MARK,

I want to know how "Jack and the Beanstalk" goes. I have a notion from a
notice--a favourable notice, however--which I saw in _Galignani_, that
Webster has let down the comic business.

In a piece at the Ambigu, called the "Rentree a Paris," a mere scene in
honour of the return of the troops from the Crimea the other day, there
is a novelty which I think it worth letting you know of, as it is easily
available, either for a serious or a comic interest--the introduction of
a supposed electric telegraph. The scene is the railway terminus at
Paris, with the electric telegraph office on the prompt side, and the
clerks _with their backs to the audience_--much more real than if they
were, as they infallibly would be, staring about the house--working the
needles; and the little bell perpetually ringing. There are assembled to
greet the soldiers, all the easily and naturally imagined elements of
interest--old veteran fathers, young children, agonised mothers, sisters
and brothers, girl lovers--each impatient to know of his or her own
object of solicitude. Enter to these a certain marquis, full of sympathy
for all, who says: "My friends, I am one of you. My brother has no
commission yet. He is a common soldier. I wait for him as well as all
brothers and sisters here wait for _their_ brothers. Tell me whom you
are expecting." Then they all tell him. Then he goes into the
telegraph-office, and sends a message down the line to know how long the
troops will be. Bell rings. Answer handed out on slip of paper. "Delay
on the line. Troops will not arrive for a quarter of an hour." G