e world have ever brought forth.

Its beautiful balconies, as numerous as the windows, constitute another
very charming feature of Parisian scenery. The streets are always kept
clean and wet by sweepers and sprinklers, and the broad smooth pavements
along the boulevards, free from dust and all manner of rubbish or
obstructions, afford a suitable promenade for gayety, wealth and fashion
to roam. Here beauty's feet may stray, arrayed in the most showy colors or
the stateliest attire, without fear of encountering nasty crossings or of
being splashed over and soiled by teams upon muddy streets. Ladies
attired in gaudy ball-room dresses with long trails, would scarcely
present a contrast in dress with the average promenaders. All dress
equally well, on Sundays, and on week-days, so that Paris presents to the
foreigner, the appearance of a city celebrating an eternal Sabbath. Even
when it rains, the pedestrian can walk _for miles_ about the city, without
being in want of an umbrella. In that event he need only confine his
course to the

Arcades and Passages.

Webster defines an arcade as "A long, arched building or gallery lined on
each side with shops." May the reader not be misled by this definition;
for the arcades of Paris do not have shops on _both_ sides. They are a
uniform system of porticoes generally from twenty to thirty feet in width.
Those on Rue de Rivoli are about a mile in length, and the houses to which
they belong have been exempted from taxes for thirty years. From these
ramify numerous passages and other arcades, connecting different parts of
the city.

A "Passage" (pron. pae-sahj) is a street covered with a glass roof,
elegantly paved, animals and vehicles excluded or shut off, and lined by
the first-class shops in the city. The most remarkable are the Passages
des Panoramas, Jouffroy, Verdean, Vivienne, Colbert, Choiseul, Delorine du
Saumon, &c. The first of these are the most brilliant and are perhaps not
excelled or even equaled by any other in the world, with the solitary
exception of Passage des Victor Emanuel of Milan, in Italy. Some of these
passages are called

Galleries.

The Galerie d'Orleans in Palais Royal, is a good example. This lofty hall,
forty feet wide and 300 feet long, extending between a double range of
shops, connects the arcades extending around the other three sides of the
inner court of that palace, (now turned into shops, bazaars, etc.)

Many of the grand boule