vards and rues of Paris have been built since 1848,
and the work of widening and improving old streets and building new ones
is still going on with constantly increasing vigor.

There are now in progress of construction, broad boulevards, which can
only be constructed at the sacrifice of many acres of some of the finest
buildings in Paris; but only beauty and grandeur are regarded anything in
this noble city, expenses being but little estimated. Notwithstanding the
lavish expenditure of money upon this class of improvements, Paris is, of
all cities, perhaps the most prosperous on the globe.

Of the wide-spread destruction of public buildings, occasioned by the late
war and the stormy days of the Commune, there are but few marks remaining.
The Palace of the Tuileries, Hotel de Ville, and a few other buildings,
lie still in ruins; but the thirty or more churches which were either
greatly damaged or quite demolished, and numerous other public edifices
that have been destroyed, have already been restored--some of them with
increased magnificence. Besides this, the French have almost finished
paying their immense war-debt, while America, whose war ended seven years
before theirs, is obliged to sail into the centennial year, still heavily
freighted with the obnoxious burden.

Did heaven ever smile upon a more blessed city than Paris? To give the
reader an idea of how buildings are torn down to make room for the purpose
of extending fine streets, let us refer to the statistics concerning Rue
de Rivoli. This street cost $30,000,000. It is two miles in length, and
its establishment caused the demolition of upwards of one thousand houses!
Thirty millions of dollars, enough to pay for a tract of land that is
twenty miles long and eleven miles wide, bought at the rate of $200 per
acre; and all this expended on the improvement of two miles of road!

In the Old World, a strip of three to five or six story houses, several
hundred feet wide and a quarter of a mile to upwards of a mile in length,
is torn down with as much complacent indifference concerning the
destruction, as men manifest in mowing so much grass!

As among the most fashionable places in Paris, may be mentioned, Boulevard
des Italiens, Palais Royal, Champs Elysees, Jardin des Tuileries and
other pleasure gardens and public squares. Boulevard des Italiens, in
fair weather, is densely crowded with ladies and gentlemen seated on
chairs hired for two to three sous (cents)