by their
acquisitiveness; and perhaps, indeed, the latter propensity may be
considered to have dictated their entire advertisement.

* * * * *

GENTILITY AT THE GOLD FIELDS.--Refinement in Australia appears to be a
gross anomaly: and the only use of polish relates to boots.

* * * * *

OUR TOURIST IN PARIS. No. 2.

[Illustration]

The traveller whose philosophy has passed through these severe trials,
hungry, dirty, unshaved, weary, almost querulous, hurls his baggage and
himself into a venerable and heavy hackney coach (such a one as DR.
JOHNSON might have hired to take MRS. THRALE to the play), drawn by a
pair of ragged grey ponies painfully over the rocky ways, which people
here have the face to call a pavement. Half-an-hour's jolting brings him
to the Hotel in the Rue de Richelieu, where he demands a lodging. "But
yes, Monsieur can have a chamber, but certainly," is the cheerful
announcement of the _concierge_, a very pearl among women, who advances
from the lodge with a smile to welcome the travel-stained, ill-favoured
guest. "Behold the steward who will make Monsieur know." "Give yourself
the pain to mount, Monsieur," says a solemn official in a fur-cap, with
a reverence. The traveller wearily ascends hundreds of shiny, slippery
steps, till he arrives at the third floor, where he pauses out of
breath. "Mount, mount always!" says the respectable conductor. "But
Monsieur, behold us who are arrived at the fourth. This is in fine
enough, is it not?" "But no, Monsieur, pardon; it is necessary to mount
always." The traveller's hind legs are awfully done up; nevertheless,
_allons_! we arrive at another floor. "Behold, Monsieur," gaily says the
steward, as he opens the door of 299.

The first thing that strikes one is, that the last gentleman must have
been addicted to chewing garlic, and smoking very bad tobacco. The
windows, which appear not to have been opened for weeks, enable the
fastidious English nostrils to analyse these flavours with unerring
certainty. A little hall of entrance, furnished with a stove, a table,
and a bench which seems intended for the repose of exhausted creditors
before they make their unsuccessful appeal to milord, leads to an
apartment furnished both as bed-room and sitting-room, with great taste
and cheerfulness. The chairs are pretty in form, and covered with maroon
velvet. There is a walnut table, escritoire, and chest of