tuated to hear all the gossip of its mother's visitors and to be especially applauded for whatever may be thought witty and precocious. Every one must have remarked the too forward manners of French children, their easy bearing and fluency of expression, so early free from shyness or timidity. Their home training and mode of life is exactly calculated to develope all this, and make them little epitomes of men and women; and when the period of education strictly so called arrives, it is to the cultivation of the head and the intellect that almost all its efforts are directed. But to enter upon such a topic as French education would lead us far beyond our present limits. We can but touch lastly, and for a moment, upon another of the most striking characteristics of French society.

The

What a seething cauldron of intellectual activity, or at least of intellectual restlessness, is this city of Paris! what a travail of mind and thought is perpetually going on around one within its precincts! The more remarkable, because here again that habit of out-door life which so distinguishes their domestic existence from our own is not found to be incompatible with intellectual labour. privacy of his own closet would seem to cramp the energies of the French literary man; whereas in a public place and with a consciousness of the public eye upon him, he works with a sort of frenzy, which stands him in the place of the patient application of the German pedant. The feeling that he already attracts attention by his very labours, is necessary to sustain him during the continuance of his task; he cannot wait for its reward until its accomplishment. Thus in no city perhaps in the world do you find so many opportunities publicly afforded to, or so generally taken advantage of by, the student or the artist. No quantity of accommodation of this description, seems ever to keep a-head of the demand for it. We were particularly struck with this on seeing how immediately advantage was taken of a new locality recently opened for this purpose, to the left of the pantheon, close to the Ecole du Droit, where a magnificent building has been erected at the public expense for the reception of the books of the Bibliotheque St. Catherine. But to collect books is of no use unless the contents are made easily accessible. To facilitate this a hall of most noble proportions has been erected, composed of two mag

nificent aisles with cast iron roofing, and capable it is said of accommodating 10,000 students. Often as we have had occasion to enter this spacious hall since its erection, we have rarely, if ever, found it much less than full; and as often have been compelled to acknowledge in the eager faces around one, that a Frenchman attacks a book with much the same fougue with which he assaults a battery. Not but that with all this display of intellectual activity, there is mixed up much both of what is ridiculous and affected. No locality can afford better food for observation and often amusement than the halls which receive every morning these peripatetic literati, amongst whom are to be found not a few of the most striking whimsicalities of the French mind.

We remember one morning having occasion to enter the Bibliothèque Mazarine, that charming and venerable abode of learning, whose windows looking on to the almost silent and breathless Seine, nearly opposite the exquisite river frontage of the Louvre, afford in the very heart of Paris, a retreat as still and tranquil and almost as medieval in feeling as is to be found even within our own halls of Oxford. Its numerous habitual frequenters were dropping in about 10 o'clock, and taking up their accustomed seats, where use had seemed to make labour more easy. Many a well-worn hat and greasy collar may be seen at the Bibliothêque Mazarine, whose owner shews his worldly wisdom at least, by a wise preference of that splendid apartment over his own small garret. Amongst others there came in, we remember, an old lady, whose age, if we might venture to guess it, shewed signs of not fewer than ten or twelve lustres. With decent gravity she proceeded straight to her corner, removed her bonnet, asked for the required folio, and with spectacle on nose sat down to her daily occupation (as I was given to understand it was), though with what object and to what end, I could neither guess nor learn. A faded air of fashion, a reminiscence of Louis XV. about her toilette, made one suspect that to some decayed courtier old custom had at length "made this life more sweet than that of painted pomp." The crowded hall of the Salle St. Catherine, of the Bibliothêque of the Sorbonne, or of that of the Institute, the public lecture rooms, or theatres of the professors, all alike

open gratis to a curious public, afford many a strange phase of Parisian individuality. Amongst the most curious perhaps of these assemblages, is that of M. Raoul Rochette, the celebrated archæologist, who lectures weekly during the summer months in the Salle du Zodiaque of the Bibliotheque Royale, we beg pardon, Nationale, no, we beg pardon again, Imperiale, to an audience as antediluvian in appearance, as the subject which he generally discusses. But the eagerness with which all these vocations and habits are followed up, is a wonderful evidence of the avidity of the French intellect and of the restless spirit of enquiry, which spreads itself through all grades of the population.

CABS AND CABMEN.

Of those who lift up their umbrella or their finger, or express their want with a look or a nod, or utter the short curt monosyllabic "Cab," the greater part are simply intent on getting on as fast as they can to the shop, the railroad, or the house whither they are bound. The shilling or the eighteen-pence is placed in the hand of the glazed-hatted driver and there the matter ends. The whole system, apparatus, mass of driving humanity called into existence by our locomotive wants, is seldom closely contemplated. Cabs and cabmen are to be had, thick too as blackberries in a country lane, and that is enough for most of us.

There is, however, a good deal to think about in this cab-system. Historically it is of mushroom growth; it is by no means antediluvian. The vehicle itself, (we are not speaking of the more aristocratic cabriolet with the small boy practising balancing behind,) has not long been known. Some five and twenty years ago, more or less, about half a dozen high-wheeled old yellow gigs, such as are still occasionally to be seen trundling the more primitive farmer

with the aid of the old blind mare into his primitive country town, ventured to appear on the "stands" amid the heavy artillery of the old hackney coaches. And a hard life of it had those half-dozen gigs. They were novelties, innovations, revolutionary inroads upon the locomotive Constitution, shabby contrivances which had the wickedness of being cheap. And accordingly at corners of streets or wherever there was a crowded part, they had to endure many a bump and thump, many a jolt and jar, many a broadside from their weighty antagonists, many a malicious charge by the angry contemptuous "jarvies," who thought of course that the country was ruined, the world turned upside down, the deluge close at hand.

Besides damage to paint and varnish, besides dislocation of wheels, besides panels smashed in by invading poles, the drivers had their share of persecution; they were cut, cast off, disowned by the driving race, sneered and jested at, altogether ill-used.

Nor was the vehicle itself a very desirable affair for the passenger, as he had to sit side by side with a somewhat greasy driver, subject to all the odours which worn-out great coats on hot or on rainy days usually emit. As, however, the public began to see the advantages of economy and speed, so those who noted public wants began to think of removing the disadvantages which checked the desire for cabs. With wonderful rapidity the whole cab system was improved, re-modelled and enlarged. With wonderful rapidity cab appeared after cab upon the stands; increasing customers brought increasing trade; more cabs and more passengers, more passengers and more cabs, were the principles admitted in the world of wheels and whips; fresh capital was embarked, money invested in steed and turnout; coach-makers' wits were at work to improve the vehicle; the driver was quickly turned from his friendly seat with the passenger; experiment was made for his better location; first he had a seat outside the cab to the right of the passenger; after this we saw him put on the top of the cab, then behind, then in front, so he has been shifted to every imaginable place, and has occupied in turn every position except that beneath the cab.

Then too as cabs were multiplied their old antagonists gradually pined away and decreased; jarvies disappeared;

the long lines of moving lumber, of crazy carriages, passed from the accustomed scene; the despised invaders usurped the stands; and now the old wheels of the old coaches have altogether ceased to rumble with expensive slowness through the streets; this quick rattling age would have steam cabs if it could, to shoot like lightning from place to place.

To come to the statistics of the matter it appears that at present there are no less than 3,300 cabs whisking about London day and night, about double the number of horses are employed, that is 6,600, and 6,673 drivers; if we take into account the stabling and provender required, we have some notion of the amount of capital embarked in the cause of metropolitan locomotion. Inquisitive minds going a step further and finding out the average mileage in an hour would be able to make up a sum total of the daily restlessness of London, as far as cab motion is concerned, that is, the total number of miles daily traversed by cabs. Financial minds, feeling the pulse of this system, might deduce some facts concerning social prosperity or the contrary from the extent in different periods to which cabs are used, after making deduction for the growth of population; for doubtless in bad times cab fares droop and men become their own steeds when they cannot afford to make use of horses' legs.

But now let us pass from cabs and horses to the drivers, to that peculiar tribe, those Arabs of the London streets, who devote themselves to this driving life. The cab "force,' as it may be called, is a large peculiar body, a large tribe of charioteers; many of them would have been men of renown in the Olympic games of old, crowned with laurel instead of whisps of hay, skilful in short cuts, apt in turning corners; they have quick observation too, knowing when to loiter as ancient and timid dames sit within, knowing when it is perilous to be slow, as some sharp bustling man of business skips hurriedly into the cab. Consider too the craniological view of the subject, the almost monopoly of the bumps of locality which these 6,673 drivers must enjoy, the growth and development of so many skulls at one and the same given part. Name to your cabman an obscure terrace running out of an obscure street, name some Brown's Place, the third turning out of Judkins' Row, and off he starts by the shortest route, as if he had lived there all his life. And