PARIS CORRECTIONAL POLICE.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 59, 19 September 1844, Page 4

PARIS CORRECTIONAL POLICE.

A Hunt After a Livelihood. — To seek for a needle in a bundle of hay, has been suggested as a task involvingsome difficulty, and small chance of success ; but it is an easy affair, as compared with the search made by some people after a trade, or profession, or Vocation that will bring them in a living. There are certain unhappy wights, the butts of ill.fortunr, who go about, setting their wits to works, day after day, in the hope of striking out something or other that will give them victuals and cloths—they ask no more—they would not dare to think of such a thing as aiming at aught beyond this. But no; there they go on to the end of the chapter, hungry and naked, and at last more hopeless than the most long-seeking searcher after the philosopher’s stone, or the perpetual motion. By the way, though, it is exactly they who Wave found the perpetual motion, for they have even been paddling on and on, like a little dog iu dough, as the saying is; but beyond this ineessant motion they have found nothing else. One of thtese poor devils was brought up, the other day, JCo make what answer he could to the charge of vagrancy. The offender was a tali man, some thirty-eight, very pale, very thin, very bald, very slightly dad, and with no shoes at all. He said he had no home, and no victuals, and no means of getting any. “ Where you not brought up to some trade ?” “ Yes, to a very promising one ; I was a stage dancer ; at twepty years old I was engaged as first dancer at the Imperial Theatre at Rio Janeiro ; and I exhibited opce before the Emperor of Brazil and the court, but I had weak legs, and could not carry it on. For that matter, giving up dancing, there Was not great loss, for the Emperor would not pay us, and the tavern-keepers would not find us in victuals for nothing, or what was the same thing, give us credit,” So then you were thus deprived of your business?” •; - “I took up another; I got a birth as a slave overseer, and had a hundred and thirty negroes to flog every day. I had not a heart for this, so I gave up the place. Then I heard there was lots of quinine to be got for it in the CordiL leia*» and I, with a Belgian friend I picked up, an unlucky vagabond like myself, started in search of it. We never got half way to the Cordilleras, for in about three days we lost ourselves in a wood, and before we could find-oilr* way out the Belgian lost me, and so 1 had to make my way back as well as l could, by myself.” “ How did you get back to France ?’’ “1 turned sailor, but I could not ma nasre tlie thing at all. 1 tried to work up against illness and .disgust, hut Leonid not; L was iii.rhai-f- ihe lime, and too tee bit; to do anything the. oilier -halt; so the fiis> port we got I o i; France’ thef Captain took ! away all the olother he had given me when

we started, and refused to give me any pay ; and there I was. VV ell, I begged my way to Paris, and got a place as scullion in a tavern, but the heat gave me a constant headache; so I was obliged to leave that place. Then I managed to be hired as a colour grinder, but 1 had to give up that too, in a week, for my arms were not strong enough. The next place I got, I thought I was in luck’s way, I had 2s. a week at a white lead manufactory, but I only touched two days’ wages, for I found my lungs would not stand it® Then, I bethought me, I remembered some of the songs they used to sing at the theatre in Brazil, and I went about to lit-, tie public houses to see whether I could pick up a few halfpence that way ; hut the only money 1 got was from people who wanted me to go away, for what little voice I ever had was gone, and the way in which I lived gave me a constant cold. As a last resource a very sad one, for me. who had danced before the Emperor of Brazil, was to turn bonepicker. However* I plucked up courage, and set about my new work > I went up and down the streets from morning till night, looking for rags and so forth, but I could not manage it at all, in consequence of being so short sighted, and consequently I found that, after all my labour, I had picked up only a lot of rubbish, not worth a penny,’’ “Thus, then, you are absolutely with* out the means of subsistence?’ “ Yes; although I am the owner of a large property; for, such as you see me, I am tlie owner of a square league of forest with trees in it as big as the towers of Notre Dame.” “ What do you mean ?” “ The Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, as I told you, won’t pay us actors ; nay, he got into a terrible rage with a colleague of mine and broke his arm, for asking him for his salary. However, I was so far more lucky, for he gave me a grant, signed with his owd hand, of & square league of forest, which I was to choose where I liked, somewhere under the Cordilleras ; perhaps it was in my own wood that I lost my poor Belgian friend. Here is my grant, in good Portuguese; 1 always cany it about me, I’ve tried to sell it a good many times ; at first I want* ed a hundred thousand francs for it, and cheap too, but as nobody would give so much, I came down to a hundred francs, and then to thirty, and then to thirty sous ; but nobody would give even that. The capitalists all hung back, aud here I am.’* The ex-dancer, ex-negro driver, ex-qui-nine hanter, ex*saiior, ex-colour grinder,, ex-white lead man, ex-singer, ex-bone - man, who had successively found himself . destitute of the means of gaining a liveli* hood, from the want of legs, arms, head, heart, lungs, voice, eyes ; who had fallea once because he had too good a heart to thrash negroes, and once again because he had too good a stomach to stand the seas, was sent to prison for three days, for the vagrancy was as transparent as the poor devil’s body. At all events he would get some victuals there.— Morning Chr<m»

A young lady from England, very am& bitious of distinction, and thinking the outrageous admiration of genius was nearly as good as the possession of it, was presented to Walter Scott, and had very nearly gone through the regular forms of swooning sensibility on the occasion. Being afterwards introduced t® Mr. Henry Mackenzie, she bore it betteiy but kissed his hand with admiring venesi ration. It is worth telling for the sake of Mr. Scott’s comment. He said, “ Did you ever hear of the like of that Eng* lish lass, to faint at the sight of a cripple clerk of session, and kiss the dry withered hand of an old tax gatheier. —Mrs Grant.