OUR PARIS LETTER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 308, 1 July 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(from our own correspondent.)

Paris, May 10.

Very naughty girls .that will neither hear what their teachers say, nor with reverence hear their parents' word and with delight obey, can be sent to a private reformatory, on a family application' to a "judge in Chambers." On arriving the inmate, really finds all the comforts of a home in a certain sense, if she be rich ; a room to herself, a sewing machine, drawing materials, all essentials of a healthy nature ; but she has no other society for a certain period but the nuns, who teach her religion and common sense at the same time. These accessories in due course tell, and many girls thua reformed have turned out excellent wives. In the coming picture show two very superior paintings are entered, and that have been executed by a ward of the reformatory. The necessity to incarcerate a young creature ever leaves its mark on her reputation, no matter how secretly the matter may be concealed. The great object on a girl quitting the institution is to be married off as quickly as possible, which finds ho difficulty, as she has ever a good fortune or dot, and generally emigrates with her husband. Very few Frenoh women emigrate ; parents like to have their. children; about them, and so refuse consent to all candidates destined to try* their fortune in fresh woods- and pastures new, and if any are courageous enough to brave the separation, it is au revoir, not an adieu ; ' it is calculated that not one per ce"n"t 'of th_ i-Vttfest 'emigration •from France every year represents a lady belonging to' the comfortable middle classes, a fact 4hat may in a large measure be attributed to the officers on colonial duty remaining persistently bachelors, despite the drawback of such a life, if- one is to believe statistics—tendencies to premature death, suicide, robberies and murder. Talking about marriages, foreigners resident in Paris seem to relatively embark in matrimony more largely than natives, and the Americans are the most courageous of all: A Fifth Avenue belle has caught a young due, who, in addition to being owner of a title dating from the Crusades, is very rich; both are millionaires, so that love need not fly out of the window. It is very rare for an Americaine to make such a catch, as the money is generally on the bride's side, and the sans terre on the husband's. These international unions are chiefly limited to the American fair sex ; very rare indeed is it to find an American gentleman marrying a French lady ; here these unions are not at all popular, for if politics separate families, introducing the foreign element contributes still more to do so. The American colony continues to be the life of Paris, Mrs * Mackay, of silver mine notoriety, being the queen : all she can do she cannot run in debt, and the best compliment to her wealth is that she receives more begging letters than the" Rothschilds; the next famous individual being similarly honored is the ex-Queen of Spain—anything but rich, but proverbial for her generosity. A class of evening entertainments called musicaUs ' is now becoming general; it consists-of professional singers, proprietors of Marionettes, and performers capable of "taking off," in dress and speech, public characters of both sexes ; it is gay, but costly ; a buffet supper succeeds. The weather is horrible; it ought to be included in the Comminatjon service, I where ladies could express in an orthodox manner a pent-up indignation ; no chance to display novelty in dress, no merry sunshine to exhibit colors; a northern wind grips us as firmly as the Nihilists do* Russia, and if relaxed, only to place us it - :- the mercy of hailstones that no insurance, company anticipated, or drops of cold,, clammy rain that fall on your face like a sodden sponge. And notwithstanding many.are not discouraged, to make annual arrangements for the sea-side, where cottages are rented as in the best of years',: and rooms engaged as if. we were certain of meteorological tranquillity. Painters go in " flocks," and this year they will migrate to an unexplored coast line of Britanny, while others will pitch their easels at Grez, the other side of Fontainnbleau. Business people must do as well as they can in snug villa residences round the capital, and in August remain contented with a run to the sea-side in the train dcs Maris, from Saturday till Monday, to enjoy the day that comes between, so prized by " Sally in our alley." It is also a busy moment for dealers in old curiosities ; they purchase quantities of manufactured antiquities, distribute them among the Norman _ea-side peasantry, then, when the gulls arrive, invite them to come and purchase themsolves the " finds." A great "deal of money into be made by this trick ; the most numerous shops, and representing the most lucrative business, are those dealing in objets „' art and their cousin-gerraan bric-a-bac. < What's a house now-a-days if it be not stuffed with old lumber,? Not only does France glut the market 1 by these goods, but Spain and

Italy also ; even England lately has for warded carved furniture dating, if not from the age of the Two Roses, at least from Wardour street, arid America only refrains from the business as she has her hands full of exportations in corn, canned provisions, sewing machines, and farmers' implements. The Chinese and Japanese have over-stocked the land with vases and knick-knacks; one dealer selk a curiosity as a bargain and unique in its way; later, a second friend offers a dozen of the same varieties, and a third proposes to take the original article for a nominal sum. There have been many " removals" last quarter-day from the suburbs into Paris. Several friends 6f mine—foreigners, who had taken houses,all the year round, declare a bush life,*a farm in New Caledonia within sight of a Canaque camp, is animation and cheerfulness as compared with the leaden loneliness in the envirpna of the city during winter. The French desert the earliest in the season and return the latest, and you become a kind of lone star. Now Paris, from many years' exexperience, is most enjoyable by fixing head-quarters in the city, and making tours from time to time, as time and purse permit. The forests round the city are admirable—Clamart is nature itself ; then there is Meudon, Versailles, St. Germain, Bongival. A breakfast in one locality, a stroll across the forest to dine in another —that's the way for sojourners to pass a summer here ; then the Touriste is at one's disposal, that will steam holiday-makers dowa to St. Germain, supplying good music and an excellent dejeuner on deck, you returning to town by rail. Small-pox is so rife in Paris, that some-" thing like a decree has gone forth that all the world must be vaccinated. I visited one of. the lycees a few days ago where 600 pupils were preparing to be vaccinated. In the grand reception room was a littlo cow, held by a peasant, from which several doctors took the pock for their lancets. In young ladies' boarding schools the same preventive measures are adopted, only the „ leg, not the arm, is vaccinated; this is trying after the severe Lenten sermons of the Rev. Pere Monsabre, who has frightened many ladies by his terrible descriptions of the place where the wicked must expect to go ; he might equal the celebrated Bridaine, whose sermons startled Louis XIV, and as a matter of course his courtiers, by assuring them no one could enter.Paradise in a.coach and four. But »• there are tortures also in this world, which the reported death of Mme. Musard illustrates ; this lady was some years ago the glass of fashion; possessing fabulous wealth, she expended it fabulou&ly, and * all she demanded was that the public' would look at her. She was thus a tapageuse, and the spectators at racecourses and theatres used to level glasses at her equipages and toilettes. Smelling a bouquet of white lilac, an insect it is supposed stung her ; she became blind in consequence, and this preyed on her mind. One evening she dashed everything oil .the """ dinner table about, crushed some pet birds to death, and had to be sent to the. principal lunatic asylum, where her sufferings 'have just ended. I have been reading v lately, the "Memoirs" of a lady, who v boasts that she knew the. Countess of Blessington intimately, and shows it by stating she was "the mother-in-law of the Comte ,d' She atones for the blunder* by relating a contest between the celebrated bos bleu and -Al i fred,.jdo Vigny a respecting a definition of " style." He took a scarf pin, having for head a fly; " the latter separate was merely an insect, but mounted it became a jewel." It**** appears red hair, sacred to Juno, is no longer fashionable, nor blonde either; brown is the favorite, and said to have been dear to Minerva. Only think of Bismarck dealing with chignons; he is to tax imported hair, so that if other Statefollow his example, we must invite America to send us the " Soap root" substitute, which is capital, if the wearer keeps out of the reach of horses teeth. The city is swarming with picture shows, belonging to several schools, and no schools at all, but the Exhibition in the Palace of Industry will have an innovation this year— the use of the electric light, and so improved that ladies will not resemble Ham-**" let's or Don Giovanni's ghosts.