OUR PARIS LETTER.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 333, 26 September 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

Varieties.

(from our own correspondent.)

Paris, August 2,

French duels are so harmless that insurance offices exact no extra risks where combatants are on their hooks. A joint stock company exists in Paris for founding joint stock companies. Skull gathering is a fashionable amusement—a craniologist at an evening party is as good as the hired out joker. France is becoming religious. An autioncor at Nimes advertises he will hold a sale on such a day "D.V-," Thiers, Ledru Rollin, and Blanqui, when politically discouraged, found refuge in astronomy. Gambetta, when wearied and heavy laden, indulges in a bath. Mahogany slippers, with the owner's initials in silver nails are in great favor with lady bathers this season. French oculists, before examining a patient's eyes, exact a surgical examination first of his spine. A bubble company just exploded, sent all its teasing shareholders to pass a few months at Biarritz or Geneva. There are no less than ten different idioms spoken in the Austrian Empire, and only comprehensible by the indigenous. Fathers whose daughters become restive can send them to the Reformatory of Nnnterre for a time, paying twelve sous a day for their keep. Since the fall of the Empire, a notable decrease in the cases of hydrophobia is claimed. Prince Jerome Napoleon will only subscribe to the memorial chapel proposed to !>e erected to his deceased cousin in case the Government approves of the project. Since the ruins of the Tuilerics are condemned to be carted away, souvenirs of the palace made out of the stones are offered for sale. On M. Naguet's committee of travelling lectures for agitating in favor of divorce figure two widowers and one bachelor. Voltaire said—The English nation is the solo one on earth that can regulato the power of Kings in resisting them. Victor Hugo neither buys nor reads a newspaper ; when making his toilette the valet recounts the latest intelligence.

Edmond de Goncourt, the novelist, is making a fortune by dealing in Chinese and Japanese curiosities. In his forthcoming " Kings in Exile," Alphonse Daudet will portray three notable contemporary monarchs retired, against their will, from business. There is a bill discounter in Paris who has decorated his shop window with the unpaid paper of celebrities/ , In Notre Dame dcs Victoires, the favorite vow chapel of the city, tapors . arejbeiug extensively burned for M. de Lesseps and his canal. Several schools now include in their prospectuses the names of pupils , '-who fell in the late war ' ..' An astronomer lately lectured on the "Seas of the Moon" — among the most prominent are "Nectar," "Fecundity,"and •' Serenity." There are 3000 professional painters in Paris; only sixty earn a living by the brush.

French ladies prefer Pigeon shooting to lawn tenis, and a ilritation in the box of a theatre to both. Since Paul de Cassagnac lias refused to recognise Prince Jer6me as Emperor of the French, his journal has fallen in circulation 2000 per day, nearly all he ever had. During the Franco-German war, the only flag taken from the Prussians was b} r the Garibaklians. What has become of it ? Mine, de Saverny has lately published a " guide "to etiquette. She begs ladies to remember that on quitting the sea after a dip, and when beach glasses are levelled, how much they can gain by remaining enveloped in their modesty. Theophile Gautier observed that the first question asked of every traveller coming from Constantinople is — " And the ladies ?" The next—" Have you brought beck a solution of the Fastern question ?" ■ Victor Hugo was a royalist in 1820, a constitutionalist in 1830, a democrat in 1848, a radical in 1851, and a red republican in 1871. The best cognac in Paris is said to be made from beet and potatoes. The choicest havanas come from Hamburg. Goinuierson, the late editor and proprietor of the racy Tintamarre is dead. He was a professor in the University of France, when Guizot dismissed him for a frivolous pretext. Next day Commerson appeared on the Pont Neuf fitted up as a shoe-black, with " Professor of the French University " in gilt .letters on his brush box.

A good dog bather ar.d clipper earns on an average during the summer TOfr. v week; he calls on clients for their pets, and brings them back after making their toilette.

The palace of Versailles is reported to be undermined by the infiltrations from the basins ; the palace of the Elysee threatens to topple on the wardours' heads, as yards of plaster drop from the ceiling on the inmates; and the Tuileries, roya

residences, like their onco royal occupants, bid fair to leave not a wreck behind. The export trade in unexpurgated editions of French classics never was more brisk. Three; editions' of Eabelais have thus been disposed of within the last 13 months. . ./ Saint Beuve could only form his opinion on a book the next day afyer. reading it; his-thoughts or ideas came to him slowly; were distilled drop by drop, but they formed crystals. The increase in the consumption of absinthe is telling on Parisians in the augmentation of insanity and crime—suicide chiefly.