OUR PARIS LETTER

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 362, 9 January 1880, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER

Varieties,

(from our own correspondent.)

Paris, Nov. 22,

Nine-tenths of the population of Paris do not take more than one bath in the twelvemonth. Louis XIV indulged only in one during his whole life.

The temple of Ephesus is in danger. French butchers report that the cooked American corned beef produces scurvy.

Ex-Queen Isabella of Spain has so drawn on her fortune by charitable donations and presents to daughters-in-law that she intends sending more diamonds to the public auction mart.

The Baron Kirsch and Comte d'Agaado are the financiers said to supply Prince Jer6me Napoleon with the sinews of war. They are better than a Miss Howard.

A newly married couple in Paris pass their honeymoon playing on a harmonium; he pulls the basd, and she the soprano stops.

A writer in the Temps claims for Victor Hugo the authorship of the noble idea— " He who gives to the poor lendeth to the Lord." Qui donne avx pauvres prete d Dieu.

In Persia, a marriage puts Gretna Green into the shade. The Cadi makes the bride and bridegroom join hands ; pulls out a watch, counts six seconds, and then declares them to be man and wife.

When the Empress Eugenic asked Merimee how he was progressing with his dictionary, he replied : " I'm at the letter A—appointments." A hint to be made senator.

M. Entile Ollivier is preparing for publication " The Two Empires and the Three Republics."

Senator Numa Baragnon—once a rabid Republican, and now an ardent Royalist, is occupied writing the "Biography of the Comte de Chambord."

At the Mayor's office in the Tenth Ward a few days ago, the bridegroom, after the civil ceremony, was presented with a bill for two sets of false teeth supplied to the bride, requesting immediate payment, he being a foreigner.

It costs half a franc to send an ordinary telegram from Marseilles to the Belgian frontier; the price becomes three francs if it crosses the border.

A miser on his death-bed was advised not to torment himself about his money, as if he could bring it with him, it would be soon melted.

A leading house agent in Paris is about taking an action for damages against Daudet for showing him up—" Tom Levis," in his Rois en Exile.

King Alphonso is to send his portrait to the College of St. Barbe, where he studied when in Paris an exile.

Besides mural paintings in the lyceums of Paris, the municipality intend having the names of the most celebrated graduates recorded on wall tablets.

Pere Loyson has received 6000fr. for the copyright of his famous lecture " Paganism at Paris." It will not be published till he has delivered the lecture in the chief cities of France.

The Central Post office contemplates establishing letter-boxes for private individuals.

Thrifty Parisian ladies employ the unoccupied flower boxes and pots in the cultivation of " winter potatoes."

A critic lately complimented an author on his " literary expectations." The printers preferred " expectorations."

Cambaceres said to one of his intimate friends—" In public, address me ' your highness ;' in private,' my lord.'" Imitation is the best ot flattery. Since the Empress of Russia at Cannes adopts for carriage exercise a stretcher carried by two Cossacks, sonic robust invalids adopt the like conveyance, with soldiers wearing very fancy uniforms. " The Military History of Women "is announced for sale.

Mme. Audouard, in her recent conference on women's rights, avowed the men of the United States, though more blunt and less polished than the French, treated woman more equitably—so much so, as " to allow them to found a newspaper."

In 1700, when the due D'Anjou set out from Versailles for Madrid to be crowned Philippe V., the journey endured 77 days ; in 1846, when the Due de Montpensier left Paris for Madrid to wed the Infanta, the voyage took ten days; the present bridequeen of Spain can accomplish the journey in two days and a half. The most fashionable scarf pins consist of the figures " 1880 " in diamonds, traversed by a silver dagger. Felix Pyat, of Communist fame, and celebrated for his ever bolting in time, was called by Gambetta the Ministre dv Depart. A man advertises for the loan of 25,000fr, the capital necessary to " establish railways on a new principle." Another wants 400,000fr to form a '• Cooperative Society for breaking the gaming bank at Monaco."

A new journal, Gil-Bias, has appeared; it modestly boasts to have more wit, and to be better informed than any newspaper in France. It announces that Shakespeare is buried in Westminster Abbej 7 , and that Baker Pasha left England rather than marry the young lady with whom he had a disagreement in a railway carriage. Sergeant Hoif is the custos of the arc de Triomphe, and during the invasion as a free shooter took down no less than 40 Prussians, outpost sentinels, bringing each morning a perforated helmet to his commanding officer. He has these 40 helmets with their " Gott und Vaterland,";ranged round his room as scalps. Since 1871, three new prisons have had to be erected in the department of the Seine ; the supply is still unequal to the demand.

Napoleon I even when a military student maintßined, that social usages were not framed for higi, that it was the duty of others to cede to him, and that he ought to posses whatever gave hhirpjeasure.