OUR PARIS LETTER

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 374, 20 February 1880, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER

(from our own correspondent.)

Paris, Dec. 22.

By a law enacted in 1814, it is prohibited to work on Sundays and f6te days. The Protestants object to be tied by the latter observance. The Israelites believe Saturday ought to be the day of rest, while *he Mahomedans go in for Friday, and so on. The Chamber of Deputies has voted the repeal of the law of 1814, because it was framed in the interests of the Church, and struck at liberty. Henceforth every man can observe his Sabbath in his own fashion, and no one's orthodoxy can triumph over another's presumed hetorbdoxy. In practice, Sundays and fetes are more than ever kept whole or half da 3's of rest, and the iinpul.se will not be lessened in this direction by people being left by themselves. Fbrbiddenii'ruft and stolen kisses are ever sweetest.! tn many countries people are said to go church from fear of God or Mrs Grundy. « The latter persdnafce does not exist in France, so they who attend public worship do so consequently from the don motif. Then we are happily free from " Reforming saints ! too delicately nice,! By whose decrees, our sinful soul£*to

save, No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave;

And beer undrawn, and beards unmown display, - '<

Your Holy reverence, for the Sabbath day." ~. ,

The agitation in favor of divorce is coining to a head; its success may be discounted. The Pere Diiibn is the champion for keeping once loving couples together in misery till death; hie photo is as popnlar in the shop windows as that of the most jolly actrice, for we have no fast and private but virtuous ladies, to replace the latter. Well, the Pere's Sunday lectures on divorce were attended by M. Naquet, a free thinker but an excellent man. Both celebrities had a talk over the subject in the vestry, and the result appears to be this; the Church declares marriage to be indissoluble, yet reserves eleven cases where it is admissible; Naquet advocates divorce, but only in three cases. Pere Hyacinthe Loyson has entered the lists, but he is nor flesh, nor good red herring. He proclaims one God against ail atheisms, and one woman against all seductions and all weaknesses. St. Paul anticipated the present stage of the question—" Art thou bound unto a wife? Seek not to bo loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? Seek not a wife." The , same authority has elsewhere recommended the unmarried and widows to remain like himself—single. Also, the unmarried man " careth for the things that belong to the Lord." This is a consolation for bachelors, who are at the present time attacked by statisticians to prove colibaoy leads to premature death, suicide—a glaring form of same—insanity, and envy, becaus-e how many nephews wish to step into the shoes of rich bachelor uncles ?

Tlio best reading of the thermometer is tho circumstance that a sentry was frozen at his post in Paris. The cold has appeared with such suddenness and intensity that only a very few can boast of having escaped its effects. The aged and well-to-do who have not gone South in time, have paid the penalty of the trying season ; the legislators alone look joyful. What would have been their fate had they still to be that ambulatory Parliament going by road and rail to Versailles ? Paul Louis Cour-

ner, was on one occasion sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for asserting the possibility of France finding herself some day without a Parliament. Yet. during the last ten years, it was an event on the cards. Influenza might have brought about the result,, or a train full of Deputies might run into one full of Senators. The transfer of the Legislature to Paris is worse foi the Press: Journalists are so placed, orpprched, in theinalloited gallery that only, an dccasidnlal sound Bf a member s voice cari'be bealrd. Sbuie parts of a phrase are caught, necessitating a reconstruction worthy of the patience of Cuvier. But in the case of some deputies, a vowel will suggest a phrase—a phrase a sentence, and historical recollections of the orator will do the rest.

The country is so tranquil that a little rebellion is positively a change ; we have just had this at the Veterinary School of Alfort, where several hundred pupils study. The cause of the rebellion is attributed to reducing the number of dishes by one at dinner, stopping the supply iof jam and tarts, and curtailing the horns |of leave on Sundays.,' Though all leave was lately refused, about 250 pupils escaped, no one knows how, and theif return to the institution was equally' mysterious as while the authorities sat up to catch the truants on their return the latter were meanwhile in the dormitory, enjoying the sleep of the jusi. President Gre"vy is a devotee of St. Hubert, every moment lie can escape from the cares of State ; he is out with his dog and his gun ; people say that Mr Gambetta has become a passionate sportsman, only since his duel with \ (ex-Bonapartist Minister Tburton. There are persons who when the day is.fine feel the necessity to go out and kill something : not so Messrs Grevy and Gambetta ; sport for them means gymnastics, a course •of hygiene." Fat men hope to become thin, and the lean kine to get an appetite. Then there is the desire to prove a good marksman—the ambition, too, of boys, who feel as happy on , receiving their first gun—-a present always to be made by an uncle, as in the wearing of their first pair ol pantaloons— both important dates in human life. There are persons who urge us to live on roots rather thaji slay an antelope that sheds tears when founded, or a deer that moans like ourselves in expiring. Pain is democratic. Michelet, who loved the lower animals like a Hindoo, and said they were " our inferior brothers," was not the less famous for his dexterity in carving a fowl. It has been said that sport begets confidence and warms a cooling friendship, hence why diplomatists and Royal scions enjoy it. Bear hunting is said to cure melancholy, and chasing Bruin is the only means the Czar of all the Russias has for baffling his chronic blue devils.