Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 488, 22 March 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors.

OUR PARIS ! LETTER.

(Fbom our Own Correspondent.)

Paris, December 30. JH Another year interred, and the shanties that are run l up along the Boulevards for the ten days' toy fair, appear like so many coffins to carry away the remains of 1880. In Paris, at all events, the years, if they do not expire, like Clarence, in a butt oi Malmsey, do so in floods of drink. Christmas Eve is only regarded sacredif one doee not go to bed ; the capital does not shut an eye on; ;ihej occasion ; the very pious and the excellent profane alike attend a midnight mass to hear the execution of Adolphe Adam's "Christmas Anthem," executed during the administration of the sacrament; on the conclusion of the rite there is a rush to a sup- . per-room, to partake of pork in some form—and it can bo: prepared in as many different manners as there are for cooking eggs. The workman will have his bonne louche of snails and garlic, then his Portuguese oysters and their corrugated shells, washed down with petit bleu, or cider innocent of apples ; the middle classes will have goose and chestnuts, pigs' feet, and flat or cylindrical sausages, with a black pudding to act as memento inori; the Upper Ten

will have what they please ; ham will represent the souvenir of the'friehd of St. Anthony ; there will beOstend and Dutch natives, washed down with golden Tokay in Bohemian glasses; but, whether high or low, rich or poor, feasting will be the rule, and the next morning the heaps of oyster shells will testify to the work and labor done, at the same time suggesting that Paris might be built on the shells of the bivalves, as Amsterdam is said to have been founded on herring bones. An orator stated last week in the Chamber of Deputies, on the discussion of the Budget, that " the Mass was the Opera of the poor." The crush before the several churches to gain admission to the midnight mass is a strong illustration of this ; nothing could be less reverential than to hear the gods cracking their jokes and indulging in crossfiring at the expense of their paradise. There were whistlings and groans; the beadle was alluded to as the chef of the claque, and !fche clergyman as the arthte. Notre Dame, as usual, was closed ; a single policeman assured ignorant visitors no ceremony would take place that night. During the past year, customs as much as fashions have changed. The club is evidontly killing the salon ; the green-room, the family circle ; the cigar, female society. Periodical dinners between members of the same "shop" liave increased in favor ; it is, at least, something to be able to shake the hand of an auld acquaintance once a fortnight or once a month, and to prepare an effusion of friend ship for an acquaintance Tecognised at the serving of the soup, and totally forgotten at the sipping -of the coffee. In the matter of bonbons— •a specialty of this period—they are certaraly being superseded by flowers. Flowers, like Figaro, here, there, and everywhere ; at birth, for a bouqaet is sent to a mother af ier her confinement; at weddings, it rains flowers.;,at.ftmerals, bouquets deprive death of much of its terrors—all lying most in apprehension, according to the Divine Williams. The flowers are expensive, as they are considered valuable in proportion to their rarity and the covbeille in which they are placed; indeed, the latter threatens to as expensive a nuisance as the *ac for tlie bonbons. If one would only be content with a bunch of violets, sold by the phthisical flower girl at twoflous ! The pig is not only honored at supper parties, but it still rales as symbolic jewellery in the theatres; and in the sugar bakers' the pig is made in chocolate, or stuffed with pralines ; it is even worked in silk, velvet, and satin for bags for swestmeats.

The theatres are occupied with their annual ,eo>'es, which do duty for pantomimes. It is remarked that while these eminently Parisian spectacles were at one time characterised by general features, they are at present inerelycornposed of ward peculiarities and hits at piu-ochia! celebrities. There is a good deal of goss?p tnkinsf place still respccling M. dv Camp's reception it the French Academy, and of the scnnrlalous manner in which he attacked the Republicans, after Leing their spoiled child. Zola of course comes to the rescue ; he bemoans with a Jeremiah tenacity of wr.il the degeneracy of the age, because it prefers a Waning for an international billiard match rather than to literature, and a scandal tp a fine nrt criticism. It is thus the self-nominated censor castigates Messis G<e<ry and Gambetfca for their weakness for gunning, billiards, and chess, instead of a three-volume novel, a treatise on Schopenhauer, or a compendium of P. L. Boileau's new theories on Ricardo, the origin of propert v, and the question of averages. What is the use of a cremation society that dees not cremate? Paris has a splendid list of subscribers consenting and desiring to be promptly consumed— at the psychological moment, understood -—and yet their paternal Government will not allow the quick, rather than the slow, process of disappearance. " Brother, it is necessary to burn !" is the palpitating how-do-you-do of the moment. Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of 1880 was the outbreak of pornographic literature, and its merciless emppression by the Republic.