Our Contributors.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 539, 13 September 1881, Page 2

Our Contributors.

OUK PARIS LETTER.

(From Our Own Cobiiespondekt.)

Paris, July 13,

The greatest man in France ia neither M. Grevy nor .Gambetta, but the Prefect of Police, M. Atidrieux. There ia not a journal but demands his resignation or dismissal, on account of the quarrel with the Municipality. It is stated openly that ho has found compromising documents in the archives of the Ministry of Police for certain high functionaries, and that he will publish if the Cabinet makes him a Jonah. Another gentleman not in the odor of sanctity, of a different kind, is Louis Blanc. This is one of the most tried and respected of politicians ; a'l hi , , life ho has been a consistent Radical, and has never canied away a heart stain on his blade in a!l his jombat-i ; Din, liko the limirbons.

he forgets nothing and learns nothing. Opinions held by him in 1848, and since proved to bo erroneous, and abandoned by even his own pnrty, he clings to still. Hβ has certainly devoted his public career t , ) the amelioration, of the inaasoe ; they have now turned against him—at least the Communist section—and decline to support him at the general elections, because he voted in 1871 thanks to tho army for putting down tho Commune, for the rebuilding of Thiers 1 a house, and the branding of the murderers of the Archbishop of Paria and the hostages. A medical doctor has hit upon a novel way of proving he ia a fit and proper candidate to represent a ward in Parliament, He put his political creed in verse, and sang the stanzas for constituents. The Chamber sadly wanta a warbling deputy.

Paul St. Victor, the distinguished art and dramatic critic, is dead, after a painful illness, diabetes and galloping consumption. If, as Buffon observes, style makes the man, St. Victor's style was unique in its way; his writing was in tho high falutin vein, eminently classical, prose in fireworks, each word a fizz, each line a Bengal light; he resided on Mount Olympus, associatod only with the gods or the Upper Ten of the ancient Greeks. The fineness of his criticism was caviar to tho vulgar; his sententious truisms were dimmed by excess of splendor ; the reader wae dazed, not dazzled, and fatigued by the excess of fire. The public thus remained astonished, but cold, for there is no charm where there is no repose. Ilia debut in letters was distinguished by masterly articles on Madeleine Brohan then in the zenith of her beauty ; on tho return of Rachel from her tour in tho States and her visit to the King of Prussia at the Chdteau of Bahelsburg, and who erected a statue in marble to the tragedienne on the spot of grass where she declaimed some verses. Very singularly, St Victor complimented the Theatre Francais for appointing a young man full of promise to organise and direct its then orchestra. That young man was Jacques Offenbach.

Death has also carried away a naturalised Hungarian—the English and Americans never change their nationality for Continental citizenship—Dr Mandl. His specialty was the hygiene of the voice, and clients came from ail parts of the world— atheists and free-thinkera included—to consult him on parson's sore throat. Falstaff lamented the loss of his voice from holloaing and singing of anthems. Dr Mandl, aided by his very cultivated and talented lady, had a salon very much in vogue in Paris. The doctor was hunchbacked, and, like all such, was very clever, witty, and wisa. He was an authority on Delft and Houen porcelain ; the walls of his apartment were covered with old plates and dishes, every crack representing a fortune. lie lent the greater part of his collection to the Exhibition of 1878; ho felt depressed by the separation, and went daily to the Trocadero to see his "children." 11-j had a curious German painting ; on one side a beauty smelling (lowers, on the other side the picture of that creature as a skeleton Before dying (he doctor bid farewell affectionately to all his objets d'ari. Cardinal Mazarin did the s»itne in reference to his pictures ; each lovel paintings and had them brought to him and placed before his dying eyes.

At Conde, a lad aged ten was discovered in the act of mutilating an infant aged three. Several niurderors have been condemned to death this week, but, as M. Grevy signs no execution warrants, they need have no fear for their heads.

The Municipal Council has positively discovered that in the parish, schools there are books in use where the name of God occurs, and allusion made to the efficacy of prayer for securing the welfare of France. The new prison of Nanterre will be fitted up not only with a chapel and church, but a synagogue. A separate wing will be set apart for the preventive arrested. Trinquet. the amnestied Communist shoemaker, has accepted a Civil Service appointment; the Communists do not blackguard him, as is their habitude, but pity him. Milk having the property to soften characters, it is suggested to make that diet compulsory for the cab fraternity. Madame Be'camier.in presence of somo magnetism experiments, avowed, <( I am shaken, but not convinced."