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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 129, 31 May 1879, Page 4

Moral Courage, — Have the courage to discharge a debt while you have the money in your pocket. To do without that which you do not need, however much you may admire it. To speak your mind when it is necessary that you should do so, and to hold your tongue when it is better that yon should be silent. To speak to a poor friend in a threadbare coat, even in the street, and wben a rich one is nigh. The effort is less than many taka it to be, and the act is worthy a king. To face a difficulty, lest it kick you harder than you bargain for. Difficulties, like thieves, often disappear at a glance. To leave a convivial party at a proper hour for so doing, however great the sacrifice; and to stay away from one, upon the slightest grounds for objection, however great the temptation to go. To dance with ugly people if you dance at all j and to decline if you dialike the performance, or cannot accomplish it to your satisfaction. To tell a man why you will not lend him money ; he will respect yon more than if you tell him you cannot. To cut the most agreeable scqaintance you fosseea, when he convinces you "that that he lacks principle. « A friend should bear with a friend's infirmities,' not with bis vicee. To wear your old garments till jou can pay for new ones. To pass the bottle without filling your glass, when you have reasons for so doipg' and to laugh at those who argue you to' the contrary. To wear tKick boofs io winter, and to insist upon your wife and daughters doin"» the like. To decline playing cards /or money, when ' money ie an object,' or to cease playing, when your losses amount to as much as you can afford to lose. Lastly have the courage to prefer propriety to fashion ; one is but the abuse of the other. Prince Louis Napoleon, who is now on his way to the Cape (since arrived) will spend his twenty-third birthday at sea. Three-and-twenty years ore but a • spec in the hiatory of a state ; but vr ry differently does March, 1879, find the City of Paris ns compared with March 1856. Tbe Plenipotentiaries of the great Powers were at that time assembled in the French capital negotiating the Treaty of Peace which was to pat an end to the war with Russia, and the Emperor of the French was at the height of his popularity. Everything then seemed going in his favor. The French troops had fought gallantly and gloriously at Alma, Inkermao, and Sebostopol ; England was in close alliance with France, and between them they had beaten back the great Colossus of the North from tbe banks offtbe Danube towards his frozen home. There was only one thing wanted 6o secure the Emperor's happiness, and

that was what he termed the consolidation of his dynasty by the birth of a son. When, therefore, on the 16ih March, 1856, the thunder o* the guns announced to the City of Paris, as io peal after peal (heir loud reverberations echoed^ upon the city, tbat a son had been given to the Emperor, great were the rejoicings, and general were the illuminations. The delighted sovereign, himself granled an amnesty to 1,000 political exiles, and the utmost importance was attached to the announcement made in the highest honaehold in the land of France— "Unto us a son is given." The truth of the old saying, that the world's glory passeth away, hag seldom received a stronger illustration than in this case. A decade waned away, and brought the world to 1866, when Prussia, at Sadowa, threatened to become an all-absorbing, all-cotiquer-iog power in Europe, and when France entered upon that career of competition with her Teutonic rival which ended so disastrously at Sedan. It is now ju9t nine years ago, tbat in the spring of 1870, the Emperor, broken in health, might have been seen on any of those bright, sunshiny days, leaning upon a fitick in the park of Sr, Cloud, contemplating that invasion which terminated so disastrously a few months subsequently. It may be here mentioned that the description of Prince Louia Napoleon as the Prince Imperial, which is still kept up by some newspapers, is totally wrong. If there were any descendants of the Stuarts now alive, it would be just as correct for the French journals to style them Koynl Highnesses as for us to speak of the Prince Imperial. The Stuarta and the Napoleonic dynasty were alike deposed, and the verdict in each case wa9 ratified by the country. — English Paper.