Extracts from our Paris Letter.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3473, 11 February 1880, Page 2

Extracts from our Paris Letter.

By a law enacted in 1814, it is prohibited t<rwork on (Sundays and ftke days, ; the Protestants object to, be tied by the' "^ latter observance, the Israelites believe v Saturday ought to be the day of res', while the Mohomedans go in for Friday— and so on. The Chamber of Deputies has voted the repeal of the law of 181-4, 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, heterodoxy. In practice, Sundays and fetes are more than ever kept whole or half days of rest, and tli'e impulse will not be lessened in this direction by people being left to themselves. Forbidden fruit and stolen kisses are ever sweetest. In many countries people are" said to go to church from fear of God or Mrs Grundy ; the latter personage does not exist in France, so the few, who attend public worship, do so consequently from the bon motif. Then we are happily free from

" Reforming saints ! too delicately nice! By -whose decrees, our sinful souls to save, No Sunday tankards foam, no barbers shave; , And beer undrawn, and beards unmown, display Your holy reverence for the Sabbath day." The army chaplains too, as established some four years ago by a clerieo: monarchal Assembly, are to be abolished.:, They proved anything but messengers of peace in the regiments, so much so that the Minister of War approves of. the sup> pression of that reactionist institution. These changes are the unhappy, but inevitable result; of making Religion a political speculation.

The agitation in favor of divorce is coming to a head; its success may be dis- | counted. The Fere Didon i 3 the champion : for keeping once loving couples together [in-misery till death: his photo is as r popular 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 Fere's Sunday lectures on divorce were attended "by M". Maynet, a free thinker, but an excellent man. Both celebrities had a talk over the subject in the vestry, and the result " appears to xbe this : the Church declares marriage to be indissoluble, yet reserve! i eleven cases where it is admissable; i Maynet advocates divorce, but only in < three cases. Fere Hyacinthe Loyson has : entered the lists, but he is neither fish, nor flesh, nor good red herring. He proclaims one Lord against all atheism?) and one woman against all seductions and all weaknesses. St. Paul anticipated the i present stage of the question. "Art thou bound unto a wife? seek not to be' loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife." The same authority has elsewhere - recommended, the "unmarried and widows to remain Jike 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 moment' being attacked, by statisticians to prove celibacy leads to premature death, suicide —a glaring form of insanity, and envy, because how many nephews wish to step into the .shoes of rich bachelor uncles.

The best reading of the thermometer is the 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 hare 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 P Paul Louis Courrier was on one occasion sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment for asserting the possibility of France'finding herself someday without a parliament. Yet during the last ten years, it was an event quite on the cards, influenza might have brought about, the ~ result, or a train full of deputies might ' run intopne full of senators.. The trans-, fer of the legislature to Paris is worse.for the press; journalists are so placed or ~; perched in their allotted gallery, that only an occasional sound of a member's voice can be heard. Some parts of a phrase are caught, necessitating a reconstruction worthy of the patience of a^Courier. Buttfi the case of some deputies, a vowel will sugv gest a phrase, a phrase a sentence, and historical recollections qf the orator will do the rest.