OUR PARIS LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3885, 11 June 1881, Page 1

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(FBOH Oira OWN COHEESPONDENT.)

THIN OS AND OTHEBB. A large number of gardeners may be seen at work in all the Paris squares and gardens, preparing the ground to reoeire new lowers and shrubs. The first to be planted are those able to- stand the cold uights of early spring, but at the end of April, when all danger of froit will b« over, more than one hundred' and, fifty thousand plants coming from the dity conservatories will be distributed in the parks, squares, and gardens. In August they will be changed for other species; 'ifie'Czar, Alexander IT., was killed Ky Orsini bombs. These destructive shells are very dangerous, not only on account of tbe quantity of fragments they ? scatter about on exploding, but also on account of their special construction, which, renders; themi expiosible at the least shock. At the time of Orsini's attempt against the life of Napoleon 111, oue of the conspirators had his arm blown off by one of the bombs he was holding in his hand. These bombs are of spherical or ellipsoidal form. <.- In the first shape they are covered all oVer With caj*s ; /f iv the other, the basis of the sliell being heavier than the other parts, the projectile in tbe air always fails on the' same end where the caps are, and the explosion takes place. ■ • ■ : His Excellency the Duke pf.Feruan Nunez, the new Ambassador pf Spain, arrived last week in Paris. >na jbad^eot a telegram from Bordeaux to. the First Secretary, the Marquis del Moral, requesting him not to meet lum on his arrival (5 a.m.) at such an early hour. The fashion of asking your guests to write sometbing in an album has gone out of date. ' fe { . The latest-social instrument of, torture is the autographic fan, a fan of pure white parchment, on Which tbe ladies ask the celebrities and nonentities to write-some-thing. This distractiou is. becoming very popular in Pari*. A member of the French Society of Cremation, Mr Petit d'Ormay, for,a ipDg time one of the most diligent members of the school of Fourieu, anticipating that the French authorities would return to allow his body to, be - burned ,ox cremated, charged his testameutary executors to convey bis body after.'death to Milau, where,it was burnt last week by the Gorini apparatus, which is now in use in that town. Many partizaos of cremation lfi France have taken similar precautions in order to secure the execution of their wishes. . *-/!., A sign that the winter is over is the fact. that the contractors., who 'provide Paris with summer sitting accommodation bare placed along the boulevards, in tbe squares the 4,000 arm chairs fend' tb,e 7,000 plain chairs of' which they dispose. These chairs are placed: on the Grands Boulevards, in the Bois de Boulogne, and

in the Bois die Vincennes, in the Champ 3 Elysees, and in the squares. The Luxembourg and in .the Tuilleries are provided f6t by special contract. i V" 'France has twelve ironclads, f either j * punched or being completed for sea, or on 4 the stocks, namely,, , the Amiral Duperre, of, 10,986 tons ; the Amiral Baudin, and Formidabile, each of 11,441 tons ; the Turenne, Duguexlio^ Yaubau, and Bayard, ironclads of the second class,, esch.of 5,880 tons; the Caitiiau, Requin, .Tredomptable, and terrible, armored >'«oastdefence vessels of the ''fifst L class, but of 5,695 tons only ;> while four ironclads of the first class, the Hoche, Maice&ui Magenta', and Neptune—one to be imttiedWtely begun.