"A word about the great man him"self. He was born in 1811, at Mont"lhéry. At twenty, he was a poor "butcher-boy in Paris; at thirty he "found himself by his own industry 66 on the high road to fortune. He has "had many failures, many disappointments, but has overcome them all. “M. Duval is a man of middle stature, "bright-complexioned, red-bearded, with "brown hair. He speaks much, and "with a natural and proud satisfaction, "of all he has done and all he means "to do. Nothing is too fine for himnothing too great. Still, take care of "the money,' whispers gently Madame "Duval. 66 Ordinarily the husband follows the "advice of the wife, as all good hus"bands should do; but in this case he "has not done it. In the lavishly "splendid procession of the Boeuf Gras "M. Duval has listened to nobody, "unless it be to his classically-educated son in describing to him the costumes "of Greece and Rome." Very grand the costumes were, and accurate likewise. And if under Minerva's helmet, or the flowery garland of May (who had hard work, poor soul, to quiet a hungry, thinly clad, rather obstreperous baby), were faces not absolutely classical, which looked worn, sallow, and pinched in the sharp morning air-why, what could you expect? I only hope M. Duval gave each of his gods and goddesses a real good mortal dinner at one of his bouillons. Beside these live personages, the mechanical appliances of the show were very good. I still recal with a childish satisfaction the big, calm (artificial) sphynx, sitting with her paws stretched out and her eyes gazing right forward, as is the custom of sphynxes; the huge stuffed elephant, a little shaky on the legs, but majestic still, and, above all, the gigantic boeuf, made of coloured bladders, that floated airily over the last char, attached only by a slender string. This string was cut just in front of the balcony of the Tuileries, when the extraordinary animal soared at once skywards, balloon fashion, to the ecstasythe newspapers record-of the young Prince Imperial, and causing even the grim Emperor himself to break into a smile. Whenever during the three days we met the procession, an eager crowd always followed, flattening itself against railings, filling street-doorways, and raising itself in tiers of heads upon the steps of churches, just as our crowds do, only with twice as much merriment and good-humour. And when, though tracking it out of Paris proper to the suburban district of Les Ternes, we still felt its results in having to sit for twenty minutes in the last of a row of six omnibusses all complet, but each waiting patiently the hour of starting; we could not help noticing its exceeding cheerfulness. All the passengers chattered away together in the shrillest and most joyous French, but nobody complained of the long delay - nobody scolded the conductor. I do not say the French are a better race than we, but they are certainly better-tempered, especially when out for a holiday. Mardi-Gras, the last day of the festival, brought a sight I shall not soon forget. It was a lovely spring evening, and down the Champs Elysées the people swarmed like bees in the sunshine, all classes and ranks together. Some drove down the centre way in handsome carriages, mostly filled with children, whose happy faces peered brightly over the white fur or bearskin rugs which enwrapped them. Others, well-dressed and respectable folk, sat in groups on the chairs and benches, as if it were summer-time. While the "lower orders," as we call them, formed one smooth settled line along the edge of the pavé, behind which was another line, continually in motion, until at the Place de la Concorde it coagulated into one compact mass. There the people stood, the setting sun shining on their merry faces, on the very spot where, scarcely a generation ago, their fathers and mothers had seen the "son of Saint Louis" remorselessly executed; whence, afterwards his queen and widow gave that last pathetic glance towards the Tuileries Gardens, and died silently, a queen to the end. Sad and strange, infinitely sad and strange! Almost incredible, one would think, watching the Paris of to-day. But as one traverses that wonderful modern city, yearly changing so fast-new streets, avenues, and faubourgs rising, until historical Paris is almost entirely obliterated ("It is not desirable for us to have a history," said a Parisian one day to me)- one cannot help wondering what will be the story of the future-what new events, what possible tragedies may still be enacted there? But the only tragedy to-day was that of the Bœuf Gras, which, after his three days' triumph, was now borne relentlessly to the Palais de l'Industrie. All that crowd was waiting to see him enter there, never to emerge again except as beef. Yet he had had his day. Portraits of him were circulating about the streets—one of which, a splendid broadside-we bought. It contains, besides a gorgeous engraving of the procession, two poems, one of which has a curious thread of pathos running through its buffoonery. Here it is, done into English from its Nivernais patois :- 66 LE DERNIER VOYAGE DE GULLIVER. Ha, ha! the fever of success I am the biggest and most rare; Is dangerous both to man-and bull! The glory of the Paris throng. "Once in my quiet country meads I cropped the cool delicious grass : Beside my sweet companion cow How cheerful, how content I was! Adieu, my innocent pleasures all! What fate is mine! I ride in state, Is death alike to man-and bull!" There is a second poem, "Causerie d'un Boeuf Masqué," but it is written in such queer patois, and so full of puns and references to the Paris slang of the day, that I should despair of making it intelligible either in French or English. But it is at least quite harmless, which is more than can be said of everything Parisian. Nevertheless, perfectly harmless, so far at least as we witnessed it - which was up to ten o'clock P.M.-on MardiGras, seemed the fun of the Paris streets, carnival fun though it was. We quitted the thronged Place de la Concorde, with the sun setting upon the poor bœuf's last hour of life, and very thankful to know the victim was only a bœuf; nor did we reappear again on the surface of the city till 8 P.M., when its aspect had altogether changed. At first, rather for the worse. Every shop was shut. The bright line of the Boulevards was now one long darkness. All those cheery boutiques where Madame la boutiquière may generally be seen composedly sitting at her evening. work, or chatting with her friends, were closed and silent. Here and there only, in some of the paved alleys, there was a photographer's window, or a cigar shop open, to illuminate the spot. But to various places of amusement,-theatres, masqued balls, and so on-there were endless directions; guiding stars, done in gas, and flaring gas inscriptions, to attract the crowd. It thickened and thickened, until it flowed down the pavement in three continuous streams, two downwards and one upwards, chiefly composed of the under-world, the working world of Paris; but so far as we could judge, entirely respectable. All were strictly decorous in their dress, manners, and behaviour; and as they gathered round the few illuminated windows, the light showed their faces to be no worse than most holiday faces-perhaps better-for the universal white cap and neat capuchon gave to the women an air of decent grace which one rarely sees under the flaunting, shabby flowerbedecked bonnets of the corresponding class in London. Most of them, whether young or elderly, were escorted by some male friend, husband, or sweetheart upon whose arm, or both his arms, they merrily hung, to the detriment of his invariable cigar. But I cannot say the Paris men are either so attractive or so respectable-looking as the Paris women. By and by, the night being fine, the spaces in front of the restaurants began to fill. The crowd settled down to take its cafe as usual in the open air. Soon there was a three-deep row of crowded tables, at which sociable family groups chatted and looked about them, and sipped various beverages of apparently innocuous kind. Drink is not the temptation of a Frenchman; not a single drunken man did we see during the whole three days. Would it be so if we had a London carnival ? Nor was there, in spite of the continually increasing crowd, any inconvenient pushing or crushing. That thoroughly French civility and courtesy, which I have so often referred to, never failed. Once only there was anything approaching to a rush-when a party of young men and women, dressed for the Opera-ball in fancy costumes, stopped to take their café, visible to all outsiders, at a restaurant. But even then the result was only a scramble and a good stare,the sole expression of feeling on the part of the crowd coming from a peasant lad, who lifted up his hands and in admiration of the women, exclaiming"C'est éblouissant!" eyes But soon the throng became almost impassable, especially round the costumiers' shops, where, surrounded by a blaze of satin dominoes, white, black, pink, scarlet, and backed by queer masks of all sorts, sempstresses were seen still diligently stitching-hard at work while all Paris was at play-upon ball-costumes. And presently one saw now and then, threading the crowd in their masques and dominoes, people who were going to "assist" at that final festivity, the grand masqued ball at the OperaComique said to be the most splendid, attractive, and disgraceful recreation of the city in its holiday mood—at which, I need scarcely say, we were not present. But we caught floating fragments of it pushing through the streets, or humble imitations of it done by ragged lads squeaking in horrible cow's horns from under gigantic noses; while older and less innocent young fools dressed up in women's clothes, shrieking in shrill treble, and waving broken parasols about their heads, occasionally darted through the crowd, which made way for them and greeted them with shouts of appreciative laughter. At eight o'clock next morning, going, as was my wont, into the nearest church, I met crowds, actual crowds, of both men and women hurrying to its doors. All sorts of people they were the working class, the shopkeeping class-the same class exactly which had filled the streets up to ten o'clock on the night before. Now, at that early hour in the morning they were beginning their day by going to basse-messe, or confession, or whatever it was. I never have understood the ins and outs of Roman Catholic services, which to us seem so childish and involved. But of one thing I am certain the people pray. And it was a curious and startling contrast to all the mirth and revelry of the past three days, to see them turn out thus, on a gloomy, damp morning, to commence with earnest worship-at least their countenances implied earnestness-the first day of Carême; what we call Ash-Wednesday. Les Anglais n'aiment pas s'amuser. No. I am afraid we do not. Races, like individuals, have their special characteristics, which it is useless to fight against, and almost useless to try to alter. Best to leave them as they are, when they are mere "peculiarities," not degenerating into actual sins. Therefore, I am not going to add one word of moralizing-not certainly of condemnationeither of ourselves or our neighbours. Only, that if there are better things, there certainly may be worse things, than this sight which I have here recorded,-the sight of a City at Play. THE AMERICAN LECTURE-SYSTEM. BY THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON, OF NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND, U.S. ACROSS the prairies of the American continent, five hundred miles west of the Missouri river, and about midway between the Atlantic and Pacific shores, there moves westward into the wilderness a railway construction-train of eighty vans. There is no house within a hundred miles, nor sign of human existence save that connected with the new railway itself. Far to right and left, among distant mountains, are fifteen hundred wood-choppers; far in advance are two thousand men, grading the track; behind. them follows a smaller force, laying the wooden sleepers. In the rear of this last army the construction-train halts; a truck, drawn by two horses, takes on a load of rails with the necessary chairs and spikes, then the horses set off at a gallop. They stop where ten men are stationed, five on each side, opposite the last pair of rails yet laid. The truck has a pair of rollers, two men on the right seize a rail and throw it on the roller, three others run it out to the proper distance, while the group on the left are similarly employed. With a single swing, the end of each rail is forced into the chair already laid. The chief of the squad shouts "Down!" when the second chair is at once set, and the next rail grasped. Twice in every minute there comes from each side the line that cry of "Down!" It is the measured footstep of advancing civilization. With each day's sunset more than two additional miles of this habitable globe have been permanently girdled and possessed by man. These iron rails once laid, all else follows-all the signs and appliances of American social order: the farm, the workshop, the village, the church, the schoolhouse, the New York Tribune, the Atlantic Monthly, and-the popular Lecture-system. The village once established, the railway becomes its tributary; bears its products to the market, brings it means of comfort and of culture. Soon there must be imported some apparatus for social recreation, a juggler-a travelling "circus," a band of "Ethiopian Minstrels" with "banjo" and "bones." But this is not enough. Gradually the New England element, which is apt to be the organizing and shaping force in a north-western town, calls loudly for some direct intellectual stimulus. It must see the men of note, must have some contact with the more cultivated Eastern mind. "Europe," says Emerson, "stretches to the Alleghanies." From beyond the Alleghanies, then, must intellectual delights be sought. Let us have the orator, the philosopher, the poet; but as we cannot go to him, he must come to us. Yet at first the soil is rather unprepared for intellectual culture, pure and simple; it must be administered in combination with something else for a time. Youth and levity crave a dance, for instance; the dance is conceded; but since many of the guests must ride twenty miles for their pleasure, it will be an obvious economy to appoint the lecture for the same evening, permitting one admittance-fee to serve for both. "Tickets to Emerson and ball, one dollar." There is no end to these combinations in the earlier stages of intellectual colonization. There lies before me a handbill, printed last winter in a village of Indiana, wherein Mr. J. Jackson offers to read Hamlet for twenty-five cents, ladies free. He modestly adds that "after the reading "he will develop a plan for the forma"tion of a company, with a small "capital, for the manufacture of silk "handkerchiefs of a quality superior "to anything in the market, and will "relate some incidents of his early life "in connexion with this particular "article." Thus Mr. J. Jackson artfully allures his audience to tears, and then staunches their griefs with his own pocket-handkerchiefs. These are the germs of the Lecturesystem. After a time these crude beginnings are matured and systematized, and arrangements are made for a separate course of lectures, which may at the utmost include a concert or two, and perhaps dramatic reading pocket-handkerchiefs not included. A public meeting is perhaps called; some simple organization is effected, perhaps in connexion with some local charity which may share the profits of the enterprize, while provision is made against any deficit by the subscriptions of a few energetic men. Officers are appointed-usually a Lecture-committee -to select the speakers, a Secretary to invite them, a Treasurer to pay them, and a President to introduce them to the audience. The lecture then becomes the weekly excitement of the place; all local appointments make way for it, and it attracts people from long distances. That is if they be of New England birth; for the popular lecture cannot exist below a certain parallel of latitude, while foreign immigrants are apt to avoid it-or to taste of it, as they do of any other national dish, with courtesy, but not with relish. A winter's course of lectures may vary from a half-dozen to a score. At first, each local organization acts on its own responsibility. Soon it is found practicable for a few adjacent towns to co-operate in their plans, thus offering to their favourite lecturers a series of engagements on the same line of travel. Carrying this method yet farther, there has grown up an extensive organization of "Western Literary Societies," whose range extends from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania to Laurence in Kansas. The agent of this association, Mr. G. L. Torbert, of Dubuque, Iowa, has, during the past winter, negotiated between thirty-five lectures and one hundred and ten societies, arranging No. 103.-VOL. XVIII. for each society a tolerably regular course of lectures, and for each orator a continuous series of engagements, longer or shorter. In the autumn he issued his list of speakers, with their respective subjects and prices, leaving each society to make its selection from the list. The lecturer has no trouble about the matter after he has once inspired the Western public with an appetite for his services. He states his demands, the agent does all the rest; and the happy itinerant leaves home. with a printed circular in his pocket, assigning his dozen or his hundred engagements, as the case may be. Perhaps he has never heard the names of many of the towns where he is to find his audiences; no matter, he is sure that they will all be there, posted a day's journey apart, along his designated route. Arriving at each town, he will surely find his committee-man awaiting him, and each will recognise the other by that freemasonry of the eye which brings host and guest together. So smoothly, in short, does the great machine revolve that there is no likelihood of interruption, unless from some great snowstorm blockading twenty lecturers on as many railways, and thus disappointing a score of audiences. For an appointment once missed can by no means be taken up again; the traveller must hasten on for the next. It is an exciting life, thus to find one's self moving to and fro, a living shuttle, to weave together this new web of national civilization. Were the audiences never so dull, the lecturer's task would have interest in view of its results. But the audiences are rarely dull, and it is usually worth the labour that it costs him to meet them face to face. True, he must spend night after night in "sleeping-cars," taking such slumber as he may while his rocking cradle is whirled on. He rises at dawn, perhaps, for some comfortless change of conveyance, or some shivering wayside. breakfast. He dozes half the day, and in his waking hours risks his eyes over newspapers, or his temper over politics. He arrives hungry at his place of desti E |