"Fred! what did you put that in for? How dare you meddle with my pen, sir? I am writing a confidential letter to my friend, Mr. Putnam; and if you don't behave, I'll tell him all about you."

"Cross old Uncle Fred" has proved a wonderfully kind friend to little Daisy and her aunty. He used to bring us constant news of Julian, of whom we were all so fond, you know! constant messages from his mother; he brought the newly-arrived father, on his way through the city to rejoin his family-a man kind and sweet, haggard with illness and anxiety, and overpowering in his gratitude to me, who deserved it so little. He brought flowers; he brought books; he brought a wonderful doll to Daisy; and finally he brought himself, with his brave life, warm heart, and manly love, and laid all before me, "to take or to leave," as he said. And somehow, though I didn't much want to take him, he was rather too good to leave; and so, and so

"Fred, how did it happen, after all? I am trying to explain; but I have never yet understood it thoroughly myself!"

"You mean, how did it happen that I wanted you for my right hand? Why,

because my other one was shot off, you know."

“Oh, you poor, dear old darling! No, I didn't mean that exactly! But I remember what an absolutely ideal life Daisy and I had settled down to, and I never meant to have any man tempt me out of it. And so I can't quite explain how your great, interloping bodily presence managed to intrude itself!"

“Why, we fell in love, Madge. 'Twas all very simple."

"No, we didn't. At least, I didn't! I've often been in love, but never with you!"

"Indeed! Well, then, I fell in love with you, at all events-at first sight, I may truly say!"

"How can you tell such a fib?”

"Yes, my own dear love; I most solemnly protest that the adoration which is now part of my being, and which I shall carry with me to the grave, sprang into full and vigorous life from the moment when you confessed-" "What did I confess, most puissant Captain?"

"Most saucy and disrespectful of wives, when you blushingly, almost tearfully, yet with winning frankness and sweetness-confessed-that-you had spanked Julian! ”

"PARIS is France." Hardly in any other respect is the truth of this trite saying so evident as when applied to the French newspaper press. Omit the Parisian journals from the list of the latter, and France would certainly stand only one degree above Russia, as far as the number, the character, and the influence of its political journals are concerned. There are plenty of large, wealthy, and enterprising "provincial" cities in France; no less than seven of them contain upward of one hundred thousand inhabitants; but there is not a single one among them which can boast of a first-class newspaper, nor even of one that might compete with the leading journals of the capital. So great is the influence of the latter, that their circulation at Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nantes, Lille, Rouen, and Havre, is larger than that of the local papers published in these cities.

And, notwithstanding this extraordinary preponderance of the metropolitan press, it is an indisputable fact that there is not a journal among them that might be called a first-class news-paper. An American, who has been accustomed to read the teeming columns of the great papers of our own large cities, is amazed, when coming to Paris, and perusing the morning and evening journals, at the beggarly banquet of news which they serve up to their readers. His feelings are those of an epicure, who has all his lifetime feasted in the most sumptuous manner, and is suddenly confined to a diet little better than bread and water. If he has hitherto, in his Times or Tribune, found every morning whole pages of telegraphic correspondence from all parts of the world, he finds now, on opening in the morning his Journal des Débats, or his Constitutionnel, just about half a column of despatches, and in the evening, on receiving his Temps or Pa

trie, about one third less. He has heard that there has been a great debate in the Senate last night, and eagerly looks for a full report in the papers. He will not find a word about it. A cause célèbre has been tried at the Palais de Justice yesterday. Surely, the morning papers will say something about it. But no: our American resident at Paris may examine all the journals, from the Moniteur to the Siècle: they contain no report. The local items are generally two days old, and the papers frequently borrow them from each other. You find every day in the column headed" Faits divers," local news, introduced in the following manner: "Last night's Patrie says: There was a large conflagration at the Champs Elysées yesterday,' etc." Only on rare occasions are there exceptions to this rule; for instance, when the Emperor opens the Chambers, and has a special interest in the early publication of his speech all over the country, and when in consequence thereof advance copies of the speech are furnished to the attachés of the papers. And on such occasions the local editor seldom fails to give an account of the astonishing enterprise he displayed in bribing his hackman by an extra fivefranc piece to drive him as fast as possible from the Imprimerie Impériale, where he received a copy of the speech, to the office of his own paper. Few, if any, Parisian dailies employ many reporters, and they have generally but one local editor. The opposition journals publish rarely, if ever, any correspondence from the interior of France. Short extracts from the provincial papers are generally deemed sufficient, and when they receive letters from special correspondents in the country, they hardly ever publish them in full, but give only extracts or brief resumés.

It seems almost incomprehensible to

the foreigner that the vivacious and spirited population of the capital which boasts of being the "heart of Europe" and the great centre of civilization, should tolerate in its leading newspapers a lack of enterprise that would not be submitted to by the subscribers of journals published in small cities in the United States. And yet, if the difficulties under which the managers and editors of French newspapers are laboring are fully known, it must be admitted that they are doing quite creditably under the circumstances. The Imperial Government is waging an incessant war, not only directly against the liberal journals, but indirectly against journalism in general, as will be seen from the following statements in regard to the difficulties with which newspaper men have constantly to struggle in their efforts to obtain important news at the earliest possible moment.

Countless endeavors have been made by them for the last fifteen years to obtain more extended and satisfactory telegraphic news, but hitherto all have failed, because the Government claims the right to suppress such political telegrams as it deems unfit for publication, and exercises this privilege with the utmost rigor. Several private associations, formed for the purpose of furnishing the French press with telegraphic correspondence; had to succumb to the hostility of the Government, and the Agence Havas-Bullier, from which now all the papers receive their despatches, is a semi-official institution, and managed directly in the interest of the Government. It has its agents in the principal cities of Europe, and furnishes to its subscribers not only telegraphic despatches, but semi-weekly letters. The independent and liberal papers, however, attach but little value to these letters, on account of their decided partisan character, and grave charges have repeatedly been preferred against the fairness of the despatches, which, apart from being garbled to suit the Government, were asserted to be colored in the direct interest of certain wealthy stock-jobbers.

It may be asked, Why do the Paris papers not have special despatches sent to them in cipher? This has often been tried, and is being done now; but the difficulty is that the Government, which, from its diplomatic agents abroad, receives daily telegraphic reports, suppresses, when important news is looked for, all cipher despatches, or, at least, delays their delivery, sometimes for twenty-four hours, and even longer. In consequence of this, when a great battle has been fought, or any other event of importance has occurred, the Moniteur alone is always anxiously looked for.

The most enterprising Paris papers try to make up for the meagre charac ter of their telegraphic reports by copying liberal extracts from the foreign papers as soon as they are received by mail; and nearly every office employs four or six translators for this purpose. Unfortunately, the Government interferes here again in the most unpleasant manner, by frequently refusing to deliver copies of foreign papers containing articles that are objectionable to it. Three or four employés at the postoffice, in Paris, devote their exclusive attention to reading the leaders of foreign newspapers on their arrival, and their veto suffices to prevent the delivery of the paper to its subscribers. To what lengths this is carried is shown by the fact that the Kölnische Zeitung (Cologne Gazette), one of the most enterprising German papers, and which has a larger circulation in France than any other German paper, is often withheld twenty times in a single month from its subscribers in Paris. Most of the newspapers have, therefore, instructed their correspondents to send important extracts from the German, Italian, English, and Russian papers, in their letters.

The path of the local editor and reporter is no less thorny and narrow than that of the news-editor. The Government lays, of its own accord, before the public such news about its domestic affairs as it wishes to become generally known; and not only does it extend no facilities to reporters who wish to obtain additional information about

the state of home affairs, but it regards and resents all such attempts as decidedly impertinent and suspicious. M. Magne, the present Minister of Finance, would certainly consider the newspaper reporter, calling upon him for a statement of the public debt, as a candidate fit for Charenton, and similar inquiries at the other departments would be met in the same spirit. Besides, an old press-law, rigidly enforced since 1852, imposes a heavy penalty on papers which publish false news, even if their editors had the best of reasons for believing it to be true. Provincial papers are frequently prosecuted under this law for copying paragraphs from Parisian journals, and vice versa; and the courts always deem it their bounden duty to mete out the heaviest punishment to the offending newspaper.

The French, moreover, are sensitive, to a truly ludicrous degree, to the allusions made by editors to their private affairs, however harmless these allusions may be; and they are constantly ready to resent any thing of the kind by applying for redress to the courts, where they are, of course, received with open arms, and where the Avocat Impérial conducts their case free of charge. The courts are overwhelmed with such suits, some of which are based on grievances of the most ridiculous description. M. Feydeau was sued, a few years ago, by a physician, who alleged that his practice had been severely injured because Feydeau had introduced a very wicked doctor of the same name in the story he published in the feuilleton of one of the daily papers. Ponson du Terrail, the famous romancist, was, two years ago, sentenced to a heavy fine and imprisonment because he had applied the name of his landlord, Graspillard, with whom he had quarrelled, to a very bad man in the novel which he published in the Petit Journal. The Journal des Débats was recently sued by the descendants of Madame Tallien for some remarks it had made about the so-called Notre Dame du Thermidor.

The papers are strictly forbidden to publish private reports of the debates

of the Chambers; they must wait until the official report appears in the Moniteur. They are allowed to reprint this as it is, but not to alter it.

The Gazette des Tribunaux and the Droit have a monopoly of the law reports, and the officers of the courts refuse to extend facilities to the reporters of the daily papers, which are consequently compelled to copy the reports of important trials from the abovenamed journals.

Thus prevented in every way from making their journals good news-papers, the managers of the Parisian dailies seek to indemnify their readers by the extreme care and distinguished ability with which the editorial and literary matter and the foreign letters are prepared for their columns. None but firstclass writers are employed in these departments; and it is a noteworthy fact that the proud honor of a seat in the French Academy has of late been repeatedly conferred upon prominent writers of editorials for the daily papers of Paris. Prévost-Paradol, a young man of thirty-five, owes his election to the Academy to his splendid articles in the Débats and the Courrier du Dimanche, which were afterward published in book-form. The same honor was, a year ago, conferred on M. Cuviller-Fleury, another member of the staff of the Débats. The various papers vie with each other in engaging the services of eminent men for their editorial columns, and as the law requires all articles to be signed by their authors, the Parisian dailies bear an individual character that is in striking contrast with that of their cotemporaries in London, where the name of the newspaper entirely overshadows those of the writers employed on it. In London, people speak only of what the Times, the News, the Telegraph says. In Paris, the name of the editor overshadows that of his paper. People do not speak of what the Liberté says, but of what Girardin says in the Liberté; not of the Constitutionnel, but of Limayrac's articles in the Constitutionnel. The English do not inquire who edits the Times or the other London

papers. The French would not take a paper without knowing the name of the editor, and without being satisfied that he is a man of ability.

The same care is taken in regard to the men who are employed as foreign correspondents. Such distinguished savans and historians as Louis Blanc, Henri Monnier, Edgar Quinet, etc., are regular correspondents of the Paris dailies, and, the telegraphic news being so meagre and unsatisfactory, their letters, remarkable alike for their solid and polished style, are eagerly perused.

Every daily paper in Paris has its gérant, to whom the general management is intrusted; an editor who writes every day an article called "Premier Paris;" and editors who attend to the leading columns. The "Premier Paris" is a brief abstract of the most important news, with short editorial comments.. No leading article, especially in the opposition papers, is inserted before being carefully examined by the gérant and the proprietors of the paper, and the most eminent editors must frequently consent to re-write their articles three or four times. Prévost-Paradol would not submit to this, and left the Débats after a violent quarrel with Bertin; but the interests of the paper obliged the proprietors to take him back after a short time.

The editors of the semi-official papers have to suffer inconveniences of a hardly .ess disagreeable character in the discharge of their duties. Prior to receiving an editorial appointment, the Minister of the Interior, the special Cerberus of the French press, requires them to sign a paper, in which they resign their position before entering upon it. This resignation is made use of as soon as the Government wants to get rid of the editor. The articles which these semiofficial editors write, have, of course, to defend the policy of the Government, and, moreover, to do so with ability, which, considering the vacillations and inconsistencies of the imperial policy, is a matter of extreme difficulty. But few of this last class of editors have been able to hold their positions for a long time.

Each of the semi-official papers has, besides, its "knowing" man. Whenever the Government wishes to communicate important news to the public without resorting to the grave columns of the Moniteur, it causes the "know. ing" man of one of the semi-official papers to insert a communication, commencing, generally, with the words, "We believe to know," etc. The public knows then that this communication comes directly from one of the ministers.

The greatest feature of the Paris dailies is the Feuilleton, and it may be justly said that they stand unrivalled in this respect. If the political leaders are written by men of ability, the editors of the feuilleton are selected among the foremost literary celebrities of the country. Jules Janin, Saint-Beuve, Paul de St. Victor, Louis Ulbach, Edmond About, Sylvestre de Sacy, Laboulaye, Arsène Houssaye, are the most eminent representatives of this class of writers, and their "Monday articles "—the critical articles on theatrical and literary matters, are usually published in the Monday numbers of the papers-are fully equal to the best essays in the reviews. Liberal salaries are paid to these feuilletonistes, Saint-Beuve and Janin receiving over $5,000 a-year for one article a-week in the Constitutionnel and Débats; and the publishers would consider it a great misfortune to lose their services.

There is but one official political organ in Paris: it is the Moniteur. Governments rise and fall in France; the Moniteur never falls with them, but always remains in undisturbed possession of the field. Its carcer has been a checkered one, and there can certainly be no more interesting newspaper collection than a complete file of the Moniteur, from its origin to the present day. A strange feature about the employés of this renowned paper is that they are mostly old men; a great many of its compositors are venerable representatives of the craft: and some of them have set type under the Restoration. Its editorials are written in the various