that the entire effect of the octroi is to raise the price of meat 1d. a pound. As to vegetables the advantage is with our neighbours; a cartload pays 1s. each time or day at Covent-Garden, and a stall of 2 mètres will cost but 7d. a-week in the new Halle. Corn, again, is not only exempt from octroi but from metage-duty, which in London amounts to 50,0007. a-year. With the exception of meat, however, all sorts of provisions are sold in Paris by commission, of which the city authorities exact a share. They also levy a tax on the sale of fish, game, butter, and eggs; and these items, coupled with the rent of stalls, amount to 150,000l. a-year.

The Parisians eat less meat than ourselves, but a larger proportion of vegetables and bread. According to the accounts of the Caisse de Boulangerie, in 1853 the consumption of bread in the capital was a pound a-day for each person, and in the rural districts nearly two pounds. This is far beyond our average; and the excess of difference in this respect between town and country will also probably be found to be peculiar to France. By the municipal law, which establishes a maximum and minimum price of bread, a tax is levied upon it when corn is cheap, to compensate the loss from the sale of it under cost price when corn is dear. From the beginning of September, 1853, to the end of June, 1854, the bakers throughout the department of the Seine had to sell the two-pound loaf from one sou to three sous less than its value, and the sum paid by the authorities to make up the deficiency amounted to about one million sterling. The agriculturists and small proprietors of the surrounding departments not only obtained great prices for their own produce, but added to their prosperity by living all the time on the cheap loaf of Paris. The wages of the labouring classes, owing to the extensive works which were carried on, were proportionately high. The stonecutter in the neighbouring quarries earned his eight francs a-day; and to tax the citizens to furnish cheap bread to those who could afford to pay its full value, was, to say the least, supererogatory.

We will now endeavour to give some idea of what has recently been done in the difficult task of opening new streets and communications through the quarters where the population were huddled together like bees in a hive. It is difficult to say whether old Paris or old London stood most in need of this reform; for if London required to have a free passage of air supplied in consequence of the immensity of ground over which it extended, Paris required it from the custom of piling up floor upon floor from eight to twelve stories high, rendering the streets cavernous, and the lower apartments little better than so many sepulchres.

There

There is much similarity between the position of the cities. Both stretch along the banks of a river, and the chief communication is in consequence lateral to the water. Our streets in the transverse direction have been greatly improved; but in the lateral lines of communication we are hardly able to cope with the difficulties and expense. Thus our great arteries, such as the Strand, Ludgate-hill, and Cheapside, are almost impassable when the traffic is at its full; and it has hitherto defied ingenuity to establish a sufficient thoroughfare. Through the instrumentality of Napoleon and Louis Philippe the quays of the Seine in Paris have been opened on both its banks. A similar plan was proposed for London, and a commission was appointed to examine and report. It remained, however, mute until, in reply to a question by a member of the House of Commons, one of the committee stated that, upon estimating the cost, it was found that it would require a sum nearly equal to that of the national debt.

The great air-way of Paris from east to west is the course of the river. Only a small portion of the banks was unincumbered at the revolution. Napoleon opened the quays and built three new bridges. Another bridge was added by Louis Philippe, who otherwise greatly improved and beautified this portion of his capital. The present Emperor is completing the work by extensive levelling; by deepening portions of the stream; by repairing the old bridges, and erecting a fifth, to be called the Pont de l'Alma.

The most dense and ill-built portion of Paris was, perhaps, the net-work of narrow lanes which extended between the Rues St. Denis and St. Martin. It was difficult even for a foot-passenger to thread them. The new Boulevard de Strasbourg cuts through this maze from end to end, and opens on the river at the Place du Châtelet, where the grand post-office is about to be erected. The Pont au Change is immediately in front; and the Pont d'Arcole, opposite the Hôtel de Ville, is about to be replaced by a bridge for carriage as well as pedestrian traffic.

These are only a small part of the projected improvements; but we forbear to continue details which would be intelligible only to those acquainted with the city. We turn now to two great questions of recent civic care, those of sewerage and watersupply. With the ancients the aqueducts and cloaca are as old as the walls of their cities. The further, in fact, we travel south, the more urgent is the demand for water. Paris has long enjoyed that characteristic of latitudes less northern than our ownpublic fountains. It possesses upwards of a hundred, and more than two thousand orifices of a humbler kind. But in Paris P 2 water

water has never been distributed to each house as in London. From the number of families congregated in every dwelling, it could only conveniently be conveyed to a common cistern in the court below; and those who dwelt above found it quite as easy to fetch it from a general fountain in the street. There are not more than 31,500 houses in Paris, with an average of thirty-two persons to each house, while in London there are 300,000 houses, with an average to each of only eight. This has led to the different systems which prevail. The Parisians have abundance of water in their streets; none in their houses. We have a supply in our houses, and comparatively little in our streets. Paris water is harder than that of London, and much less adapted for washing, tea, and beer; but when filtered is far more agreeable to drink. The tendency of the two countries is to borrow from each other. Both cities are in want of fresh supplies. The French, who have far fewer obstacles in the way of vested interests, have laid down the rule that water for the use of the city cannot henceforth become private property. The favourite plan is that of M. Belgrand, who divides soils into permeable and impermeable; those into which the rain sinks, and those along the surface of which the rain runs. The latter furnish only superficial rivulets, which are not to be depended on for a constant supply. The former, when the water reaches an impermeable bed, restores it through the valleys in unceasing springs. Such a reservoir has been found by M. Belgrand, near the confluence of the Somme and the Sonde, between Châlons and Epernay. For a million sterling M. Belgrand calculates that he can convey into Paris 90,000 cubic mètres of water a-day, which would be sufficient to afford a supply to each apartment. One of the problems connected with the peace of Paris is how to diminish the enormous proportion of the hewers of wood and drawers of water; and the new plan would thus carry with it important political as well as lavatory consequences.

The sewerage of a city is intimately connected with the supply of water. Down to a very recent period the only sewers of nineteen-twentieths of Paris ran uncovered through the middle of the street. The notion of underground outlets is new in Paris. The last generation saw no inconvenience in the old system, and Madame de Staël said she preferred the ruisseau of the Rue du Bac to any river however romantic. Owing to this sub dio arrangement, there were no means of carrying off the worst part of the filth. Each house had its closed receptacle, the nocturnal emptying of which in barrels still constitutes one of the dreadful nuisances of an otherwise civilised city. Formerly the refuse was carried to the vicinities of Paris, where it was spread upon

the

the soil to the infection of the surrounding air. Now it is discharged into a reservoir, from whence it is pumped into the centre of the Forest of Bondy. In this respect the French have resolved a problem still unsolved among us.

The waste water will be carried off by the existing sewers, and the channels of the latrines will be kept entirely distinct. The sewer which we have described as running under the Rue de Rivoli, with a deep channel or drain below, and a railway above, would not be possible in sewers as infected as those of London. Even these comparatively pure streams are not permitted to pollute the city part of the river, but join it lower down. A portion of the sewerage of the south side of Paris is indeed still very defective, and at present taints the Seine; but the remedy is already in the course of execution. There is one difficulty peculiar to Paris, arising from its islands. The expense of establishing sewers in connection with these which shall be independent of the river presents a great but not insurmountable obstacle. The continual breaking up of the soil, and the taking up and laying down pavements, in order to repair defects in the pipes of this company or of that, has suggested the establishment of one common channel for the water, sewer, and gas pipes, as well as for the conduit for carrying off the contents of the latrines. In nothing have the French more decidely outstripped us than in their determination, as they phrase it, to canalise Paris. The great sewer of the Rue de Rivoli has been constructed on this plan, and others will follow. But we will let the regulation of the able Prefect of the Seine, M. Hausmann, speak for itself:—

6

Every principal line of sewer shall be provided with a gallery, having a railroad. Galleries of less dimensions, but equally furnished with rails, and permitting the circulation of waggons and workmen, will be established in the secondary sewers. A gallery of small section, large enough for the passage of barrows, will go round the foundation of each block of houses, on every side.'

The long period which elapsed before Paris was lighted with gas has been as favourable to the perfection of the arrangements. as the delay in providing sewers. Oil-lamps have been only just superseded in the streets. It was not till 1846 that the licence to light the capital with gas was granted for seventeen years to six companies. The present Emperor compelled the six companies to unite, obliged them to remove their factories outside the walls, and stipulated that a cubic mètre of gas should be charged 42 centimes, which is to diminish gradually to 35. Paris has 14,000 jets of gas burning, and consumes nearly 60,000 cubic mètres a night; of this 43,000 mètres are for private use.

In nothing has the city of Paris been more liberal than in the construction and decoration of churches. Besides the Madeleine, which Napoleon built, less, he said, as a church than as a temple, Paris has been enriched by St. Vincent de Paul, Notre Dame de Lorette, and St. Clotilde, while St. Geneviève and Notre Dame have been restored. The first painters have been employed in the internal decorations of the sacred edifices, which are literally covered with frescoes. At the present moment every niche and chapel of St. Eustache, which overlooks the new markets, are undergoing decorations by the principal artists of the empire. The classic façade of this fine Gothic edifice is not to be rebuilt, but will be brought into harmony with the original building by an ingenious plan of the city architect, M. Baltard.

The most important, however, of the ecclesiastical improvements is the re-distribution of the parishes. In the old system some which consisted of rich and populous quarters enjoyed large revenues, as for example St. Roch, while in the remote parts of the city the receipts were scarcely sufficient to pay the wages of the sacristan. The object aimed at was to make each parish selfsupporting, and bring a place of worship close to every man's door. This has diminished both the wealth and size of the central parishes, and has necessitated the building of a considerable number of new parish churches. The despotic power of an emperor who is in general friendly to the clergy could alone have enforced so democratic a measure.

The inhabitants of Paris, intra muros, are about a million, or one thirty-sixth of the entire empire. It pays no less than onetenth of the whole direct taxation of France; and of its indirect taxation probably a larger portion still. In 1851 there were 400,000 workmen; and when to these we add their families and the domestic servants, who are not included in the calculation, we must conclude that the number of shopkeepers and independent persons are in smaller proportions than in London. One peculiarity of France is the taste which predominates in the capital, where most of the superior commodities are manufactured, to the exclusion of all competition from the provinces. The average rate of wages is from 3 to 4 francs a day; and when we consider that so large a body of workmen, so amply paid, are employed chiefly upon articles of luxury, or upon buildings generally undertaken on credit, and when we know that political agitation or revolution instantly obstructs this trade, annihilates this credit, and reduces three-fourths of the operatives to starvation, we should infer that no city was better secured than Paris against tumult and insurrection. This is a fact to which the

people