The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1866-12-01 00:00:00

teen the carriages before the stand on the Derby
day. Some had beads and some had • rte. some
wore silks, and others cot,on :
looked ali,-ns to our me 'IL.
The womeu. seated iu a eircle.gaz,d u,od the scout
with their large, dark, lascivious eyes, as if they
possessed a sort of magic power to attract those who.
looked upon them. Mel:nen stood behind, tambourine
in hand, still, and to all outward look utterly uncoil.
eerned. Then the Governor gave the signal, arid the
entertainment began. It is impossible to describe it in
words. A long low guttural cry from the mouths of
all the women seemed to open the bell; sometimes
wailing, sometimes piercing in shrillness, but always
fitted to a strange weird harmony, the sound of many
voices rose and fell. Then one or two of the hand-
somest and youngest took up the dialogue in a sad
sing song tone; and then, before you exactly knew
when song changed to motion, the women were whirl-
ing round in a wild fantastic measure. The strange
feature was that their feet hardly seemed to move.
The arms were thrown forwards and up and down
again, the head rocked to and fro, the body quivered,
the shoulders shook, and with every pulsation of the
I frame the chorus of seated women shrieked in unison.
Somehow the feet moved, but you could scarcely hear
their motion. If you fancy a woman walking in her
sleep, half fastened to one spot with terror, half mad-
dened with a fever of passion which sets in motion every
muscle of her frame, you will form some idea of that
gipsy lance which began with acry and ended with a
scream.

DEATH OF "GAVARNI."
The most philosophic caricaturist of the age, Sulpice
Paul Chevalier, better, if not alio-st exclusively
known to the public under the pseudonym of " Gas
varni," died in Paris on Saturday morning at the age
of sixty. five. This clever artist, as well as severe
satirist, in the course of his career exhausted every
phase of Parisian life, from the parvenus of the Court
of Louis Phillipe down so the " proletaire' of the Re-
public, and the returned " forgst" of the Second Em-
pire. He came of poor parents, and was sent at an
early age to get his living in an engineer's factory,
where his latent artistic power had no better oppor-
tunity of developing itself than an occasional few
hours' attendance at some free drawing school in the
neighbourhood. It is not surprising, therefore, that
he only came before the world as an artist when he
had attained his thirty-fourth year. His first occupa-
tion was the designing of the ordinary costume plates
for books of fashion. Even at this he achieved a certain
kind of fame, and only abandoned the pursuit hounder.
take the direction of a journal called Les Gene du Monde,
in which publication he commenced that series of
satires on the life of the Parisian youth which he
afterwards continued in the Charivari, and which
secured for him a lasting fame, and launched him on
the road to fortune. This series, which he completed
in sixteen sections, was followed by his renowned
"Enfant, Terribles," his "Parents Terrible.," his
"Maria Venges," and scores of other admirable works
which hit the follies, probed the vices, and brought to
the surface all the hurricur of the inner life of Parisian
society. The completion of this second gallery of his
works was interrupted by the Revolution of 1848, and
Gavarni came for a time to England. where he pro
dared a volume of sketches, called, "Gavarni in Lon-
don," and contributed a number of designs to one or two
humourous publications of the time. Hut the man who
had lived in Paris for eight and forty years and had
made the life of that city his intimate study for a
quarter of a century, could not readily adapt himself
to a new field. His English sketches were conse-
quently untrue to nature and for the most part with-
out point. Gavarni's friends used to say his visit to
England spoilt him. When he returned he had lost all
1,6 gaiety, and his thoughts took an exclusively serious
turn. This is evident enough in the series of subjects
called " Islasques et Visages," which he designed for
I:lllustration. Latterly Gavami occupied himself a
good deal with a subject that had been the dream of
his life, namely, the steering of balloons through the
air. In England, where the State honours the artist
but rarely, and the caricaturist and satirist never,
people will be surprised to learn that Gavarni was
decorated with the -red ribbon of the Legion of
Honour.