The Express.
London, England, 1865-11-07 00:00:00

EVERYBODY'S BUSINESS.

DOOTOR MARIGOLD'S PRRSORIPTIONS.
`Hebei' the pelt CHRISTMAS NUMBZII of ALL MI
4lotio ItOtIRD.
Wo

Strand, W.C.

A Pnaturr's Bail. IN Itiurr•tcY.—The ball was
• very pretty eight. These were quantities of lamps sad
teams. Mapes mend, • great bearded dancting-plece,with
an othedoelognade amide it for the speetatets who walked
about upon the dried tare Then came an hater row of
tomb. for the chaperou, who sat toned like real ones al
• Leedom bait only they were little old pelmet woes* in
their eight wines cepa, with their little shawls erased amass
their shoulders, and they were holding other little shawls
fee that daughters wham they should return te them. The
middle pees wee crowded with dame's. The meakiesis
were **aping sway from • bowery bower. It was a Neely,
fussy eight (limeade% P s', laned' panbades,• las
Sonatina • good ad comae would stand up and
feet it with great intrepidity. One little wiry brows old
weirs" with bar hulloed in his highaholldered oats
were hews* opposite to one another like • pair of lively
old ws, Ap the sight meats an, the excite-
ment pews; the meek pays fester and more gaily,
the seep hareem is sapidity, and they all seem to
begin le skip, So Mead with intasimee sprightlness
and variety. The ladies grin repsevingly at their pother%
but the petisinen's spirits oily seem to leap like fire doss
when a little water is throws upon it. There base de-
lightful little mu with an inmates tall p.rtaer. sad • very
Dal hat with a early rim • either ef than would have
essessi Oda fidiSidai M eNIII/411 him down, bet he is equal
to the ocessica His evolutions and revolutions, his in-
flectiose and aseensiess, and Bights and inspirations, are
something quite wonderful. Retreats, advances, saluth
time. clapping of hands—one doss sot kuow which to ad-
mire. His lady joins in with greet spirit. Their vied-pis
Ws,vara to surpass them The py refrain of the welts
and the &seen seem to sway with the tune ; the
chaperons nod their beads, and look on with smiling appro-
bation. At last the dams comes loan end, the young ladies
return to their mammas, but carefully lift up their dresses
before they sit down. —Certain Mica:int for November.
Ituaolom iN Fa.tirga.—The most difficult of all
cant is to find out to what religion Frenchmen belong.
catholicism is the form recognised by the country
ad the government, sad • few years ago it was much in
fashion : people who did not believe in a word of its creed
recommended it to others with the utmost condescension.
Every child is baptised in it, everyone is married in the
church, and if you ask anyone his religion he will tell you
that he is • catholic. Yet few of the men p to church,
and fewer still to oonfessioaeL I have heard • rigid
catholic estimate that even in the Seal csee-half of .11 the
educated men were mthelievere—some carry the oalindation
as high as threafeurtha, and doubts about the divine origin
of Christianity are widely spread amongst the lower classes.
You rarely meet with zealous catholic: and more rarely
still with intolerant oar. It is emu said that many of the
priests hold very liberal minims. Things have much
changed linos the el:Louth century, when a difference in
faith plunged the whole of France Into can sustained civil
war. The controversy between Roman catholicism and
protestantism, which seems to excite considerable interest
in England, arouses mom in Franca Protestantism
exists quietly by the side of its rival, neither
making converts nor exciting parementices. The
women in France an more religions than the moo.
They generally go to the church, and confess themselves
with more or km regularity. The ladies interest them-
selves in keeping up the charitable societies. and seem to
spend a good part of their time in dressing. dolls in fancy
costumes le represent the birth of Christ in the manger.
The three kit's of the East, the shepherds of Bethlehem,
and • number of figures, nth as ladies with crinolines,
Emma, pessants, and monks, galls with toys and pre-
sents ia their hands to congratulate the Virgin on the na-
tivity, are exhibited is the churches during Christmas.
This difference between the religion of the men and that
of the women is • striking feature in catholic countries. A
Frenchman is devout as long as his education is in the
heeds of his mother and the priests. He then becomes as
esprit fort, though perhaps recommending Tenpin "as one
of the pillars of society." When he is old lie sometimes
returns to it himself, sad generally re:nesse:trans motion
—either is a gale and easy piece of insurance for the sent
world, ar to avoid scandal and to die comae it feet.—
Fraser's Megazitra for November.
Tug MIDRHIPNIAN...—It wan a long time since I
had seen a veritable midshipman, • creature et four feet
threts, with a nice soft blue eye, sad • mouth of gentle
messing curved into • command shaper and,mad• stern by
• art, " Bow there, fenders !'' There is something
ma lab that looding of early h wand with
the • ]!leis fellow who would be the eempeaieu
of his younger Asters, strait; epithet: in band, and shoat.
, Give way, rasa ! with vokervibratleg with power.
I meedutk only here of the ernall-ceaft middy, the opting
ern who wants to waltz with the largest partner in the
room. and affects to take more rem in his grog than the
lieutenant ; for there are other midshipmen so very sear to
the wardroom in size, pit, and demeanour that you °sly
know they are not of it by some "trips the less on a sleeve
or a cuff. The small middy, however, is a peat type. I
have ass in my eye that amused me and interested me
much ; we called him Cupid. free his bieersent pursuit of
the sex in ball-room and picanies I he was the rival of the
the meet pretentious men in the rerun, and not always the
nesuomedul one, He was • Ilse little feliow who brought
the hardihood of • " cattingoot" to a tour 'of the polka,
and went at the Lancers as if he were boarding • French.
man. The dash and daring had It. effect, for oretty girls
liked to dance with him ; and in the triumphant air witk
which he would walk off with the belle of the roam, you
saw the germ of that audacity that would one day grace
• iisette.—B!weboood'r Awesome for November.
HARTLEY COLEEIDOE.—At the time alluded to
both were living—Wordsworth in hie house near Rydal ;
Hartley Coleridge in a cottage just outside the village of
Gnomon, on the road that leads to Ryda/. The lathe:
was a frequent guest of our party sod comma= of onr
walks. Hs was then in appal:mos about 50 years of age,
of unusually short, even diminutive stature ; his hair be-
ginning to be grey, his brow brood and intellectual. His
gestures and movements were peculiar ; be had • habit,
WOO in company, of rising from his mat, sad laying his
bud upon his head, with open Hopes, se if measuring its
shape and size ; and when be thought that no one observed
him, as be walked moms the quiet roads or on the hills,
he would wave hie arms ea if realties poetry or conversing
with the mountable, his companies': His eyes, if memory
serves right, were dark grey, sad the expression of his fan
thoughtful and benevolent, with • touch of sadness. He
wee • frequent attendant at the church on Sundays ; but
even time his poetie fancies often seemed to follow him,
sad it was difficult not to watch his features with wonder
and amusement while he stood up in his pew and looked
round on the kneeling magmatic°. • strange but kindly
smile playing on his face, as of one looking down with bene-
veleta interest on children surged in their devotions Not
that he himeelf was auntieg in decorous attention to the
service, for his mind was in its vary structure devotional, as
his writings testify ; and his coeversation. though tinged
osessicreally with satirical or humorous allusions to religi-
ons parties, never breathed irreverence or doubt with regard
to Christian trath.—Mouniffee's Magazine for November.
A BLIND Bow's CARUS AT SCHOOL—With some
men each qualities as these we will "appose • boy to be
sent up from the count to SOON blind school—say that for
the indigent blind in Stn George's Fields Let us see what
becomes of him, • boy of avenge ability. He is brought
isle an o:tousles and rambling buddies, containing a large
number of rooms, and enclosing two good-sized plane:muds
respectively for girls and boys. This building stretches
over nearly two acres of ground ; and with almost every
part of his side of it—all its outer shops and dopeedesides—
be has to become acquainted almost entirely by touch sad
ear, with a little help from • companion's jeerer imperials'.
It is all so utterly new and strange to rhat for the gra
day or two he is entirely depeedeat some pupil's or
teacher's hood to get es far as the schoolroom, the chapel,
dieing-root, or basket-shop, ell of which are widely apart.
But within a week the themes are that out of his eighty
blind fellow-pupils be has chosen one as a companion, and
probably his friend, for several years to come, who if
seed be, convoys him across the open yard to any special
point—to the dormitory, or through the more intricate
navigation of staircase leading to the bond-room. In a
month all the plain sailing is fairly mastered. He can bad
his way from the dining-room to the buket-ehop, and down
that shop, 150 yards loeg, just to the very site of his own
I box on which be sits to split the within for basket-wore.
He knows his own box, too. from Smith's and Brown's on
I either side of him. In • year he will know probably his
own tools from theirs by some little flaw or feature not
patent to the eye of • lakeeon ; in a couple of years he
will know the handle of the door to music-room No. 5 from
that of No. 6 ; he will run quickly with • half-finished
basket is hie hand from the workshop across • wide yard
exactly to the very doorstep of the open shed in which a a
tank for soaking hie willow-work. His moor of touch
ad hearing are being *fleetly and sorely educated ; as
their education peogresses they become keener—hearing as
a sharp and watchful sentinel, guide, and spy ; touch as
hie servos-ofoll.work and detective. To the seeing touch
is an auxiliary, but to the blind boy it is the primary seam
of all. By it he hews his own clothes, and almost all the
property that be pommies— his tools, box, bed, hat, fiddle,
cupboard, Seat in chapel, school-room, and workshop ;by it
be reads his chapter in St. John or in Bobbin), Cruses ; he
plays thews or dominoes ; works a sum in long draisices or
writes • letter home to his mother whicb she ma read with
Mr of's, sod be with his finger'. By the help of touch be
weaves a rug of coloured wools embracing every variety of
swell-week, or of these peculiar flowers and fruits which
grow only on carpet-bad, or fringes with delicate green and
red • door-mat for a lady's boudoir ;by touch he wee any
cariosity, such as • lamp from the Pyramids, or •earap
of
mineral, which you describe to hisit, and which, brio,/ once
handled. he always speaks of as having been seen.—
Quarterly Review, new number.

tater five