The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-30 00:00:00

AN ENGLISH

VIEW OF FRENCh
WOMEN.

A Frenchwoman is the ugliest female of the
human species. An African negress, with her flat
nose and thick lips, is not very attractive ; but her
ugliness has a national type, and cases are known
in which a European, after 20 years on the West
Coast of Africa, and seeing n'ithing else to make
him discontented, has become reconciled to her, as
we do after a time to nearly everything else in the
world, and as I did to the cooper on one side and to
the chaudronnier on the other. But each individual
Frenchwoman has an ugliness of her own, whether
it be the ugliness of a tiger, or of a ferret, or of a
monkey, or a combination of all three, in which last
case, however, the monkey usually has a slight pre-
ponderance. There is something fearful in the
expression of a Frenchwoman of the lower orders
when her animal instincts are excited—by jealousy,
for instance, or when she is paying money, a severe
trial to most faces. Come with me to-morrow to
the Halle Centrale, a market for everything near
the church of St. Eustache. We will watch the
women haggling and parting with money, and you
will be satisfied, as I am, that within a not very
long time previous to the historical period, the
natives of France were crossed with a monkey.
Look at that respectably-dressed woman haggling
for giblets! Her hair comes down the ridge bone
between her temple and (forehead till it actually
joins her eyebrows. This is a certain sign of there
having been, some time or other, a monkey among
the branches of the family pedigree. Even in a ball-
room, where she is all smiles, and is looking all she
knows, a.Frenchwoman will try—for she is a great
general—to divert your attention from her face to
her dress; but do not be diverted; look at her fea-
tures, and you will see nothing but tiger, ferret, and
monkey. Oh, my fair fellow-countrywomen ! what
a comfort it is for us to think that you can give a
Frenchwoman all her petty arts of dress, and still
beat her! Yet you might show a little more taste
in your choice of colours ; for I have had to blush
for ipany of you lately in the Bois de Boubgne.—
Once a Week.

JOHN BROWN.—It will be time enough to speak
of the results of John Brown's crusade when we see more
of thorn ; they are abundantly remarkable already. Our
business has been with the character of the man. It has
impressed the national imagination for ever in his own
country. Some eminent citizens of Virginia cannot bear
the force of it, and are preparing to migrate, with their
property to Europe—their slaves they must leaN e behind.
Among those who must remain, the children will never
forget the man, nor lose the impression of the winter nights
following his death. In Cumberland, the aurora borealis
is called "Lord Derwentwater's lights," because it was
particularly splendid the night sifter his execution. The
Virginia children will shiver for life when they remember
john Brown's lights--,-those mpterious lights which ascend
every night In the direction of Helper's Ferry, and are an-
swered from various parts of the horizon—in spite of all
efforts of police and military to make out what they mean.
John Brown is as sure of immortality as 'Washington him-
self.—Once a Week,