The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-03 00:00:00

LA CONTRABANDE.

A bumper, " mes enfans," to swallow your care,
A full bumper. we pledge, " a L'lrlande ;"
The land of" belles femmes—le pays de bonne eher3,
Et toujours de la Contralsande."
Some like to make love, and some like to make war,
Some of beauty obey " la commande ;"
But r, hat is a glance from as eye, "bleu," or " noir,"
Except it be " la Contrabande."
Wh.n a prince takes the cash that a peasant can't spare,
Awl lute him lie down " sur la laude ;"
Call it, as you like—but the truth swear,
" C'est bier pire que—la Contrabande."

Stolen kisses are ever the sweetest, we're told,
They sink like a " navire qui fende ;"
And v+ hat's true of a kiss, is the same, too, of gold,
They're both, in their way, " Contrabande !"
IN hen kings take your money, they won't even say,
Mon ami le Dieu vous le rende ;"
While even the priest for a blessing takes pay.
" Crest partont et toujours, Contrabande."
The good things of life are not equal, I'm sure,
Then how pleasant to make the " amende ;"
To take from the wealthy, and give to the poor,
" Voila ! que j'appelle, Contrabande."
Yet, as matters go, one must not deem it strange,
That even " La France et L'lrlande,"
If good wishes and friendship they simply exchange,
There are folks who call that " Contrabande."
" Vice la Contrahande, 'pies aim's," shouted ont,Tacques,
as he arose, glass in hand, and made the room ring with
the toast. And every vollike repeated the words, in such
imitations as they were able.
'Tis an elegant song, any way," sa:d Lanty, " if one
only understood it all—and the tune's mighty like the
6 Cruiskeen Lawn.' "
VI el', Harrt," slid Fiahault, slapping. his friend on
the shoulder. " will the song persuade you to turn
smuggler ? I fear not. You'd rather practise your own
Contrabamle' amongst. the bright eyes and the dark
looks of the capital. Well, there are worse metiers.'
I have had a turn at it these fifteen years, and whether
on the water.; of Ontario, or Champlin, or scudding along
undor the fog-banks of the Scheldt, I never grew weary
of it. But 1.07 f for a little business talk—where is the
Padre where's Father Luke ? Was he not to have
been here to-night ?"
Mary whispered the answer in the captain's ear.
" Ah ! parbleu," exclaimed he aloud—" is it to ?
Practising a little Contrabande' of his own--trying to
see a poor fellow safe over the frontier, into the next
world."
Fie for shame, Captain Jacques," said Mary, with
pious horror. " That's not the way to talk of the holy
offices."
" I wish I had old Maurice Dulang here, the priest of
Trois Rivieres, he's the boy could despatch them without
trouble."
Neither Lanty nor Mary gave any encouragement to

~,

Flahault's new turn of the conversation, and so, address-
ing himself to Talbot, he went on—
" We were dining together one day, at the little inn at
Trois Itivieres, when a messenger came from Lachegon,
for the Pi2re to administer the last rites to a mourant.'
Maurice promised to be there in half-an-hour, but never
stirred—and though three other messengers came fur
him, the answer was all the same—until, at last came
word, C'est trop Lard, e,t owl t.'

Trop tat( said Maurice, not a bit of it ; give
me a pen and ink, and some paper.' With that he folded
a piece, note fashion, and wrote—

'6 ' Mos CHER PIERRE—Fais ton petit possible pour
cet pauvre diable, qui s'est gliss6 hors du monde sans
mei coins. Apparement it etait bien press ; nmis to
l'arrangera pour le mieux. . . .

" Ton vigil ami,
" MAURICE DULANG.
" St. Pierre, ala Conciergerie au Paradis.'
" Put that in his mouth," said Maurice, " and there's
no fear of him."

" Twas a blessed gospel he gave him," said Mary,
who did not comprehend the French portion of the story,
" and sure is's as good as anything."
We all thought so, Mary. Poor Maurice related the
story at Lyon;, when he was led out to the guillotine—but
though the Commissaire laughed heartily, and enjoyed
it much, they had found a breviary in his portmanteau,
and they couldn't let him oti. Pauvre 1 ete ! To travel
about the world with the pice de conviction' in his
possession."

Though every book from the pen of " Harry
Lorrequer," is looked forward to with pleasurable
anticipations, and read with interest, yet it is ad-
mitted on all hands, that his style savours less of
originality than as an imitation of Maxwell ; and
hence the inapplicability of this style. however attrac-
tive and amusing in itself, to a story, characters, and
incidents half a century od; yet it must be admitted
that some of the dramatis personce are true to life,
particularly the O'Donoghue and Lanty.

THE ILLUMINATED MAGAZINE.

We have read, with much pleasure, this month's
portion of Craven's tale "Father-Land." The writer
has thrown more thought into it than usual, and it
touches lightly, but effectively, on several points of
our social system that might be altered with improve-
ment—among them, two things that affect the two
extremes of society, prison discipline, and the educa•
tion of our public schools and colleges. As to the
first, he points out a difference that ought not to exist,
as it gives the balance of advantage to the convicted
felon.

" Ilow long will it be a fact, credited by civilized
Christian people, that in England the treatment of those
suspected of crime was cnce more penal and severe, than
after conviction had taken place ? That such is the ear-
n ing out of the law at the present moment is past per-
adventure, not alone in remote and ill-cared-for districts,
but in the heart of our great metropolis itself. The New
Prison, at Clerkenwell, is the place appointed for the
sage-keeping of persons charged upon wholly ex mute
statements, awaiting evidence being adduced against
them, the arrival of witnesses, or, in short, anything or
everything that shall make such a case as would warrant
their committal for trial. Millbauk Prison is the recep-
tacle of the convicted felonry, awaiting conveyance be-
yond sea ; of the worst of transports—villains of every
conceivable grade of atrocity : murderers, who have had
the luck to come within the loosest interpetration of
manslaughter ; in short, of vagabonds, ninety per cent.
of whom would have been hung at the Old Bailey a
dozen years ags. And in what relation of comfort and
convenience do these two gaols stand towards each other?
The board and lodging of convicts under sentence, at
Millbank, bears such comparison with that or the accused
under suspicion at Clerkenwell, as the menage of the Cla-
rendon roes to that of Marylebone workhouse. Why
does not some Member of Parliament, with bowels, call
for a return of all persons remanded, during the past
year, from the metropolitan police-offices to the New
Prison, and of those subsequently committed for trial and
discharged."
" Travel and Talk," by Luke Roden, is a.little dif-
fuse but readable ; he gives a fearful instance
—the man revenging the suffering of the school-
boy on his brute of a master, in the portion
of his paper in which he treats of the school system
of the good old times. " The Philosophy of News-
papers," by Angus Reach, is well written, but opens
no new reflections on the subject ; some space is de-
oted to a discussion of the practice of anonymous
editing. Mr. Reach is a strenuous advocate for the
opposite system, attributing to it the higher position
held by the political writer in France compared to his
status in this country. We question if anything
would be gained to the conductors of the
press here, by the change. Nor is the prac-
tice in France so different from our own; the
only contributions to the French daily press
that are acknowledged are the feuilletons, and they
are often written under feigned names ; the articles in
their reviews have the writers' names appended to
them more frequently than with us ; but did
Macaulay, or Sydney Smith, or Brougham, or
Wilson ever pen an article that was not at once as
well known_to be theirs, as if they had added their
signature? Again, the editors of the daily journals
are most of them well known, so that the different po-
sition of the press in the two countries does not arise
from the publicity of the names of the conductors of
it. There are many other influences at work here to
produce the result of which the writer of the article
complains. Almost every road to power and emolu-
ment is commanded here by the aristocracy, with
their immense wealth and political influence, and with
these, mere talent, if they contend, must do it at fear-
ful odds. Were public writers to put their names to
everything they penned, it would improve their posi-
tion in no one respect, and make it much worse in many.
But the question is too intricate to be discussed here.
The liveliest article in the number is " Embalming
a House," as practised in Dublin forty years ago ;
the process is ordinary enough, but it is described
with much gusto—that relish for mischief which is a
main ingredient in Irish fun. We have only space
to give the names of the remaining articles—they
are the " Adventures of a Scamp," the " Past, the
Present, and the Possible," a paper on " Whittington,"
and a review of Grantley Berkeley's pamphlet on
the game-laws, of portentous length—indeed, out of
all proportion to the merits or importance of the
work itself.