Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1851-07-10
VOLUME VIII. NO. %.

PANS, Thursday, June II, 1851


days; have not yet seen quarter of it. The
general magnitude of the houses usually built
around a small quadrangular court near the
street, whence the court is entered by gate or
arched passage) is readily remarked; also the
minute subdivisions of shop.keeping, many ifnot
most sellers confnihg their attention to a single
fabric, so that their sores' and stocks of goods
are small also, the general gregariousness or
social apttudes of the people. l lodge In
house once famous as Frascati's,' the most cell
ebrated gaming-house in Europe it stands on
the corner Of the Rue Richeieu with the Bou-
levards Italian in one direction and Mont
martre' in the other.) My windows overlook the
Boulevards for considerable distance and
here are many of the most fashionable shops,
restaurants cafes &c. in the city. No one
in New York would think of ordering his bot
tie of wine or his ices at fashionable resort
in Broadway and sitting down at table placed
on the side walk to discuss his rejection leisure
ly, just out of the ever passing throng; yet here
it is so common as to seem the rule rather than
the exception.
Hundreds sit thus within sight of my window
every evening; dozens do likewise during the
day. The Frenchman's pleasures are all social;
to eat, drink or spend the evening alone would
be a wearinos to him he reads his newspaper
in the thoroughfare or the public gardens he
talks more in one day than an Engishman in
three; the theaters balls concerts, &C., which
to the Islander afford occasional recreation are
to him a nightly necessity: he would be lonely
and miserable without them. No where is
amusement more Systematically, and sedulously
sought than in Paris no where is it more ac-
cessbe. For Boys Just escaped from school or
paternal restraint, intent on enjoyment and un-
troubled by conscience or forecast, this must be
rare city. Its people, as a community, have
signal good qualities and grave defects; they
are intelligent, yivacious, courteous, obliglng,
generous and humane; eager to enjoy, but will
ling that all the world should enjoy with them
while at the same time they are impullive, tickle
sensual and irreverent. Paris is the Paradise of
the senses focus of enjoyment not OF hap
pness. No where are youth and its capacities
more prodigally lavshed no where is old age
less happy or less respected. Paris has tens OF
thousands who would eagerly pour out their
hearts blood for Liberty and human progress,but
no class or clan ever thought of denying them
selves Of wine and kindred stmulants in order
that the masses should be rendered worthier OF
liberty, and thus better fitted to enjoy and pre-
serve it. Such notions as total abstinence from
all that can ntoxicate are absolutely unheard Of
by the majority of Parsians, and incomprehen-
sible and ridiculous to those who have heard Of
them. The barest necessaries Of life are very
cheap here; many support life quite endurably
at franc (l8 "a cents) day but Of the rude
laboring class few can really afford the comforts
and proprietes of an orderly family life, and the
privation is very lightly regretted. The testi-
mony is uniform that marriage is scarcely re-
garded as even remote probability by any one
of the poor girls of Paris who live by work tc
be for a season the mistress Of a man of wealth
or one who can support her in luxury and idle.
ness, is the sumit of her ambition. The very
terms grsette' and orette' by which youn
women unbest with wealth and social rank are
commonly designated, involve the idea of demor.
allzation-no man would apply them to one he
respected and of whose good opinion he was So
licitous. In no other nominally Christian city
is the proportion of the unmarried so great as
here; nowhere else do families so quickly de-
cay; nowhere else is the proportion of births
out of wedlock so appalling. The poor Of Lon
don are less comfortable as class than those Of
Paris-that is, they suffer more from lack of EN- =
ployment, and their wages are lower in view of
the relative cost of living; but philanthropy is
far more active there than here, and far more is
done to assuage the tide of human woe. Ten
public meetings in furtherance of Educational,
Phanthropic and Religious enterprises are
held in the British Metropolis to one in this
and the number interested in such undertakings
there, as contrasted with that in this city, has an
equal preponderance. shall not attempt to
strike balance between the good and evil pre-
vailing respectively in two capitals of Western
Europe; the reader may as well do that for him
self.