SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND DOMESTIC.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 602, 17 January 1879, Page 2

SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND DOMESTIC.

Paris, December 3. The National Lottery, that is to make so many happy, and a few sour, has lost much of its Aladdin attractions since it has became known that Belgium and Switzerland have supplied the market with false tickets. Parisians will not suffer much one way or the other, as since for weeks, notaticket eithergenuine or spurious, can be had here for love, and only for money by paying a premium of 300 per cent. As usual, the waiters are the brokers ; they are a class ever to be respected during a psriod of difficulty. Ordinarly the tobacco shops vend the lottery tickets, but short of proposing for the rigid female— invariably the widow of a civil or military functionary — who presides over this branch of the inland revenue office, not a billet is to be obtained. To sell a ticket for a centime above the legal value, involves no end of pains and penalties — but first catch your hare. There are certain numbers — 13, and the six running threes, sevens, and nines, said to be unlucky, as the glance of a one-eyed man on ladies when m an interesting condition. The only antidote against fraud is, for the winner of the set of silver, or the diamond necklaces, to at once claim them. Generally such favorites of fortune rarely have to be advertised for as heir^ to,, unclaimed property. By the close of the" year it is expected the drawings will be terminated. Uneasy lies the head it is observed, that wears a orown— not alone m this age of royal assassinations when the trade of King is as dangerous as that of miner, but still 'more uneasy is the head, ocoupied not with the cares of Btate, but with the chances of winning franks 125,000. Lottery on the brain is the reigning epidemic. The process of disembowelling the Exhibition is taking place rapidly; strange to say, the Japanese, famous for happy despatches, are behind all other nations m packing up ; they appear to be so enamoured with the Exhibition, that they are opening private ones m the form of bazaars throughout the city; however, Japan goods are all the rage, from household furniture to ball and dinner toilettes, from drawing-room superfl uities-^-adulttoys— down to games of amusement for children and ditto of chance for septua-genarians. At the Exhibition, instead of pedestrian and bath-chairs, we havelocomotiAes, trucks, handcarts, and the convenient Chinese wheel-barrow, that will trundle a Cantal cheese with the same facility as a kiosque. The return of the exhibits throughout the streets is picturesque, comical, or painful ; despite the code, that prohibits twenty-one men assembling without a police-permit, often the hands from a large factory turn out, and form escorting a prize engine, Br«reaping machine, or a pair of mill-stoneß home— till the next international meeting. Like all pilgrimages, thirsty souls seek refreshment by. the way. Frequently the defile consists of a family and near friends, carrying an object once prepared as quietly as the Anglo-Turkish treaty, during long nights m the bedroom workshop. Occasionally a conquering hero appears m the shape of a locomotive, with a broad phylactery across the boiler, " Bronze medal awarded — but refused " — and from the chimney is suspended a list of purchasers of machines of the slighted model. The official mutual admiration dinners and breakfasts are over, and more than brown holland has been placed over the glory and the event of the year of grace 1878. * The Chamber of Deputies retained the most iniquitous of the " moral" order elections of October, 1877, to quash now, and so allow the nation, before going to vote new senators, to remember the kind Ministers that terrorised 36 millions of Frenchmen during six months of that year. The Due de Broglie was the instigator, and de Foutrou, as Home Minister, the executor, of the clerico-monarchal crusade against the Republics' liberty. All that was refined m oppression, violence, corruption, and was practised towards opponents. Unhappily the Church seriously compromised itself, and monarchy was demonstrated to be henceforth ah impossibility. The alliance then, as now, could found nothing ; the rivals were only united by a common hatred of the Republic. Of the invalidated deputies, the case of Paule de Cassagnac was necessitated m the interest of parliamentary hygiene ; Captain de Mun's was different ; though an extreme Ultramontane, claiming for civil society not the basis of electoral votes, but a theocracy guided and governed by the Pope, he never forgot he was a gentleman ; de Foutrou is a country attorney, who united to the sneaking politics of Orleanism, the dragooning stop-at-nothing processes of the Second Empire. Only think this

man held, m 1877, the fate of France— the certainty of civil war, m the hollow of his hand ; and he had the audacity to tell the Chamber of Deputies that he had done all his duty — effected a coup d'etat— not a republican would be now m his presence ! You may perhaps picture him to be a Cromwell or a Bonaparte? He is simply a political vaudevttlixte, the representative of a party, as M. Dufaure, the Prime Minister, reminded him, that has not even a name. M. de Foutrou is small, bald, with a bushy beard, and short-sighted ; he pulled MacMahon like a puppet, was " Marshall of the Palace " at the Elysee ; suppressed liberal journals, and then plotted with law officers to discover the misdemeanour ; he selected his cousins to be local judges, to sign orders to imprison republicans without cause till election day was over. This prostitution of the Bench was bad enough, but it was exceeded m enormity, by the victims of the tyranny being denied redress. The exMinister, who instead of rebutting the terrible charges against his honor, commenced to attack the Republic, till Minister Dufaure picked him to pieces, and he sought a kind of Don Juan refuge m presence of a new Commandeur. The Republic has now confounded the politics of its foes, and definitely frustrated the knavish tricks of its enemies ; a strong pull, and a long pull, and a pull together for the renewal of the Senate next January, and the constitution will be o'er a' the ills o' life victorious. Nothing so conclusively marks the close of the Exhibition as the deserted appearance of the Boulveards, though nominally as lively as ever, if I may be pardoned the pavadore. The permanent resident now feels at home m Paris ; he can count on his fa\orite corner m a restaurant being free, or his customary marble table at a cafe being unoccupied ; is welcome with an auld lang Syne feeling, habitues with whom you have never exchanged a nod or a grin, during a Bcore of years of rubbing curtails together ; you can count upon a cabby acquaintance, and a buss conductor who salutes and welcomes you as if you were a resurrectionist. The hotels continue to have a cold and deserted look ; the managers are perhaps like the king m the nursery song, "m the parlor counting all their money ;" it is the common story with hotel keepers, that they have lost rather than gained by the Exhibition ; but where did the 37 millions of registered railway passengers landed m Paris since last New Year's Day put up, being 24 millions more than for the entire year of 1867? The Grand Hotel has belled the cat by returning to its ordinary prices, some 20 per cent less ; other establishments show no disposition to follow the wholesome .example.