The advocates of colonial expansion are Fest Sunday's celebration of the bicentenaging away. They are organising for ary of the birth of Dupleix, the great soldier who would have made India a French possession but for Louis the Well-Beloved and his advisers. Sarah Bernhardt is to recite a poem specially composed for the occasion by MI Haraucourt; the Ministers of the Colonies and Public Instruction are to orate, and the explorer Bonvalot. will speak—which is not the same thing. The scheme is a very good one in its way but not particularly practical, All the speeches and recitations in the world will not drag the French out of their shell. As long as the present educational system obtains, the schools will go on turing out youths who are fit for nothing but to swell the enormous army of quill-driving functionaries, What France wants is a new generation full of mischief and animal spirits boys who devour books of adventure and run away to sea. Observe English or American boys at play and you find tath they are continually striving to excel one another in something requiring either strength or skill, whereas a French boy's idea of play is to get hold of a soft ball and knock it about with a tambourine. Until the French realise the truth of the Iron Duke's saying that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, the idea of colonial expansion will not' take root.
TWO PROFESSIONAL GENTLEMEN, Deibler, the French executioner, who is about' to retire from office, has always been distinguished by a keen i terest in his profession. Although in r ceipt of a regular salary, he has often been known to complain of the small number of heads he is required to cut off. During the presidency of M. Grévy, who hada horror of signing a death-warrant, Mon-slour de Paris" had for a long time nothing whatever to do. It is recorded that he complained of this state of things and threatened to resign unless it were altered. The post of executioner was not at that time greatly coveted, and the permanent officials were afraid that if it were left vacant there would be an outbreak of crime. Strong representations were made to President Grévy and heave way. One or two hardened criminals under sentence of death were handed over to M. Deibler and the crisis was averted. Of late he has had little to do. He lives in a little house on the river bank at Auteuil, the westernmost extremity of Paris. He is a quiet, insignificant-looking man whose chief pleasure appears to be the cultivation of vegetables in his garden, He is paid a retainer
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.