There is no time in the year when la Ville Lumigre " gives itself more uureser¥- ailly to gaiety than at Christmas and the New Year. Thestreets wear a most animate ed aspect and there is much pablic and fo entertainment afoot. Along the from the splendid church of the Madeleine, for x distance of two miles, known to every tourist, to the spad de In République is one continuous line, on either side of the street, of tiny booths. For the nonce the yrvat highway of the Parisians is turned into " fair—Novgorod on small scale. In these ture shops are gathered all those articles de Paris" which reflect the taste and ingenuity of the French.—It-is difficult to say what one cannot find here—from visiting cards to.umbrellas, from xll manner of toys to rare editions of curious old books. and a painting or two that be worth twenty times the sum asked. Ca Christmas morning the world in gener! berakes itself to this prom-nade, stopping every few seconds at the stalls to inspect their c tents avd chaffering, with all the inherent liveliness of the race, over a bargain. Even a President does not dis dain to visit shop-land and ' 6!ix Faure was a familiar gute to the Christmas morning flaneur.
Reveillon.
Tt is impossible to do justice to Chrintmas without touching upon the custom of the Parisians ta "keep up" Christmas Eve fon, It is the one occasion when is not considered ill-bred to pay more than due homage to Bacchus. When you observe certain attenuated figures -itting in the restaurant on Christmas mornio. and plaintively asking the waiter for a little Gried toast atrd weak tea you may be certain that you have an awful example be-of the Christmas reveller. But fousti does not represent the only cupation of Christmas Eve. There are the Services in the churches, which attract Crowded congregations. In some, nethly St. Eustache, the remarkable old church by the Halles or central market, th fice is peculiarly beautiful. Carols sang by the beat voices from the Opera. There are always supper-parties of great elegance at the principal cafes xnd_ hotels. For instance, a numerous company. representative of the Anglo-French "'entente" will assemble in a few hours at the Hotel Ritz, who rea huge Christmas tree prov-des presents for every guest. At the Elysé- Palace Hotel in the Champs-Elys6es is a similar gathering. The Réveillon suppers '2. common feature of all the well-known restaurant. The bright-st spectacle is farnished by the Cafe de Paris, where there. always much life and gaiety on these occasions.
Affaire Syveton.
Strange are the pranks of politics in France—you never know where they are to break out. An instance in point is TP Affa re Syveton. As I mentioned in last lett-r, Gabri-l Syveton, deputy for the Second Arrovdissement of Paris, died suddenly on the eve of his trial for assaulting the Minister of War in the Chamber of Deputies. The obvious inference was that lo had been poisoned accidentally by the fumes of a gas stove. Given these ess and the mystery of the d-ath, the Nationalists, to which Party jumped to the conclusion of a Masonic murder pi t. Even the distinguished pvet, Frangais Coppée, who ought. to have known better, and Jules Lemaitre, no less distinguished as a litterateur, ko themselves to this absurd cly. Presently, theca were two definite camps formed, the one holding that the Deputy had been done to death by his enemies and the other insisting either on suicide or anormal cause. What was characteristic in a dispute of this kind was her side formed their opinion on ply from their personal 1 prejudices. Th dead "man's in the other, 2 considerable portion of the evidence adduced by the magistrate charged with the preliminary investigation. The charges against Syveton are of gross immorality and, if only half are true, it is clear that "was a man whose business was nob with the law-makers of his country but rather with ils prisoners. The whole case throws a disagreeable light on state of French politics, or rath politics of the men who are the avowed Enemies of the present Republican regime. Evidently they have learnt nothing since the Dreyfus case.
Read.
teresting to glance at the gift books displayed in the windows of the booksellers and discover the character of the literature read by the boys of the day. It ix evident that Jules Verne, notwithstanding his regular output of three books a year for the past thirty years, has by no means written unself out in the estimation of youthful readers. His ' Voyage Extraordinwire," the latest volume of the Verne library, just as fresh and vivid. and just as vacant of sclenti'c detail as his wow and popular " Round the World in Righty Days" and "Twenty Thousand Lo "gues under these." Thispresent story has to clu with a marvellous machine which has the ability to swim or fly or to travel upon the earth at the terrific pace of one hundred and fifty miles an hour. It may be called the dernier cri " of automobilism. Robinson Crusoe is al: with French boys. Of been a great revival in bool of all sorts, due colonial responsibil all's forms is now enthusiastically cul-France, and also to the fact that sport in tivated by the young generation. Besides the magazines that exist purely to promote "Jo vie an geand air"—the same indeed, one of the most popular publications—there are perioilicals devoted to travel, one of them rejoicing in the name of "Lo Globe-Trotter." Not only. that: there are monthlies full of whole-ome reading for young bervie such, for instance as Lec Zure pour Tous" and 'La Vie Heurouso' This is 8 welcome change from the day when there was nothing between the comic illustrated paper—often very objectionable intone—and the sensational novel still less adapted to youthful minds. Many French boys now read translations of Fenimore Cooper, of Robert Louis Stevenson, and others of the Anglo-Saxon world who have supplied the thrill that comes from the re-Gite) of hair-breadth "scapes on sea and land.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.