given to drink, the coroner suggested to the foreman of the jury that they should state in their verdict that the accident was the result of her intoxicated condition at the time; but the jury refused to accede to his wish; and he afterwards informed me, that when he held inquests at public-houses, he always found a disinclination on the part of the jury to notice the fact of intoxication playing any part in the death, even when the fact was but too evident!

Having no teetotal tendencies, and believing that to take a pledge of total abstinence from alcohol is simply a piece of puritanical absurdity, which, if carried out in all cases where temptation presents itself, would result in an abnegation of the will itself, I nevertheless could not help being struck with the astounding fact, that in the first four inquests held promiscuously in one day, every case of death was clearly caused, either directly or indirectly, by the vice of intoxication.

Mr. Gough might have lectured upon the subject for years, yet I will venture to say that he never would have made such an impression on me as did the faces of those four poor creatures, staring up at me from their coffins-not emaciated by disease and long-suffering, but perishing in the prime of life, and leaving behind them long trains of suffering children and helpless widows. There are many sayings that we use glibly enough, and none among them further from the truth than one we often hear-" Providence takes charge of drunkards and little children."

The next case was that of a little Irish boy who had been killed by a cab running over him. The lad had been following an Irish funeral,‚—one of those noisy, demonstrative affairs which are pretty sure to gather up all the loose Milesian element that lies in the line of procession. The lad was riding behind one of the mourning cabs, and falling off, the next cab in the line ran over him.

The cab―according to the only intelligible witness who saw the accident take place-was loaded with six persons inside and six on the roof; it was not wonderful that the wheel passing over his body ruptured the liver, and killed him within two hours. He was the last of three children whom his mother, a poor widow, mourned.

The duties of a metropolitan coroner extend over a very wide district; from Paddington, accordingly, we had to hurry away to Islington, where a new beadle was awaiting

THE ENGLISH IN PARIS FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

A GENTLEMAN, under the signature of "G. U.," wrote in 1862 to the Times, complaining in the most indignant terms of the slovenly manner in which our countrymen and countrywomen dress immediately they put the Straits between them and home. He sees and, according to his own account, shirks his best friends because they appear in the streets of Paris in the costumes of cab-drivers. The ladies are offenders of a deeper dye; they mount battered round hats, and save up their old dresses for the sake of appearing perfect drabs in the polite city of Paris.

Our proud G. U., who we should surmise to be one of those resident Britons who have become more French than the Parisians, is deeply hurt at our bad habits, and is evidently very much ashamed of his touring fellow-countrymen, and dreadfully afraid of what the satirical Parisians will think of them.

Having myself returned from a month's holiday on the Continent, a week of which was spent in Paris, I was not a little astonished at the frightful pelting which I, in common with the rabble rout of Englishmen, have received at the hands of G. U. Having a desire for a few weeks' climbing, I took pattern by the great Napier, and thought that when I had reduced my impedimenta to a piece of soap, a towel, and two flannel shirts, I had done a clever thing. In this light marching order I had the audacity to return home by way of Paris; had I had the honour of G. U.'s acquaintanceship, possibly I might have been received by courteous cut direct; but as I only know an inferior sort of people, who don't judge friends by their clothes, I happily escaped that infliction.

I must candidly confess that my own impressions of my fellow-countrymen abroad did not by any means tally with those of G. U., who is so very sensitive for the honour of his fellow-subjects. When I strolled up the Champs Elysées,

An Englishman and his Belongings, from the Meridian of Paris.

if amid the crowd of natives in lacquered boots, dresscoats, and the other etcetera appertaining to the full mufti in which Parisians will appear abroad before dinner-if, I say, I observed a particularly manly looking fellow in a light

lounging-coat and lace-up boots, I was pretty sure to find, on looking into his honest face, that he was a young Englishman. If a brighter young Hebe than usual passed by, in "maiden meditation fancy free," it was sure to be a dear young English girl.

Amid the arid faces of the Parisian fair, to my eye the bright cheek of our English rose was as the waters of some oasis to the traveller after the dreary desert. They might have had round hats, but what of that? I am quite sure they were not "battered," and also certain that they crowned the face with more grace than the best bonnet of Paris would have done.

It is pretty well conceded that the young Englishman is the best-dressed man in the world (a fact which G. U. evidently does not know); but I mean to assert, what will doubtless be contested, that the English gentlewoman carries the palm for the ease and simple elegance of her attire. The grace of the human frame is less disguised in her by the milliner; you see more of the woman and less of the mode. Possibly there may be a reason for this in the finer condition of the raw material, if we may be allowed such a phrase when speaking of the gentler sex. We know that cooking has arrived at such perfection in France as only to disguise the badness of the meat.

But letting this pass, and returning again to the sensitive feelings of G. U., let us see what evidence he has to give of the sneers of the Parisians at our slovenly appearance in their fair city. He tells us that we are caricatured in every printseller's window, and that the Palais Royal is full of plaster statuettes which jeer us as we pass. We may remark en passant, that, in the caricature line at least, the Parisians -the acute, sarcastic Parisians—are the dullest dogs in Europe.

If an actor, taking the rôle of a Frenchman at the lowest theatre in London, were to talk of eating frogs, he would be hissed off the stage for the staleness of his joke; but in the best Parisian theatres the Englishman is still represented in top-boots and belcher handkerchief, either beating his wife, or exhibiting her for sale in the market-place with a rope round her neck. This is considered capital fun in Paris to this day, and is sure to bring the house down. When Punch touches up the Frenchman, or when Wigan brings him on the boards, they hit him, we fancy, a little harder.