an officers into their service in consider- massacre, would lose us all these valuable

able numbers, if at least rumour is to be lives and everything that we have gained believed. But however this may be, the in China, until another costly war should fact to which we wish to draw attention is compel the people of that country to adthat the Chinese Administration is more mit us once again, more detested than beliberally inclined than it dares to avow in fore. It is much to be feared that the the teeth of the violent opposition of a large very inadequate notice taken of the Tientmajority; that it is thus placed in a highly sin massacre will be regarded as an inviprecarious condition, and may be supplant- tation to a repetition of such scenes, and ed at any moment by the opposite party, what this implies cannot be imagined by who would certainly prove the sincerity of any one who has no personal experience their hatred by ordering or conniving at of the bestial cruelty of the Chinese. It is the massacre of all Europeans in Peking more easy to imagine the cost in men and and wherever else they were incapable of money of a war to revenge what might protecting themselves. The position, there- have been prevented. We have now fore, of our Ministers at Peking is one friends in the Government, and it is our without parallel, and certainly at no other duty and interest to strengthen their Court are foreign representatives pos- hands. It is open to us to do this in two sessed of half the power. It is fortunate ways, and neither should be neglected. for us that we enjoy the services of a gen- We ought to have a sufficient force at tleman who owns an acquaintance with Hong Kong to be able to spare a few the Chinese character possessed by no troops for the protection of any body of other man living. Besides his diplomatic Europeans in danger of attack, and for subordinates, he has under him a consider- the second let the words of the Emperor able staff of interpreters; and a similar supply a hint. "If it were not," said he, establishment is maintained by the Conti-"for your opium and your missionaries, nental Powers and by America. It is not there would be no difficulty between us." too much to say that any symptom of Should we dream of forcing either the one weakness at home which should lead the or the other upon any European country? Chinese people, the most ignorant on the face of the earth, to believe that we should exact no greater indemnity for another outrage than has followed the Tientsin

[We publish this from a well-informed correspondent without endorsing or agreeing with it.-ED. Spectator.]

THE jewels belonging to the Apollo gallery of the Louvre were concealed during the Commune in a small room, carefully walled up, on the second story of the building erected by François I., over the Salle Henri II. and the Salon des Sept Cheminées. The work had been so skilfully executed that the insurgents, during their two months' occupation of the Palace, must have passed before it a thousand times without suspecting that this treasure of jewellery, rock crystal, enamels, &c., estimated at fifty millions of francs, was so near them. The credit of this success is due to Count Clément de Ris, conservator, and to the employés of the museum, who were several times on the point of being shot for refusing to disclose the place of concealment.

crispa were found growing to a height of 30 feet with a diameter of 10 or 12 inches, where the temperature ranges from 27° to 72° Fahr., and the alluvial soil very shallow, there ought not to be much difficulty in finding out suitable localities for some species of this valuable plant in this colony." The exhaustion of the Peruvian bark forests of South America, and the increasing price of quinine, render this movement of great importance.

THE rooms in the Palace of Fontainebleau will shortly resume their ordinary aspect, workmen having been for several weeks employed in replacing all the furniture, pictures, hangings, tapestries, clocks, and works of art. It appears that the director, M. Boyer, on the first news THE Wallarvo Times of October 2nd con- of the Prussian invasion, found means to stow tains the first of a series of articles on the culti-away all these valuable articles, as well as the vation of the Peruvian bark trees, especially in the colony of New South Wales. "When it is considered," says the writer, “that such valuable species as Cinchona Gondominea and C.

wines, in a place of security. When the German officers, in passing through the town, went to visit the palice, they were not a little surprised to find it totally unfurnished.

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From Blackwood's Magazine.
FRENCH CHILDREN.

THE present average duration of life in France is about thirty-eight years; the population amounts to thirty-eight millions; consequently, if we take fifteen as the age where childhood ends, there would appear to be about fifteen millions of children in France. This way of calculating is, of course, not absolutely exact, but it suffices to give an approximate idea on the subject; and, in the absence of any specific information in the census returns, it is the only one which can be applied.

tradictions; and though the fifteen millions of little people that we are talking of possess fifteen millions of different little heads and hearts, the contrasts between them are, after all, not so vast as to prevent us from grouping them into a few classes.

their formation and consolidation on local and personal influences are liable to change with those influences, so long as time has not stamped them definitely and indelibly. And if this be true as a general principle; if the innumerable shades and tints of temperament which we observe in yet untrained minds are met with in every land; if, diversified as they are by nature, these minds are susceptible of endless other changes from the effect of the new contacts to which they may be successively exposed, it follows that in a country so large as France, composed of so many Fifteen millions of children imply fifteen different provinces, containing populations millions of different characters; for until of varied origin and habits, we shall reeducation, example, and habit have lev-mark, even more than elsewhere, the endelled the infinitely-varied dispositions with lessly-shifting phases of child-nature. But which we come into the world, it cannot be though France exhibits even less uniformsaid that any two of us are really alike. ity in the matter than is discoverable in Under the influence of our "bringing up "other countries, it shows no excessive conwe tend towards approximate uniformity, externally, at least; we learn to control our tempers, to guide our tongues, to subdue our caprices. But children are more natural: we see them almost as they are -the mass of them, that is; and so long as they have not been led under the common yoke by common teaching, they ex- At first sight it may seem needless, and hibit a variety of humours and fancies indeed almost absurd, to say that the which we cease to find in their well-main distinction to establish between schooled elders. It is therefore impossible French children is to divide them into to lay down any general national type of boys and girls; the difference of sex is, character for children, especially as, in most however, accompanied in France by such cases, their habits of thought, their manners singular and such marked differences of and their prejudices, are susceptible of en- character and natural tendencies, that it is tire modification if they are removed dur- difficult to lay too much stress on it; it is ing childhood from one centre to another. the essential basis of the subject. The It has been proved, by numerous examples, French do not see it, at least it does not that a boy of ten, if he be transported to an- strike them with anything like the force other land, may forget in three years his with which it presents itself to foreign native language and his father's name; observers; and they are particularly surand though this example is excessive and prised to be told that the radical demarcaexceptional, it proves, at all events, that tion which exists between their men and with such plastic elements as children's women asserts itself from the cradle, and minds, original tendencies may be totally that the special masculine and feminine effaced, and that the form of their devel- peculiarities of their national temper are opment is but an accident depending distinctly visible in their children. Exmainly on the circumstances which sur- cepting the United States, no country exround them. Of course this in no way hibits a divergence of ideas and objects means that the real basis of character between the sexes such as we recognize in can be remodelled by outward leverage; France. Other nations show us a tolerall that is intended to be urged is, that the able unity of ends and means between parts of young natures which depend for men and women; we find elsewhere ap

proximately identical hopes and principles | tional and sensational faculties. This and springs of action. In America and in development exists in both sexes, but is France we discover, on the contrary, that far more evident amongst the women than though husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, may live together in admirable harmony, they differ profoundly in their views of life and its duties, and in the systems which they employ to attain the form and degree of contentment which their individual needs may crave for. It is not going too far to say-though the question must be approached with infinite prudence, in order to avoid exaggeration that the salient dispositions of the French man and the French woman drift in opposite directions. The sexes are held together by a common bond of interest and affection, but their tendencies are not the same; and they live, as a whole, in a chronic condition of disaccord on many of the main theories, obligations, and even pleasures of existence. The women stand, incontestably, far above the men. We need not look long or wide for a proof of this assertion: the attitude of the two sexes during the late war, and especially inside besieged Paris, supplies it with sufficient force. Of course all these observations are only general - there are plentiful exceptions; but it cannot be denied that the higher moral qualities — resolute attachment to duty, self-sacrificing devotion, unyielding maintenance of principle, and religious faith, which is the key to all the rest are abundant amongst French women, and are relatively rare amongst French men. It is pleasanter to state the question in this negative form, to indicate the qualities which the men have not, than to define it positively and to determine the defects which they have; and it is scarcely necessary, for the purpose which we are pursuing, to be more precise in the comparison between grown-up people. Our inquiry is limited to children; and, provided we clearly recognize the main outlines of the distinctions which exist between their parents, that will suffice to enable us to verify the statement that those same distinctions are visible, of course in less vivid colours, amongst the little ones. Every one will assent to the proposition that the most marked feature of the French is the development of their emo

amongst the men; and it seems to acquire force with education, and to be most glaringly conspicuous in the highest classes. Repression of manifestations of feeling forms no part of French teaching; on the contrary, those manifestations are regarded as natural and permissible. We therefore find that French mothers rather encourage their children, and especially their daughters, never to conceal the impressions which may agitate them, providing always that those impressions are honest and real, and are not of a nature to shock either convenances or principles. It follows that the impulses of children remain unchecked, that they rush into light directly they are felt, and that the influence of mothers and of governesses is employed to guide such impulses to a faithful and graceful form of expression far more than to suppress or even control them in themselves. There is a vast deal to be said in favour of this system. It stimulates individuality, it fortifies the affections, it develops sensibility in all its varied forms. It has been applied for generations, and it has produced an hereditarily-acquired capacity of sentiment which, at this present time, is certainly greater than that possessed by any other nation. The range of this sentiment is most extensive. It applies to almost every position and almost every accident of life, to art, and even to science; but its full effect, its full consequences, are naturally observed in the tenderer sympathies, in the emotions, and in the gentler duties which fall particularly on women. There is, in most Frenchwomen, a gushingness, an unrestrained outpouring of inner self, which is reproduced in their daughters as abundantly as in themselves. Girls, from their very babyhood, live side by side with demonstrative mothers, who show and say what they think and feel with a natural frankness of which they are scarcely conscious. The children not only inherit this disposition, but are aided to develop it in their own little hearts by example, contact, and advice. They are born impulsive. They are shown how to be so; and they are told that, provided