"With all my heart! I live——" And the
carpenter, giving a false address, turned his
back on his former comrade. But the one was
as cunning as the other was prudent. Suspecting
the cheat, he dogged the carpenter home,
unseen. Next day the jail-bird favoured the
house with a visit, as unexpected, and about as
agreeable, as the fall of a thunderbolt.

"I'll tell you what," he said, grinning at his
old companion; " you played me a shabby trick
yesterday. But I am a good sort of fellow and
bear no malice. You see I am come to give
you a call, all the same."

"Ah!" ejaculated the poor carpenter.

"Yes, but you have got on famously.
Comfortable rooms; first-rate! You are a lucky
chap. Why don't you introduce me to your
wife? You'll allow me the pleasure of
breakfasting with you?"

"Certainly. But—in short——"

"ln short, what? Do you want to get rid
of me again, as you got rid of me yesterday?
Have a care! If you give yourself any airs
with me, everybody shall know that we were
schoolfellows (in prison) together."

The wretched carpenter turned pale. Under
the influence of terror, he entertained his worthless
acquaintance as well as he could.

Next day the same farce was played, with the
addition of the blood-sucker's borrowing twenty
francs; this loan was followed, on subsequent
occasions, by loans of thirty, forty, fifty francs,
and more; until the carpenter, driven to
despair, played his last card, and went to M.
Canler for aid and protection, at the risk of
being arrested for rupture de ban, or infringement
of exile.

After due inquiry, M. Canler laid the case
before the préfet of police, who ordered the
expulsion of the villain who victimised the
carpenter, and granted to the latter individual
permission to sojourn in the capital. A few days
afterwards, M. Canler received the grateful
thanks of his protégé. It is evident, our
author adds, that chantage is all the more
dangerous to society in proportion to the
difficulty of preventing it, and that this abominable
trade is a social ulcer which sometimes attains
the proportions of crime.

The book swarms with instances proving that
human treachery knows no limits, being kept in
check neither by gratitude, esprit de corps, nor
natural affection.

One P. was seriously compromised in an
attempt to murder; but he hid himself so well that
all the efforts of the police to discover him were
fruitless. The case was in course of trial.
The president of the assize court urged the
préfet of police to do his utmost to effect this
individual's arrest, because his presence
promised to throw great light on an affair which
was entangled and difficult. The search was
renewed with redoubled energy, but with equal
want of success. At last, the man's sister came
to inform the police that her brother, for the last
month, had been concealed in her habitation.

"You may imagine," she added, " that I
cannot afford to keep him for ever. It costs
money to maintain him."

So it was agreed with the worthy sister to
relieve her of her brother during the night.
The house was surrounded by police agents, and
P. was caught just as he was about to escape by
jumping out of a window. So much for fraternal
affection. As to filial love: A young man
arrested for theft, "twenty-four years of age, well
educated, of gentle aspect," indicated to a fellow-
prisoner a capital job; namely, the murder of
his (the instigator's) own father, who was clerk
in a bank. This last personage, M. Canler
avows, made him shudder from head to foot.

Can such things be, in a city calling itself
the metropolis of the civilised world, the pioneer
of science and art, the capital governed by the
Eldest Son of the Church?

PAINT, AND NO PAINT.

THE recent revelations in a public court, of
an artiste in what is said to be the art of
enamelling ladies' faces, did not disclose any novelty.
Those who remember to have seen the late
Madame Vestris on the stage must have observed

                  that whiter skin than snow,
   And smooth as monumental alabaster.

The covering which that lady is believed to
have used during the later years of her successful
career as an actress is said to have been
composed of the oxide of bismuth—a metallic
substance, triturated with rose or orange flower
water, and delicately spread over the features.
This pigment, which is a subnitrate, is called by
the French blanche de perle, or pearl white,
and tends to confer clear tints on a fading
complexion. It has this little drawback: in a bad
atmosphere it tarnishes, and, should the blooming
wearer show her face in an atmosphere
charged with sulphur, its hue is certain to be
changed to that of a dirty quadroon. A philosophic
dowager, enamelled à la Vestris, once
attended a chemical lecture at a fashionable
institution, where her curiosity prompted her to bring
her face into too close contact with water strongly
impregnated with sulphuretted hydrogen.
Suddenly she became black in the face.

Fluids for improving the complexion have
been in all ages in favour with the fair.
Cosmetics, in the various shapes of unguents and
pastes, were patronised by the Roman ladies,
and the word is derived from the Latin cosmetæ:
female slaves who attended dames of rank, and
applied the perfumed preparation to their cheeks.
Martial reveals a secret that Fabula, one of the
most celebrated beauties of his day, was afraid
of the rain, on account of the chalk on her face;
and Sabella avoided the sun because her
features were covered with white lead. Poppæa,
the mistress, and afterwards the wife of the
Emperor Nero, while indulging in baths of pure
milk to soften her skin, introduced a paste which
hardened on the face, and was in effect an enamel.
As empress, she led the fashion, which was
generally adopted by every wealthy lady in her own
house, so that the domestic face became a common