instead of being fixed by mechanics; their floors
were tongued together, and made of boards of
any length, so that often the board was joined
half way between the joists, with no more
security than that given by a narrow wooden
tongue and a support underneath; there
was apparently no knowledge how to wedge
up a piece of framework; and in
consequence of certain technical mistakes in
workmanship the doors in Paris almost invariably
drop on the outside edge. Is it not a common
complaint that not a door or window in France
will shut properly? That is because they pin
their tenons instead of carrying them up through
the stiles and wedging up the frame as we
should do. To obviate this dropping of the
frame in the New Opera House, the sashes are
strengthened and disfigured by iron squares
screwed on the angles. Another joiner, Mr.
Kay, says that at the Palais de Justice " the
joinery is being fixed in the style that was
constructed in North Britain in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries." " The first joiner that
attracted my attention was a smart-looking and
active man, about twenty-five years of age. He
was employed fixing iron plates, forming three
sides of a square, on the top and bottom of
some oak casement sashes, the centre piece being
two inches longer than the rails, the two sides
of the iron plates being one foot six inches long
by one and a quarter inches, and sunk level
with the rails and stiles of the sash, for the
purpose of keeping the sash together, and it
really wanted it. The frame looked well enough
outside, but when I examined the tenons and
mortices they were so badly fitted that neither
glue nor lead would have been of any use, and
it had none. His chisels were made like masons'
scabbling tools or ship carpenters' caulking-irons.
He was working very diligently, but
the interpreter, M. Fouché, told me he was a
blacksmith. He was making little progress,
his tools being badly adapted for the work lie
was executing. I found then that the
locksmiths fitted all the locks and hinges on the
doors, windows, &c., which in a measure
accounted for the insufficient and clumsy nature
of their fixing throughout the different buildings
in ruins. The locks were all box-locks,
and badly made. The hinges were likewise
bad, and of ancient design."

Which graphic account lets us a little into
the secret of French door and window
carpentry! There was a magnificently carved oak
pulpit and staircase from Belgium in the
Exposition, which all of us who went there must
remember. The carving was lovely, but the
joiner's work was rough, rude, and unfinished.
The scarf joints of the handrail were made the
wrong end up, so that if the lucky possessor
of that grand bit of carving ever runs his hand
rapidly down the rail in descending the stairs
he will probably get a few splinters in his flesh,
"a. sensation which will be more exciting than
agreeable," says the critic. Some of the most
beautiful carvings, or what appeared to be
carvings, by M. A. Latry, were made of pigs'
blood and dust, compressed in a steel mould;
and some that looked like wrought ebony were
only of common wood polished and ebonised.
One witness objects to the large use made of
the scraper and glass-paper for final polish; but
another —our old friend, Mr. Hooper— speaks
of this as a characteristic excellence, because
proving the cleanliness of the French work.
Two cabinet-making firms are specially
mentioned in these reports; the one is that of M.
Fourdinois, which seems to have been taken in
some sense as a type of the trade, and the other
that of M. Racault and Co., to which is ascribed
what honour there may be in having begun the
revolution of '48. The firm of Racault is a
very large one, employing from five to six
hundred hands in all, and in '48 the men,
discontented at the high price of bread and the
lowness of wages, struck and made a commotion,
which increased until it swelled" into the revolution
which cost Louis Philippe his crown, and
gave France King Stork in place of King Log.
"Cabinet-makers," says Mr. Hooper, " I find
to be the worst paid men in France, as at home,
averaging four to six francs per day; carvers
and upholsterers, six francs; women, two and
a half francs." They work ten hours a day,
piece-work, beginning at six and leaving at
half-past five; but they do not work so hard
as the English, taking life more easily, and
mingling more pleasure with their labour. In
general they are paid only once a fortnight,
which includes Sunday work as well; and which
is by no means an enviable mode of paying
workmen's wages.

After the cabinet-makers come the workers
in glass and pottery, of whom the first spokesman,
Mr. Green, is a " ceramic decorator."
"Disclaiming all pretensions to learning, I write
as a working man on the executive or manipulative
part of decoration only," he says modestly,
"leaving schools and styles of art to be treated
by writers of far higher attainment." But he
writes like an educated man himself, and uses
all the artists' terms with judgment and
propriety. He speaks of the Sèvres manufacture
as offering a comparatively new method of
decoration to Englishmen, namely, "painting in
clay in a state of what is technically called
' slip' on the raw or unfired coloured body of
the article, generally of celadon, sage-green, or
stone colour," flowing figures of birds, flowers,
grasses, &c., "usually with a freedom, truth,
and grace most refreshing to behold, some parts
of the decoration standing out in such bold
relief as to require the aid of the modelling tool
in addition to the painter's touch." But he is
not deterred or daunted by even such a name
as the Sèvres manufactory. We have improved,
he says, heartsomely; and with a distinct
recollection of his dejection in 1851 at the inferiority
of the British potter, he left the Exposition of
1867 with " feelings nearly akin to pride
certainly with confidence and hope for the future."
Minton's china is to him better than any foreign
pottery; and of the Limoges enamels sent by
that firm, he says they are " clear, soft, and