It is, perhaps, easier to make money than to has a private conviction that oraters are not altospend it well. Gunnybags will never be a Med-gether defunct, and that great reputations are yet ici. He thinks he has done well if he can get two to be made, asks us what we mean to do with the per cent. a month for his money. When he has great principle of religious liberty in the matter the premium pocketed, he will tell you of the great of the Mormons? And a great many around our enterprise of this country, and congratulate him- Chair echo Epictetus, and wonder and wait. self that the fullness of time having come, the The answer seems to be simple enough. SupAmerican merchant appeared upon the scene. But pose the Synods of the Presbyterian Church, or if the American merchant should go off the scene the Conventions of the Episcopal Church, or the now, how very few monuments of his existence Yearly Meetings of the Friends, or the Associations would remain! His grand-children may have of the Unitarians, should agree that henceforth it spent his fortune, and the great and permanent should be good Presbyterianism to steal, and good influences of beauty and truth in which he might Episcopacy to forge, and good Quakerism to garhave invested part of his abundance, and which rote, and good Unitarianism to boil babies, would would have paid imperishable dividends of wisdom Epictetus plead the great principle of religious liband enjoyment to unborn children, he has lost erty? Would he think the State must not protect forever. his coat from the Presbyterians, his name from the Episcopalians, his throat from the Quakers, and his children from the Unitarians? It is pleasant to observe how instinctive is this homage to the mind and its interests. Very rich men always seem to feel that they owe something to what can not be made with money, although it can be occasioned by it. Among ourselves, not to go far, Girard founded a College, Astor a Library, and Peter Cooper a University. Shall we not all hail every sign of such a spirit, and rejoice over it ? Mr. Wright has commissioned four of our wellknown artists to paint him four pictures of the same general character. Hicks is to paint portraits of thirty of our most eminent literary names; Rossiter, thirty of the merchants; Baker, thirty of the artists; and Huntington, thirty of the men of science. The singular interest of such a work is manifest at once. It is a picture of the times; it ought also to be a picture of the spirit of the times. If we could have similar pictures of other epochs we might choose, how invaluable they would be! As these works progress, we shall chat about them with the loungers around our Chair. BROTHER Brigham Young would certainly be an extremely Easy Chair, with four legs at the very least, if he were a Chair at all. But whether he be a Chair or not, Uncle Sam will probably find it necessary to sit down upon him before long. Politics do not belong to our Chair, but social morals do; and it is not presumptuous to suppose that Polygamy has to do with morality. Is nothing ever to be settled? Are we to be discussing in America, and in the nineteenth century and so forth, whether a man ought to have forty wives? Yet it is certainly observable that the two particular "new revelations," as they are termed in distinction from Christianity, namely, the Mohammedan and the Mormon, have advanced Polygamy, not as a grand, but as a collateral principle. Yet there were restrictions to Mohammedan wifetaking. The Prophet himself had but four. But the new dispensation advances with time; and a Mormon elder, so far as appears, may be "sealed" to any number of the sisters. Are these overt acts against the public peace and the rights of others? So they are; but if the practical operation of Polygamy is to public demoralization, may nothing be done? Must not society protect itself? Is toleration to be pushed to the production of an intolerable state of society? Is it any pleasanter to go to pieces upon a rock than upon a sand-bar? Can we not abate nuisances? And what is a nuisance? It seems to be hard that we must have pachas and harems among us because we believe religious liberty to be Christian. Are two wives Christian? Are the proceedings in Utah Christian? Is the Reverend Governor Young, or were the original Joe Smith and his brother, peculiarly Christian? If it be true that tyranny has always excused itself under this plea of the public good, is it not equally true that license has dared every crime under the name of liberty? IT is not long since George Steers died; and for many April days his last work, his best monument, the Niagara, lay in the harbor, admired of all eyes that could appreciate the novelty of her conception as a ship-of-war. He was a noble fellow, and was sincerely mourned. And, as we write, we hear of another life among our artists ending-a life which may be closed before this printed page is seen. Thomas Crawford, the sculptor, is dying in Paris of a painful and incurable disease. A tumor, formed in the socket of the eye, has been gradually extending itself, until now it has undermined the roots of life, and the tree, full of summer blossoms, waves and totters to its fall. His great work for Virginia, the Washington Monument, is uncompleted. But that is only one. All his works, all his hopes, all his life, seem to be unfinished. Seem to be! but when a man has wrought well, when he has even indicated the will or the power to do well, has he not already saved his life from being followed with a feeling of nothingness, however early it may end? We speak of Keats as dy It is not a matter of jesting, though we find our-ing before his prime, of Raphael and Mozart as dyselves speaking lightly of it. Utah is so far away that we think of it as we do of Japan; and the habits of the people affect us no more profoundly than those of the Esquimaux might do. But if Utah were Westchester County, and people in whom we have a private and personal interest were to be living such a life, it would not be tolerated for a moment. Our young friend, the lawyer Epictetus, who ing so young. But whoever of marked genius has early died, has also achieved early; and the very bitterness of our sorrow shows that they have not lived in vain. Crawford will always be ranked among the first three of our sculptors, with his contemporaries Powers and Greenough. Of an affluent and graceful genius, fired with an engrossing ambition, resolute, uncompromising, and unwearied, he had early ease. carved his way through poverty to distinction and "Roma! Roma! Non é piu com' era prima." But do they die too young, who die lamented? To be lamented is to have been loved; to have been loved is better than to have built the Parthenon. OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP. with the charm that belongs to Paris residence? Is it not a trust, indeed, which is an essential condition of a life of either luxury or indulgence? We were speaking just now of the chances of recovery of lost property. Let us illustrate by an actual occurrence. B, an old resident of Paris, but an American, set off one day last summer from the capital, to accompany a newly-arrived friend through the watering-places of Germany. On reaching Baden the friend discovered that he had lost, in the course of the journey, a valuable ring. Where had it been left? Of course neither could tell with certainty. On comparing recollections, however, the chances seemed to lie in favor of Strasbourg. At that city they had left the railway station to breakfast at a neighboring cafe. They had begged a basin of water to wash their hands in an ante-room of the establishment, and remembered having sat at a particular table in the left-hand corner of the cafe. The gentleman who had met with the loss wrote to the proprietor of the establishment, describing the ring, and begging his interest in its recovery. He received a civil reply, stating that no trace could be found of the ring in question, and as he believed his servants to be honest, he suspected the gentleman must be mistaken in regard to the time of the loss. The friends journeyed through Germany. The ring was given up. On a return to Paris, howev "I think that ring could be recovered," said Monsieur C- (the employé in question). "Indeed!" said B THE Paris papers have been laughing latterly at our forms of justice. They have watched the Carpentier trial, and made merry with Connery. Mr. Busteed and the Coroner are grown famous; the seized letters and the jokes with the house-maid have given these officials historic dignity. We have had things more biting than a laugh evena sober article from that grave journalist, De Cas-er, three months after, B chanced to mention sagnac, who, after a review of the trial of Carpen- the circumstance in the hearing of an old employé tier, reminds French readers that the country where in the Prefecture of Paris. the Northern Railway robbers have been arrested is the same barbarous land where a few people not unfrequently band together for the capture of a horse-thief, try him in the fields, and hang him to the nearest tree; the country where a dozen or more of enterprising men will break open a prison, make seizure of a criminal, reverse or extend the decisions of the Courts, and execute him on the highway; the country where they beat each other with clubs, gash each other with bowie-knives, every day in the streets-not to say in the Congressional halls-and nothing comes of it but a laugh at the man who falls undermost. What must be looked for in such a country? And M. de Cassagnac goes on to extol that beneficent land of France, where violence never goes unrebuked-where justice and its ministers are sacred-where the rights of the poorest are protected-where the tyranny of mob-law is unknownwhere peace and righteousness prevail, under the dispensation of his Imperial Majesty. If we must blush for ourselves, we may sigh over the fond hallucinations of the Frenchman. And yet, laying aside all view of the grand Imperial usurpation, and of the magnificent crime upon which the French State is builded, it is quite certain that all the minor details of justice are even, regular, and perfect in their action. Do we lose our purse in Paris? we think there is no city in the world where the chances are so great of our finding it again. Have we a debt? we are quite sure of its recovery promptly and fully. Have we an uncertain claim? we may count upon a patient hearing. Do we go out at night? we have no fear of garroters. Do we call for a cab? we know what we have to pay. Do we buy a ticket for steamer or railway? we are confident it is worth all it claims to be worth. Has not the repose which grows out of this absolute trust very much to do "I am sure of it," continued Monsieur C-, "provided only you can give me a definite description, and provided it was lost this side the French border. But such a thing is always attended with some cost. How much would your friend be willing to pay for the recovery of his ring?" B― at a venture named thirty francs. They went together to the office of a Commissary of Police, the French gentleman undertaking the negotiation on behalf of B At "This gentleman has lost a valuable ring, for whose recovery he is willing to pay the sum of thirty francs. He believes it to have been lost at or near Strasbourg, some three months since. that time he was traveling with a friend into Germany. They stopped an hour only at Strasbourg, ate breakfast at a cafe upon the right-hand corner of the great square, near to the railway station. They occupied a table at the left-hand corner of the low er salon." The gentleman went on to give a very full description of the ring, of all of which the clerk of the Commissary took notes. "Your address, if you please, gentlemen," said the Commissary; and a deposit of ten francs in token of good faith." In a month's time B-received a note from the Commissary expressing regret that the police could obtain no clew to the missing ring as yet, and informing him that the ten francs of depositmoney was lying at the office, subject to his order. On the fourth day thereafter, B— called to take again the ten francs left on his first visit. The Commissary begged him to attend a moment, and presently brought to him the identical ring which had been lost the previous summer. The Commissary had communicated with the police of Strasbourg. Upon inquiring at the café alluded to, the proprietor recalled the circumstance of receiving the letter from 'Germany, but could give no clew for the recovery of the ring. It was remembered, however, that at about the time of B's visit, the waiter at the corner-table of the salon had been ill and away from service. His place had been supplied for a week by a waiter from an adjoining hotel. On inquiry here, it was found that the waiter referred to had left the city two months before. No jeweler of Strasbourg had any knowledge of a ring corresponding with the description given. The presumption was, therefore, that if the hotel servant had attended upon the American gentlemen, and they had, as supposed, left the ring in his sight, that he still retained it. or buy wines upon "Change" which have been ten years in the "Docks." As long ago as 1848, there was an effort to establish something of the sort in Paris, but upon a very small scale-too small for any eminent success. In 1852 the effort was renewed. It was argued that Paris, with her railways stretching toward all of her embracing waters, might become as great an entrepôt as any sea-port of the world. Persigny favored the enterprise, and in that time his favor was golden. His friend Duchesne de Vere, a sometime companion of his exile, was one of the original managers, and was associated in the control with Riant, an enormous real estate owner in the neighborhood of the station of the Havre terminus; and Cusin, a member of a prominent banking-house. The capital was fixed at fifty millions. Riant realized a magnificent price for such portion of his Com-real estate as, in the opinion of the trio, was needed for the "Docks," and privately gave a douceur of eighty-five thousand francs to Duchesne de Vere for his opinion in favor of the purchase. This servant had come to Strasbourg from Lille; possibly he might have returned to Lille. munication was made to the police giving description and name of the man sought for. Reply was made that such a person had been in Lille, but was there no longer; nor was his whereabouts known. Upon this information the Commissary had written to B, stating his want of success, and begging him to reclaim the money deposited. Only the day before, however, new communication had been made from Strasbourg, informing the Commissary, that a gendarme of Lille, who had accidentally seen the description forwarded from Strasbourg, had discovered the person spoken of in a little village a few miles from Lille, where he was now proprietor of a guinguette, or small drinkingshop. He had been visited by the police-the ring found actually upon his finger-had been committed to prison to await further advices of the ordering Commissary of Strasbourg, and the ring was duly forwarded as requested. "Twenty francs, if you please, Sir," said the Commissary, "which, with the ten on deposit, makes up the amount offered for its recovery.” "Have the goodness to put your name upon this book, as receiver of the ring described and recovered." So much for a trinket. Now let us see what is the operation of French justice with reference to a pure business transaction. We allude to the "Docks"-the Parker Vein of the late speculative period in France. There are those upon your side of the water who sometimes amuse themselves with a reading of the quotations at the French Bourse (happy if their amusement ends with the reading) who will remember how, some five years ago, the "Docks" appeared upon the lists of sales, modestly at first; but growing in importance until the stock ran high above par-rested-receded, rose again-subsided, and at length disappeared. It was the old story, always renewing itself, of splendid promises, great names, magnificent outlay, profusion every way, squandered moneys, suspicion, pressure, and extinction. You know what "Docks" means in England: the word has come to designate those grand entrepôts of merchandise in Liverpool and London, where the wealth of a thousand traders is stored, under bond, titles lying in government warrants, and these becoming negotiable under indorsement, so that a cargo changes hands with a dash of the pen, and the merchant of Milk Street, Cheapside, may carry the titles to ten ship-loads in his pocket, The British banking-house of Ricardo was associated with the enterprise; the "Docks" were on every tongue at the Bourse; premiums were paid for the privilege of subscription, and all looked smilingly-so smilingly, indeed, that our French managers turned a cold shoulder upon Ricardo, and buffeted him into entire withdrawal. The banking firm of which Cusin was head, left its private quarters and entered upon the magnificent apartments of the old banker Lafitte. With the splendor of the new enterprise reflected upon them, they engaged in half a dozen new undertakings, applying to one or the other, as occasion served, the idle funds of the magnificent "Docks." But the "Docks" were not built; people asked if they would be? The stock fell off. Duchesne retired. Persigny, still earnest for his pet, begged the great M. Pereire to lend it a helping hand. He made his conditions, and entered upon the administration. Now, indeed, excavation began; thousands of laborers with barrows were every day at work upon the great hillside of Mont-Martre. Stock rose again; but the conditions Pereire had made were not fulfilled, and he retired. Down went the Docks. The Cusin house, now tangled sadly in their great enterprises, resorted to every shift to force up the stock, and dispose of remaining shares. All in vain. The Prince Murat was called in (as we remember you once called in Barnum to your Crystal Palace scheme), but Murat could not save it. The bankers broke; the works were stopped; a Government commissary came in -Arthur Berryer; and now the dead scheme is in the courts. The managers have had their trial. Three or four have gone to prison; Berryer himself has five years to undergo confinement, except the Imperial Court may reverse the decision of that below. Splendid swindlers of millions do not succeed well in France. Great men go to prison for other than political offenses. When you come to Paris, if you come by the Havre Railway, cast your eye up to the right, within half a mile of the Paris terminus, and you may see a tremendous scar in the hillside. There the excavation for the Docks began, and ended as you see it-the grave of a gigantic scheme, and ten millions lie buried in it. ANOTHER fanciful bit of French justice we must not fail to bring to your notice, although it can hardly have escaped your Argus-eyed buccaneer of the Weekly. Monsieur (no matter what may have been his name), lived with wife and child-no matter where. The child was sick; the wife was pretty; the man was jealous. The father loved his child, as every father should, and was outraged to find his pretty wife preparing for a ball upon a night when the little one lay very ill of fever. He appealed to her affection-in vain. He appealed to her sense of duty-in vain. It was an old engagement; a new dress had come in for the occasion; the child could never suffer for a few hours of absence. the world; but other times, and most times, he is true to the quiet "spread" in his apartment au troisième, trotting that urchin on his knee, and strolling, perhaps, afterward with wife and child under the lindens of the Tuileries garden-possibly indulging himself, as the evening draws on, with a demi-tasse at the little Cafe du Jardin. You shall find, too, many a son of Parisian father keeping to the father's house after eighteenafter twenty-five even-not forgetting that respect they showed in boyhood, nor losing one whit of the father's tenderness or care; sitting together, going to the play together, bound up each in the other as, we think, rarely happens with American father and son. Shall we tell of an instance in point? Many years ago but not so long since as to have lost its horror in France-an excursion train of railway The husband grew obstinate; the wife (as wives do) grew more obstinate. He forbade her attend-carriages was burned between Versailles and Par ance. She vowed she would. "If madame leaves her home to-night, she leaves it forever," said the husband. Very likely the wife said, "Allons donc !" We do not know; we know only she went, and on her return found the doors closed upon her; not that night only, but the next day, and the next after; so long, that she made appeal to the court for reinstation in her home. And the decision of the court ran (and this is sober earnestness, however much it may sound like a joke), that a mother who would desert the sick-bed of her child for attendance at a ball, relinquished all the rights, in abandoning all the duties, of her home. Her complaint was denied. Are there no New York mothers (let us ask it sotto voce) who might stand in fear of French tribunals, if New York husbands were stern enough to drive them to such resort? All this may seem very odd to one educated in our American belief that French wifehood and husbandhood are only names for twin conveniences, and that all the home relations of the gay capital are refined by no affection, and ennobled by no sense of duty. But this is a monstrous error. Amidst all the splendid license which belongs to the Paris world, and which with its brilliance blinds the eyes of almost every foreign observer, there is below it, and back of it, and unseen by reason of it, very much calm and steady growth of all those domestic virtues which are so prized by men every where whose affections are strong, and by such women as recognize the weight and the depth of those affections. If there are families any where more lovingly knit together-parents to children, and children to parents-more sacred, quiet, devotional in their reciprocal tenderness, than many families in this Sodom-counted city, we have not had the good fortune to meet with them. That outsidedness and publicity of life which the new-come observer attributes to French habit, ignoring all domesticity, is, after all, but the street-shadow of strangers. In that pleasant cafe of the Poissonerie, where, last month, we took our readers for half an hour's out-look upon the movers in the scene, we should find most rarely a Parisian who can boast of wife or children. On some great fête day, indeed, he may come, bringing children, nurse, and bonne, and keep holiday in the streets and in the eye of is. The train was in motion, the wind was high, the carriage-doors were locked, and the miserable sufferers counted by hundreds. Among the victims were a father and a son-the father of middle age, the son of eighteen. Both escaped with their lives-the father only burned slightly; but the son lingered for a year in great suffering-a most pitiable object, seen by no one except his nurse, the father, and the physician-not conscious himself what horrible deformity the flames had marked him with-recovering strength slowly; not able to bear the light even after a twelvemonth--a wretched, disfigured shadow of a man, and never recovering his sight. The father retired to a little country house in the neighborhood of Paris, giving up all his hopes in life, save only the hope of softening the afflictions which pressed so fearfully on his son. funded such property as he held, and devoted his little income exclusively to the cheer of his boy. He They live together there now. The boy knows only the voice of his physician and father. He is content with these. He knows the horror his appearance would excite; he will not test any oldtime acquaintances so fearfully-indeed, he has forgotten them now. The father reads to himthe father brings rare birds that sing in his chamber-brings flowers whose perfume delights him. The father is growing gray, but the son does not know it; he seems young to him. There is little to measure the lapse of time; he is happy in the fullness of that devotion. So they live, within sound almost of the roar of the Paris world-a noiseless eddy under the bank-a little cabinetpiece in the great gallery of life, calling for no notice now, but bound to have some day of honor. Apropos of the French courts (out of my first mention of which all this matter has grown), this gentleman, in common with many other sufferers, instituted an action against the railway company for damages. The broken-hearted man desired money only for the sake of adding to the comforts of his miserable son; but no want of care could be proven on the part of the administrators of the road, or of their officials, and the claim was dismissed. By your leave, we will now step out of French court, and have our chat about the things of the hour. That sadly tedious Neufchatel affair is wearying every body. The first warm sympathy with the Swiss commonwealth is giving way to a vexatious "Let them settle it as they can." Indeed, we are disposed to believe that the Swiss character, and | furtherance of her ambitious projects, and take the the Swiss glory, is finest in the distance; they want jackal's share of the northern lion's spoils. Mont Blanc and a rosy row of peaks and needles Austrian Joseph declines. in the background to give them relief; they want magnificent perspective-such as you get from the Juras-looking straight away eastward, over the lake, and through the haze, and between the clouds. Then, what a country it is! But if you go down, and go in, and chaffer with the Swiss inn-keepers of L'Ecu, and eat your soup in a dirty post-house of Le Vallais, and see what roughness is in the Rhone Valley the hither-side of Martigny, and shudder at the goitres and crétins which dog you at Sion, its grandeur loses. Pert Mr. Kern, in the conference of Paris-if we watch him, and listen to him-takes away from the romantic admiration which we had for a brave little mountain Canton, shutting up the emissaries of a king and braving an august monarchy. Of course the matter will all be settled; and of course, being subject of conference, there must be the usual amount of circumlocution, and immense parchment protection to the honor, and dignity, and self-respect of all the contracting parties. But what shall we say about that noisier difference between Austria and Sardinia? It is the fashion, we observe from your papers, to throw all the blame in this matter upon the more despotic of the two States. It is natural enough, indeed, but hardly just. There are a great many Hotspurs about the Sardinian court, who, inflamed by the expedition to the East and by the alliance with England and France, have long been seeking a casus belli with Austria, or any motive for starting again the wheel of Italian revolt. They wish desperately to renew that old march to Milan. There is some strong Italian feeling at the bottom of these desires; there is a great deal of hot-headed ambition; somewhat of earnest, liberal thought; and more than all, of hearty Austrian hate. The low-lying revolutionists of Paris are, of course, all rejoicing in the present aspect of affairs; and if you go, about dusk, from the Rue Montesquieu through into the Palais Royal, you will see at the café tables you pass a most mirthful company of exiled Italians. Their haunt is thereabout, and their hopes are wonderfully brightened. The Western monarchs would have her join actively in a crusade against the north despot, and, if possible, shear him of some portion of his inheritance. Austrian Joseph declines. The Liberals would have him give up a half of his empire to the uncertain issues of revolution, or of struggling demagogues, without even an equivalent, or assurance that the release will not breed revolt in every State of Europe. Austrian Joseph declines. Is there any thing oddly despotic in this-any thing heathenish-beyond wearing the crown of Hapsburg? And if Mr. Fire-eater had been born to the same crown, would he have accepted hastily the advice of any Fire-eater, Junior? We think people on your side bear too hardly upon the Emperor Joseph. In all those essentials of humanity which call for respect, for affection, and esteem, he has shown himself far richer than the Emperor Louis Napoleon. Not so great a man, indeed, and not calling out so many vivats; but when he dies he will be thought of more tenderly and tearfully than ever the monarch of the 2d December. We shall say nothing about China and the China war, lest the fast-going clippers may have brought later news to you than we talk of in Paris. To tell truth, here, in the gay capital, we are not much interested in those far-away Orientals; we put them on the stage, and have a laugh at their queues, and wooden shoes, and lozenge eyes, and topple them over like China toys, and forget them. They don't at all enter into the life-thought of Parisians; connection is too remote; antagonism too great; there are no chemical affinities. The French talk of them as they talk of Struve's comet. No Chinaman talks French; the Pekin girls do not declare themselves in the present or past of aimer. How can a Frenchman fatigue himself with thought of them? WE dropped just now mention of a comet. Have you any fears of comets? Do you remember a lecture this Easy Chair read to you a year ago out of Dr. Cummings's text-to the effect that this world would be rolled up like a scroll some fine day next June? With respect to Austria and its Emperor, we believe they are just now suffering a great deal of unworthy reproach. They stand between the fire of Russia and the Liberals-cordially detested by both. They have refused assent to the claims of the great Despot; they have refused assent to the claims of the great Liberals. This may make cause for hate-but is it strange? Would any shrewd Government, bred to the conservative notions of Central Europe, and cherishing the instinct of self-lions of the day. What do you think of it? Is preservation, have acted one whit otherwise? Once admit the theory of government out of which the house of Hapsburg has grown, and by which it stands, and what more prudential and fitting action could the young Emperor have pursued than he has done in respect of the recent hostilities? Indeed, we suspect the young Joseph of being not only a very shrewd man, but a decided, a warmhearted, and well-thinking man. His charities have been larger, his pardons more numerous, his indulgences greater, both in Hungary and in Italy, than have been known to his house for a century. Russia would have him join hands with her in Well, June is coming, whatever may become of Cummings's coming of the Judgment. And there are comets in sight; and a world of people are straining their eyes each night to watch their progress. One is just now passing away from us, and another is approaching. The astronomers are the there a possibility of a strike? May not this extraordinary weather have some connection with it? Once, in Arago's time, there was a similar alarm, and people rushed to him to have their fears quieted. The old gentleman (though he knew no better than the feeblest what weapon might some day flame out of the hand of the Great Avenging angel), calmed them by his own composure. "Oh, it's all right," he would say; and would whisper his friends, "if the world gets on, they will think me a prophet; and if there's an end, I shall have this consolation-they can't attack me in the papers!" If any readers can not enjoy so good a joke as |