pleasures; are supremely delightful. For
fivepence a head, we have on those occasions
donkey races with English "Jokeis," and
other rustic sports; lotteries for toys; round-
abouts, dancing ou the grass to the music of
an admirable band, fire-balloons, and fire-
works. Further, almost every week all
through the summer never mind, now, on
what day of the week there is a fête
in some adjoining village (called in that
part of the country a Ducasse), where
the people—really the people— dance on the
green turf in the open air, round a little
orchestra, that seems itself to dance, there is
such an airy motion of flags and streamers all
about it. And we do not suppose that between
the Torrid Zone and the North Pole there are
to be found male dancers with such astonishingly
loose legs, furnished with so many
joints in wrong places, utterly unknown to
Professor Owen, as those who here disport
themselves. Sometimes, the fete appertains
to a particular trade; you will see
among the cheerful young women at the
joint Ducasse of the milliners and tailors,a
wholesome knowledge of the art of making
common and cheap things uncommon and
pretty, by good sense and good taste, that is
a practical lesson to any rank of society in a
whole island we could mention. The oddest
feature of these agreeable scenes is the ever-
lasting Roundabout (we preserve an English)
word wherever we can, as we are writing the
English language), on the wooden horses of
which machine grown-up people of all ages
are wound round and round with the utmost
solemnity, while the proprietor's wife grinds
an organ, capable of only one tune, in the
centre.

As to the boarding-houses of our French
watering-place, they are Legion, and would
require a distinct treatise. It is not without
a sentiment of national pride that we believe
them to contain more bores from the shores
of Albion than all the clubs in London. As
you walk timidly in their neighbourhood, the
very neckcloths and hats of your elderly
compatriots cry to you from the stones of the
streets, "We are Bores— avoid us!" We
have never overheard at street corners such
lunatic scraps of political and social discussion
as among these dear countrymen of ours.
They believe everything that is impossible
and nothing that is true. They carry rumours,
and ask questions, and make corrections and
improvements on one another, staggering to
the human intellect. And they are for ever
rushing into the English library, propounding
such incomprehensible paradoxes to the fair
mistress of that establishment, that we beg to
recommend her to her Majesty's gracious
consideration as a fit object for a pension.

The English form a considerable part of
the population of our French watering-place,
and are deservedly addressed and respected
in many ways. Some of the surface-addresses
to them are odd enough, as when a laundress
puts a placard outside her house announcing
her possession of that curious British instrument,
a "Mingle;" or when a tavern-keeper
provides accommodation for the celebrated
English game of "Nokemdon." But, to us,
it is not the least pleasant feature of our
French watering-place that a long and constant
fusion of the two great nations there,
has taught each to like the other, and to learn
from the other, and to rise superior to the
absurd prejudices that have lingered among
the weak and ignorant in both countries
equally.

Drumming and trumpeting of course go
on for ever in our French watering-place.
Flag-flying is at a premium, too; but, we
cheerfully avow that we consider a flag a very
pretty object, and that we take such
outward signs of innocent liveliness to our heart
of hearts. The people, in the town and in
the country, are a busy people who work hard;
they are sober, temperate, good-humoured,
light-hearted, and generally remarkable for
their engaging manners. Few just men, not
immoderately bilious, could see them in their
recreations without very much respecting the
character that is so easily, so harmlessly, and
so simply, pleased.

THE HOME OFFICE.

We intend to give, in the way of an
occasional sketch, a plain account of the manner
in which the government business of this
country is transacted.

Our Home Administration is presided over
in these days by one of the four principal
Secretaries of state. The pffice of Home
Minister is but a young one; indeed, the
Secretaries of State have all come into
existence since the revolution of sixteen hundred
and eighty-eight. Before that event our
monarchs not only reigned, but governed;
their advisers were made responsible for acts
of government, but they were acts conforming
strictly to the royal will. The King was
advised only by his Privy Council. The Cabinet
—which was the name given to a committee
chosen from the Privy Council— gradually
came to be substituted for the entire body, in
transacting government business. The King's
secretary acted as the Privy Council's clerk,
but had no authority to do more than obey
the orders he received from those to whom he
was a servant. After the Cabinet had been
formed out of the Council, the office of
secretary became naturally more important,
and it soon happened that next to the Lord
Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer he was
ranked as one of the chief officers of state.

After the revolution, public business increased,
and two Secretaries of State were
appointed, between whom the work of the
world, so far as England had part in it, was
divided: one being secretary for the northern
half of the globe: the other for the southern.
To the northern department belonged not only