represent various ornaments in painting, sculpture, and architecture,
serve to employ a great number of people. Watches, cutlery, shoes,
dresses, bonnets, and jewellery, are also a good source of employment
among numerous families. All these beautiful things we shall see at
the Exhibition.

The forests, in France, are very extensive; and as wood is the general
fuel used, great attention is paid to the growth of the trees. Cattle
and domestic animals are rather scarce, and the sheep are ill-managed;
in winter, they are fed on straw and hay, instead of green food, so
that the French meat is not so good as the English; but they have a
nice way of dressing it. The country people are very simple in their
habits and manners, and very frugal in their way of living; they live
for the most part on black bread, garlic, fruit, and milk. The
costumes of some of the peasants are exceedingly pretty.

[Illustration]

What a many thousand contributions have come from foreign countries,
yet even a greater number have been sent in from all parts of our own
dear islands, England, Ireland, and Scotland. Here is a silver
tea-kettle, manufactured from a fourpenny-piece, by a working man. I
think that would grace the diminitive tea-table of the Emperor of the
Lilliputians. And a pair of boat-sculls, made of white ash, and only
the size of writing-pens, which I dare say, the oars of the King of
Blefuscan's barge resembled; these, with a magnificent oar, thirty-six
feet long, are intended as presents for His Royal Highness the Prince
of Wales.

Here is a scarf, containing twelve miles and a-half of thread, three