here are some callings, indeed, wholly untouched by a crisis. The
manufacture of street gas goes on, for example, without any change.
There are others that are even benefited by a revolution. After the last
revolution, while other trades were turning away men to whom there was no
longer work to give, the trades concerned in providing military equipment
were taking on fresh hands. To that class in Paris, and to that only,
there was an increase of business in eighteen hundred and forty-eight to
the extent of twenty-nine per cent. The decrease of business among the
printers, although few books were printed, did not amount to more than
twenty-seven per cent., in consequence of the increased demand for
proclamations, handbills, and manifestoes.

Without any extra crisis, men working in all trades have trouble enough
to get over the mere natural checks upon industry, which come to most
tradesmen twice a year in the shape of the dead seasons. Every month is
a dead season to some trade; but the dead seasons which prevail over the
largest number of workmen in Paris are the two months, July and August,
in summer, and the two months, January and February, in winter. The dead
season of summer is the more decided of the two. The periods of greatest
activity, on the other hand, are the two months, April and May, and next
to those the months, October and November. Printers are busiest in
winter, builders are busiest in summer--so there are exceptions to the
rule; but, except those who provide certain requisites for eating and
drinking which are in continual demand, there are few workmen in Paris or
elsewhere in France, who have not every year quite enough slack time to
perplex them. They can ill afford the interference of any small crisis
in the shape of a strike, or large crisis in the shape of a national
tumult.

Finally, let me say that the French workman, take him all in all, is
certainly a clever fellow. He is fond of Saint Monday, "solidarity," and
shows; but is quickwitted at his work, and furiously energetic when there
is any strong call made upon his industry. In the most debased form he
has much more vigour and vivacity than the most debased of English
operatives. He may be more immoral; but he is less brutish. If we are a
little vain, and very fond of gaiety; and if we are improvident, we are
not idle; and, with all our street fighting, we are not a discontented
race. Except an Arab, who can be so happy as we