of either worth all the shell-fish that ever grew on the
French coast; and this Parisian sets up his sign in the midst of these
marine riches, with a 'ROCHER DE CANCALE!' No other nation could have been
guilty of such arrogance. No Englishman has ever had the temerity to
insult us with an allusion to his dirty 'natives.'

What would be thought of an American who should have the presumption to
open a House of Refreshment in the Rue St. Jacques or the Palais Royale,
and announce to the Parisians that he would serve up for them Prince's Bay
oysters, fried, stewed, roasted or in the shell; clam soup, pumpkin-pies,
waffles, hoe-cakes and slap-jacks, or mush-and-milk and buck-wheats? Would
the most inquisitive or most vulgar man in France venture within the doors
of a house where such barbarisms were perpetrated? But why not, Monsieur?
Why not, as well as for us to crowd the _salons_ of the Messieurs who
tempt us with their equally outlandish _carte a manger_, or who exclaim to
us when we enter:

'MON salon est toujours gami,
Et mon buffet bien assorti,
Ou vante mon chablis,
Mes huitres, mes radis,
Ainsi que raes salmis
De perdrix:

Mes godiveaux au ris;
Mes tourtes, mes hachis;
Fameux palis, gros et petits;
Boeuf au naturel, au coulis;
Papillotes,
Gibelotes,
Matelotes,
Fines compotes,' etc., etc.

Why should not we send over some of our JENNINGSES and STETSONS, our
BERGALEWS and DOWNINGS, to repay our French friends for their many favors,
and instruct them in the art of making pumpkin-pies and eating
canvass-back ducks? The French at present know little more about us than
that Doctor FRANKLIN made lightning-rods, and that COOPER writes Indian
novels. They eat nothing that we raise, they wear nothing that we make,
they adopt none of our fashions, they use none of our phrases. You would
look in vain in the _carte_ of any restaurateur in Paris for such
delicacies as apple-dumplings or corn-bread, and you might call in a
Parisian cafe until you were hoarse, for a 'cobbler' or a julep, without
getting either. Yet our uppish people will eat nothing, drink nothing,
wear nothing that is not French. We have been told of certain brokers in
Wall-street who import even their _desserts_ from Paris; not their
_deserts_, my friend, for the guillotine is the only French thing which we
don't imitate or import. No wine is fit for our tables without the prefix
o