able of
fulfilling the duties of such an office, as besides his extreme civility
and attention to all applicants, he speaks many different languages, as
French, English, Spanish, Italian, etc. The boats for which he is agent
proceed from Dunkirk to St. Petersburg, touching direct at Copenhagen,
and privileged by the Emperor of Russia; the passage is effected in 6 or
7 days. Dunkirk to Hamburg in 36 or 40 hours, corresponding with all the
steamers on the Baltic and the Elbe. Dunkirk to Rotterdam in 10 or 12
hours, communicating with all the navigation upon the Rhine. Boulogne to
London by the Commercial Steam Company. Antwerp to New York, touching at
Southampton; Marseilles to Nice, Genoa, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia, Naples,
Sicily, Malta and the Levant, by the steamers of the Neapolitan Company.
The above vessels are fitted up in the most efficient and solid manner,
with English machinery. At Lyons there is a corresponding office for the
navigation of the interior, held by Messrs. Jackson, Dufour, and Comp.,
No. 7, Quai St. Clair. M. Chateauneuf is very obliging in explaining all
the details of the different tarifs of the custom duties of the various
countries with which the steamers communicate.

A very great convenience exists in Paris, which I think much wanted in
London, and that is what are termed Cabinets de Lecture, where you may
read all the principal papers and periodical pamphlets for the small
expense of 3 sous; some are higher, where English newspapers are taken,
when the price is five sous; they are mostly circulating libraries at
the same time. But those who wish to see all or the greater part of the
London and some provincial and foreign papers, will find them at
Galignani's, and at an English reading room established in the Rue
Neuve St. Augustin, No. 55, near the Rue de la Paix; at both these
establishments the admittance is ten sous. The only English newspaper at
present published in Paris is by Galignani, which contains extracts
judiciously selected from the French and English papers, besides other
useful information.

The investment of capital in land in France will rarely produce more
than 31/2 per cent and very frequently less; in the purchase of houses in
Paris 5 or 51/2, sometimes 6, is obtained; in the funds about 41/2. Numbers
of persons in France place their money on _hypotheque_, or mortgage, by
which they make 5 per cent; the affair is arranged by means of a
_notaire_, but often the most lucra