im, for the one was his friend and the other the ocean caused the long silent ship to lazily and • Whereupon the priest, ceasing his prayers, gently sway to and fro, and the barely audible siraculously contriving to raise himself half creaking of the rudder, and the soft flapping of the

the water whilst he spoke, uttered a terrible ghostly canvas overhead, seemed to make a kind of on the captain and ship, including the crew music in the dark air, which did not disturb, but malediction, because they watched him from added, as it were, to the prevailing silence. le of the vessel without volunteering any as- I walked up and down the deck for some time, ce. When he had ceased speaking, he sank, then went and seated myself aft upon one of the ose no more.

hencoops, near the wheel. The man had released it ship, do what it will, can never pass the lati- | his grasp of the spokes, and was standing with his of four degrees on either side the Line. She is hands in his pockets alongside of it. Holding it only at night. She passes close to vessels, but was of no use ; it stood without a stir. I drew a h the men may be seen working on deck, she cigar from my pocket, and began to smoke. As I veloped in a. death-like stillness. The water threw away the flaming fusee, the man at the wheel s no noise as it ripples against her side. The said, are ghosts, and their skeleton hands pull phan- “May I go for’ard, sir, to get a chew o' baccy ? ropes. The stars can be seen shining through The wheel 'll hold on by itself until I come back.” ossamer sails, and her cabins are without light. I perceived that this was the case, and anbodes no good to any vessel to meet that ship. Tswered — e had succeeded in crossing the Line, and were “Yes, you may go. But don't be long gone." titude three degrees south. All the morning we The man walked forward, and I continued smokbeen hard at work in trying to catch the faint airs ing. Although a sailor, I must plead guilty to

lazily moved the sails just enough to give the fancies which, be they what they may, poetic or not, el steerage way. The afternoon wore away, and I must, in justice to mariners in general, confess will zun sank beneath the horizon, enveloped in the not often be found amongst them. It was always dless splendor only to be witnessed in the tropics. my delight, on such a night as this of which I am now

rushed the stars, and night settled upon the writing, to seat myself in some sequestered part of in with a sudden and solemn hush. With the the deck, and, gazing out into the blue darkness that kness the faint air, which had been sufficiently enveloped the slumbering, star-lit ocean, imagine dy for a few hours, and which we had hoped the presence of strange shapes hovering over the uld carry us on through the night, died away, and water, and calling to each other in tones that came ship lay becalmed.

through the darkness like the hollow echo of waves n merchant ships it is generally the custom for rolling into some distant cavern. My imagination

chief mate to take charge of the port, and the was at times so vivid as positively to realize to myond mate the starboard watch. I had to come self the fantastic creations with which I thronged deck at eight bells, twelve o'clock at night, until the dark ocean air. Leaning my elbow on the rail r in the morning, which is called at sea the mid-running along the ship's side, I bowed my head -watch. At the expiration, therefore, of the sec- upon my hand, and, with my cigar alight in my i dog-watch I retired to my cabin, and, throwing mouth, yielded myself up to my favorite indulgence self upon my cot, slept away the four hours that of thinking strange things. re allowed me for repose.

Two minutes could hardly have elapsed since the On coming upon deck, I found the ship still be- man had left the wheel, when I distinctly heard a huImed. The yards were squared, the mainsail man voice hail the ship from under the stern. I started, uled up, and all three royals furled.

then, jumping to my feet, unhesitatingly approached “ My watch has had a spell of it since eight the taffrail, and looked over. My thoughts, from ;lock, Mr. Burns," said the chief mate to me before their imaginative tendency, were so in harmony aving the deck. "If I were you I'd serve the with the sound of a human voice thus uttered, that I urboard watch the same, - that's to say if the mighit have deemed it for a'moment a freak of fancy. ipper don't come up.”

Yet the undoubting manner in which I responded " I hope he won't," I answered. “I've heard the to the call proved that the voice must have had en grumbling a good deal about the continuance something very real about it. The captain's gig,

their work. I won't touch the yards for a cat's which hung over the stern, prevented me from seeaw. There's a dead calm on now, at all events, ing at once into the water; I had to go to the quarnd it looks as if it meant to last, too, don't it?" ter and look over. For some moments I could see

“ Yes. I hope it may for your sake. Good nothing. The face of the sea on all sides, dark as it ight." He went away, and I turned to pace the was, was rendered yet darker just under the ship's eck. With the exception of the man at the wheel, counter by the shadow thrown by the vessel." I ne on the lookout on the forecastle, and myself, shouted, " Who's there?” My first impression was lobody was visible. When a ship is becalmed as that some one had fallen overboard, and I expected ve were, the watch just comes on deck to answer to be answered by the bubbling cry of a drowning he muster-roll, and then returns below. Of course, man. My hand instinctively grasped a life-preserver his is not supposed to be; but the boatswain's mate affixed by lanyards to each quarter of the ship, and s on the alert to pipe them up when they are wanted, I thrust my other hand into my pocket for a knife. and is, indeed, in a measure responsible for their A low, strange laugh immediately beneath caused appearance. But when there is nothing to be done, me to utter an involuntary ejaculation of horror. I and when the weather is as fine as it was in the never heard a sound so mocking, so unnatural, so present instance, the poor fellows may just as well startling, so weird. Immediately after, the same be below as on deck.

| voice cried out in French, — It was one of the calmest nights I ever remember! “What ship's that ? ” having seen at sea. The skies were studded with I answered, those big, lustrous stars which beam so dewily down! « The Ann Page." through the tropical midnights. The faint swell of As I spoke, I observed a phosphorescent glitter

he sea. Yet when I withdrew my telescope their reports in one thick volume; and a most inay eyes I could no longer perceive the shadow. teresting volume it is; showing what impression only visible now through the glass. I stamped French life, French manners, and French industries iently with my foot, urging my men on to made on the unadulterated British intellect, and Tuman efforts. I sat down, thinking that pos- how far the insular workman considered himself invould accelerate the movements of my boat. ferior or superior to his Continental rival.

I remembered we were leaving the ship a long! The reports are also interesting as a study of Yehind, and that, if a breeze should spring up, character in their various treatment of the subject ight lose her. I once again rose to my feet in hand. Some are pictorial, taking in the outside ooked ahead with my telescope

aspect of things, and detailing personal doings and ar minutes bad elapsed since I had last used it. adventures ; others are technical, dealing only with I could perceive nothing but the darkling sur the method of the special manufacture; some are f the ocean.

critical ; others are statistical; some show that the th an oath which I could not restrain, I gave authors thought more of themselves, and how they ord of command, and my men paused on their were doing their work, rather than of the work

I put the boat's head around in the direction itself, and others show exactly the reverse. Some,

I suspected our ship to lie. She was not to again, are enthusiastic about everything. The en with the naked vision, but I fancied I could charm and spell of novelty was on their writers. . rn a dark spot through the glass on the horizon, The pretty, odd, theatrical life of Paris when seen : steered towards it. A few moments after this for the first time, the white caps of the women, the spot sent up a rocket, and then a brilliant blue blue blouses of the working-men, the clear air and was burned. The captain had evidently got absence of "blacks,” the pleasantly showy cafés in ied at our absence. We lay bravely to our place of our hideously brilliant gin-shops, the out

and in about a quarter of an hour were along- ward gayety and good temper and courteous little the ship.

forms of politeness, the individual freedom mixed was certainly fortunate for me that others had with that peculiar public discipline which at first this mysterious boat and its occupants besides sight seems the very ideal of good government, - all :lf, or I should have been laughed at as a was as delightful to certain of the more genial sort mer for the remainder of the voyage. I con- as it was to us when we first went over; and it that it has always been an enigma to me, at the takes us back to the freshness of our own early ion of which I have never been able to arrive. pleasure in French life to read the boyish delight of rever, I have related the incident exactly as it some among them. But all were not equally rred to me, and I will not venture to offer any charmed. Some disliked the Sunday gayety; othments upon it. The witnesses who might helpers disliked so much gayety generally, and thought to authenticate this remarkable circumstance the men frivolous and childish who could find amusedispersed ; -one only bave I since met. He was ment in puerile pleasures; others, again, contrasted ime in the boat, and when I encountered him the orderliness and innocence of the French fêtes le East India Docks I recalled the incident to with the brutal sottishness of London junketings, mind. It had not left upon him half the im- and gave the palm to the Gaul. All liked the Consion that it had left upon me. He swore, bow-seil des Prud'hommes; all liked the liberal opening ·, that he had never been able to make head or of the museums, &c. to the working-classes, and the

of the matter; but he was quite certain it care taken of the workman's education; some liked ld n't have been a ghost, although Jim Rogers the mode of life, the brightness and movement of s was the man who had been at the wheel at the the Boulevards, and the family gatherings in the e) persisted in declaring that it was one of the open air; others thought there was no family life in ds of the Spanish ship sent out by her skipper the nation, – taking home to mean the four walls ee whether we were inclined to give him a tow which enclose one's pots and pans. “From what I of the Doldrums.

saw of the French nation," says one, with a grave Se this as it may, it remains a mystery that adds oddness of phrase very expressive, “ I consider that h significance to the trite though pregnant truth, their mode of life is peculiarly foreign to the Engt there are more things in heaven and earth lish mind. They appear remarkably fond of imbibn are dreamt of in our philosophy.”

ing their favorite wines while exposing themselves to the public gaze.” All liked the clean and tidy

look of the working-women, and compared it with ENGLISH EYES ON FRENCII WORK.

the dragging trains and second-hand finery of their Last year the council of the Society of Arts de- own wives and daughters. The short dress carried mined that a certain number of skilled artisans it invariably over the limp, long, petticoat; and the uld be sent over to Paris to study the produc- white cap carried it over the dirty, battered, and ns of their various trades in the Exposition there. tawdry bonnet. All the men were pleasantly ime committee of Council on Education offered the pressed by the self-respect, the order, the equality, ciety five hundred pounds for the purpose, pro- of the workshops; to find the men and foremen led an equal sum was raised by voluntary contri- alike in the blouse, with no difference of costume to tion. What was raised was exactly sixpence mark the minute differences in grade to which we der a thousand and forty pounds : which enabled attach so much importance, but all content to apout eighty workmen to visit the Exposition and pear of the “ wages class." write reports on what they saw. The men were. The most enthusiastic admirer of French ways credited to M. Haussoullier, who had been ap- and modes is the writer who leads off the rest, inted by the commissioners to the charge of the Mr. Hooper, a cabinet-maker, - and his paper is ritish workman's hall in the Exhibition building ; certainly the most graphic and pictorial. It is a d M. Fouché, an artisan member of the Conseil charming sketch, and would do honor to a practised s Prud'hommes, attended them as guide and in- hand; yet Mr. Hooper says of himself that this was rpreter. The Society of Arts have published the first fortnight's holiday he had ever had, and that he had known little else than toil from his of keeping the sash togeche

boyhood, working at a bench not less than ten hours it. The frame looked well

. per day in a dismal, dirty, unhealthy workshop " : when I examined the tences

: - not exactly the kind of life for acquiring a good were so badly fitted that the 2 method either of observation or narration. But if would have been of any sze.

7 : his paper stand out as the most observant and pic- His chisels were made like RSUS torial, there are others which are as thoughtful, or ship-carpenters' calking-irons. He -and of even a more refined tone of criticism. “ The very diligently, but the interpreter. V : art of wood-carving," says Mr. Baker, "may be me he was a blacksmith. He as much said to begin at the rudest notching and terminate gress, his tools being badly adaptat . in the noblest thoughts, expressed in the most beau- he was executing. I found then that the tiful forms." Mr. Wilson, a cutler, quotes Chaucer fitted all the locks and hinges on the corr and Rabelais, and knows all about the famous Da- &c., which in a measure accounted tee . mascus blades ; throughout, one is struck by the cient and clumsy nature of their INRZ ** comparatively extensive reading and the justness the different buildings in Paris The - 1 of observation of men toiling painfully at their life's all box-locks, and badly made. The labor for daily wages.

likewise bad, and of ancient design As a cabinet-maker stands at the head of the list, Which graphic account lets us . Gizle we will take cabinet-making first. All the workers secret of French door and windows in this trade who have written on what they saw | There was a magnificently carved osk agree in two statements: first, that the French staircase from Belgium in the Exposition wood-carvings are infinitely superior to our own; of us who went there must remember. Db second, that their rough or carcass work is just as was lovely, but the joiner's work was inferior. "I saw carvings that seemed to me to be and unfinished. The scarf joints of the . impossible to have been done with tools, but must were made the wrong end up. so that ifhave grown into shape and form, they were so deli- possessor of that grand bit of carving ere cate and chaste," says Mr. Hooper. But he adds hand rapidly down the rail in descending soon after that the carcass work is not so well done he will probably get a few splinters in E as ours; that our dovetailing and drawer work is sensation which will be more exciting their neater; that they have more jointing than we have, able," says the critic. Some of the most a as the stuff they use in carcass work is very narrow carvings, or what appeared to be carving and hard, whereas we use wide, soft pine. A sec | Latry, were made of pigs' blood and disond witness, or rather two in one, Messrs. Hughes pressed in a steel mould; and some that loni and Prior, are even more explicit as to the demerits wrought ebony were only of common woodof the rough work. They say that carpentry is and ebonized. One witness objects to the gradually falling into disuse in Paris, in consequence made of the scraper and glass-paper for fins of the substitution of iron for wood, and that such but another - our old friend, Mr. Hooper specimens of work by French joiners as they saw of this as a characteristic excellence, becane were mostly of a very rude kind. Their partitions ing the cleanliness of the French work. Txwere made of rough and crooked scantling, which net-making firms are specially mentioned any English surveyor would have condemned ; their reports; the one is that of M. Fourdinas joists were placed at irregular intervals, and as if seems to have been taken in some sense as a laid, at random by laborers, instead of being fixed the trade, and the other that of M. Racault in: by mechanics ; their floors were tongued together, to which is ascribed what honor there may • and made of boards of any length, so that often the having begun the revolution of '48. board was joined half-way between the joists, with The firm of Racault is a very large one er: no more security than that given by a narrow ing from five to six hundred hands in all, and wooden tongue and a support underneath ; there the men, discontented at the high price of was apparently no knowledge how to wedge up a and the lowness of wages, struck and made 3 *** piece of framework; and in consequence of certain motion, which increased until it swelled in technical mistakes in workmanship the doors in revolution which cost Louis Philippe his crown Paris almost invariably drop on the outside edge. gave France King Stork in place of King !

Is it not a common complaint that not a door or - Cabinet-makers," says Mr. Hooper, " I find window in France will shut properly? That is the worst paid men in France, as at home, am: because they pin their teaons instead of carrying ing four to six francs per day; carvers and other them up through the stiles, and wedging up the frame sterers, six francs; women, two and a half frak" as we should do. To obviate this dropping of the They work ten hours a day, piece-work, bene frame in the New Opera House, the sashes are at six and leaving at half past five; but they are strengthened and disfigured by iron squares screwed not work so hard as the English, taking. lite, on the angles. Another joiner, Mr. Kay, says easily, and mingling more pleasure with their lite that at the Palais de Justice "the joinery is being In general they are paid only once a fort fixed in the style that was constructed in North which includes Sunday work as well; and which Britain in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries." | by no means an enviable mode of paying Works The first joiner that attracted my attention was a men's wages. smart-looking and active man, about twenty-five! After the cabinet-makers come the worker years of age. lle was employed fixing iron plates, glass and pottery, of whom the first spokesman, forming three sides of a square, on the top and Green, is a “ceramic decorator.” “Disclaiming bottom of some oak casement sashes, the cen- | pretensions to learning, I write as a working tre piece being two inches longer than the rails, the on the executive or manipulative part of decoracuna two sides of the iron plates being one foot six inches only," he says modestly, "leaving schools and long by one and a quarter inches, and sunk level of art to be treated by writers of far higher a with the rails and stiles of the cash for the purpose ment.” But he writes like an educated man

and uses all the artists' terms with judgment | process; and in our last exhibition in '62 there was I propriety. He speaks of the Sèvres manufac- some Taranaki steel of first-rate quality. Some of

as offering a comparatively new method of the French mining and manufacturing proprietors oration to Englishmen, namely, “ painting in exhibited plans and models of their works and y in a state of what is technically called slip on schools, but there were no such things from England.

raw or unfired colored body of the article, gen- But this is wandering from the special subject, lly of celadon, sage-green, or stone color,” flow- which was pottery.

figures of birds, flowers, grasses, &c., “ usually Shropshire clays and English earthenware are ch a freedom, truth, and grace most refreshing to both as good of their kind as can be. Wedgewood holă, some parts of the decoration standing out in puts good figures on inferior substance, but the oh bold relief as to require the aid of the model. painting of birds and foliage on the French jars and g tool in addition to the painter's touch.” But jardinières is excellent. is not deterred or daunted by even such a name The superiority of French art in high-class orna

the Sèvres manufactory. We have improved, mentation is very obvious. As long as we confine says, heartsomely; and with a distinct recollec- ourselves to geometrical forms in hammering, presson of his dejection in 1851 at the inferiority of the ing, turning at the lathes, or painting on the sur'itish potter, he left the Exposition of 1867 with face, we have no difficulty in holding our own; but Feelings nearly akin to pride, - certainly with con- when any originality of thought is wanted, or the lence and hope for the future.” Minton's china free educated hand in decoration, our deficiency

to him better than any foreign pottery; and of becomes apparent. The Sèvres process of produe Limoges enamels sent by that firm, he says they cing white subjects in relief on celadon grounds is ce “ clear, soft, and bright.” He speaks of the use kept a profound secret; and though our workmen

ormolu as an artistic aid but not technical excel- went over the Imperial Manufactory, and were ence; and one not used by English potters, who courteously shown everything else, they were not lways conscientiously meet their difficulties. allowed to see this part of the works. It is kept a

Another worker in clay, Mr. Beadmore, is also secret from even M. Gille's men. The difference pposed to the introduction of metal with porcelain between pâte tendre and pâte dur — it is Mr. Rans to the imitation of malachite. He, too, is strongly dall who is still speaking — consists in the glaze : or Minton, and says that his ware is real pottery, “ On one the glaze is incorporated with the body of but that in foreign ware you find “ wings without the paste, and allows the colors to sink during the eathers, snakes without scales." In encaustic tiles, firing, so that they appear soft and mellow; on the Ir. Cooper, an encaustic tile-maker, says the Eng- other the glaze is so hard that the colors remain ish are superior to the foreigner. He advises highly upon the surface, and have a dusky look. The vitrified surfaces for pavements, as less liable to quantity and quality of the glaze on all china manzbrade by wear and tear. Michael Angelo Pulham ufactured here (in France) prior to the great revoaas his word on terra-cotta. The English are first, lution was such that the whole surface, including ind next to them the Prussians, who have a good the colors, might be denuded, yet, upon putting the warm color in their work; the French make theirs piece through the kiln, it would come out reglazed.” too light in tint, unless painted; and painting takes This writer's opinion is that the true pâte tendre away the character, while the bloom or tint of color bas not been made since the times of Louis the gives richness. The Italian terra-cotta has not been Fifteenth and Sixteenth, and that the nearest burnt long enough; the Algerian is poor. The best approach to it was that made at Nantgarw, about terra-cotta workmen can make twelve shillings a forty years ago, and which now fetches old Sèvres day, - a moderate worker can make eight shillings prices. From what he saw he believes that both a day; this is for piece-work of ten bours' duration. were fritt bodies, – that is, bodies, the materials of Women get one and tbreepence a day, and some which are first mixed, then fired, and, lastly, ground men only half-a-crown. About five hundred hands up into clay. The result of which is that they have are employed in the fifty or sixty pottery and terra- a vitrified appearance throughout. It was, therefore, cotta works in Paris ; that is, four hundred and a paste, and had absorbed a considerable quantity twenty men, forty women, and forty boys. Only of glaze, which became fully incorporated with it, four manufactories have steam-engines to mix and and which it again gave out in the enamelling kiln. grind the stuff'; by which, consequently, a large Old Sèvres and Nantgarw china have a yellow amount of labor that could be prevented is expend- waxy tint and texture, unlike anything found in the ed to no good and to great pecuniary loss.

present day. The expense of making it ruined the " • Iron,” says Mr. Randall, quoting Francis Nantgarw proprietors, and the cost and risk arising Horner, " is the soul of every other manufacture, from its liability to crack in the kiln have deterred and the mainspring of civilized society.' It forms others from making it in England. Old pieces of the greatest gun, the heaviest shot, the longest rope, Sèvres slightly painted are greedily bought by the sharpest lancet, the most powerful and the most certain of the enterprising sort; the slight sprigs delicate machinery." The French, once so far be- are taken off by fluoric acid, and the piece is elabhind us, are now making rapid strides towards the orately painted and regilt, the sharp touch of the same point of perfection that we have attained. It chaser being taken off by the hand, and made to is about sixty or seventy years since William and look old and worn by being rubbed with a greasy John Wilkinson first introduced coal into France rag. Plates bought for half a guinea when treated for the purpose of iron-making, and now there are in this manner are sold from five to ten guineas. such works as those of Creusot, which alone employ Mr. Randall says that he has seen his own paintings ten thousand men, and turn out one hundred and on old Sèvres at noblemen's houses, which have been ten thousand tons of metal annually. A new steel bought for the real thing; and Mr. Rose, of the from the works at Charente was exhibited in the Ex-Coalport Works, once bought for old Sèvres a pair position, and got the gold medal; and the Sheffield of bis own vases, wbich had been taken from the Atlas Works had also a new steel highly spoken of works when white, and painted up for the Sèvres Austria and Sweden have adopted the Bessemer market. The pâte tendre scratches easily, and the