104 COMPARISON OF COTTON MANUFACTURES IN COTTON MILLS IN PARIS. In one of the cotton mills situated within the city of Paris, a steam engine of fourteen horse power, operating about seven thousand mule spindles, was made in England and delivered here for £1000. This cotton mill, un der the control of an Englishman, appeared in excellent order, and contained all the latest improvements in machinery adopted in England. The quality of the yarns spun here varies from forty to one hundred and twenty hanks to the pound, averaging about No. 80. The mules contained each three hundred and thirty-six spindles, two of which, containing six hundred and seventy-two spindles, are operated by one man and two girls. New-Orleans and Cuba cottons are consumed in this manufactory, with the Sea Island cotton. Power-looms are now just becoming generally introduced into France; The superintendant stated that the wages are only about ten per cent lower here than in Manchester, and the cost of coal for fuel about three times as dear. The mule spinners commonly earn from three and a half to five francs a day, and the women about twenty-six sous, or one dollar and fifty cents a week. The wages of a carpenter and mason are about four and a half francs a day, or eighty-four cents. It appears that the French workmen are not altogether so free from dissipated habits as has commonly been represented. I have heard, from manufacturers here, complaints of their irregularities. Although they are rarely seen to be intoxicated, or publicly addicted to brutal habits of intemperate drinking, like the Englishman over his beer, and like too many Americans over their rum, yet they often become excessively merry with their potations of wine, and sometimes indulge in stronger potations and PARIS AND IN ENGLAND. 105 in carousing, until their wages are expended, when they return to their labors. At a newly erected cotton mill which we visited, the machinery appeared of very ordinary construction, the frames of the machines being composed of wood instead of cast iron, and being deficient in that workmanlike, finished appearance, observable in the modern cotton mills of the United States, and of England. Judging from the best information I could obtain, the comparative advantages of the proprietor of a steam cotton manufactory in or near Paris over his English competitors are, in the aggregate, inconsiderable. The French manufacturer hires the laborers at prices from ten to fifteen per cent lower than is paid as wages to similar laborers in Manchester; whilst the price of coal for fuel for his steam engine and for other necessary operations, is thrice as dear; coal being sold here at about the same price, or perhaps rather higher than on the sea board of the United States. Water-power is more economically resorted to in many of the towns distant from Paris. Machinery is also more expensive, and less perfect than in England. Water is abundantly supplied to all the manufactories of Paris, by means of aqueducts, CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE. The burial ground of Pere la Chaise derives its name from a Jesuit, to whom the tract of about seventy acres of land once belonged. The entrance is ornamented by a lofty arch, and the whole cemetery is inclosed by a wall, Immediately on entering the gate, the visitant finds himself amid shrubbery and flowers. The monuments of the dead seem to be erected in gardens or pleasure grounds, where the dark green leaves and blossoms of many gay colors are intermingled with the snow-white marble, thus 106 A FRENCH BURIAL GROUND. affording an agreeable contrast to relieve the eye. Here and there a stately column or pyramid shoots up its summit above the foliage, exposed unshaded to the dazzling rays of a bright sun. Numerous more lowly monumental structures are half hid in the beds of roses planted around their base. The cemetery of Pere la Chaise is the fashionable burial place of a city, where every thing is governed by fashion. In the construction of the monuments, various styles are adopted, according to the wealth of the relatives of the deceased;-from the spacious marble mausoleum, built in the form of a Grecian temple, with the interior fitted up as a chapel, in which I saw altars erected, and images, and candle-sticks;-to the humble perishable wooden cross, and piece of board painted black and dotted with a few pear-shaped daubs of white paint. These little pictured devices I actually mistook for a sort of hieroglyphic emblem having some mystical reference to the pear. Upon enquiry, however, I learned that the design of thes rude sketches, is intended to represent falling tears, thus emblematically shed in sorrow over the grave. In several parts of the cemetery, small tracts are taken up and ornamented by those, who whilst alive seem to anticipate, with a romantic sentiment, a final repose beneath the bowers and beds of violets planted by their own hands, Even the watering pot forms not an unfrequent appendage to the little square of ground inclosed by iron rails or lattice-work of wood, and cultivated like flower gardens. At the foot of many of the mounds of sods, which heave their half rounded outlines above the greensward, are constructed seats screened from observation, and shaded by shrubbery, where they who have buried here a friend, may approach his remains, and sit unobserved beside them, to indulge in that deep meditation, which such a spot is so TOMBSTONES DECORATED WITH GARLANDS. 107 well calculated to inspire. Here, in the words of Montgomery, as in an appropriate place, "Pensive memory retraces Holds communion with the dead." It is common for surviving friends to decorate with chaplets of flowers the tombstones erected over the ashes of those they held dear, for many successive years on the anniversary of their death. When such an anniversary recurs during the winter, only such natural flowers can be used for this purpose as have been preserved by being dried. The never-fading amaranth and chresanthemum are then the offerings of flowers which are woven into garlands and suspended on the monuments, where they long continue to remain, waving in the breeze. These tributes of affection are not confined to the lately inhumed remains of the dead. A fresh garland of flowers I saw suspended upon one old monument, the inscription on which showed that it was in commemoration of the 34th anniversary of the death of him, who slept beneath it, that this new wreath was intertwined by the hands of an unforgetful friend. Many of the cold monumental stones remain naked and neglected, thus seemingly denoting that no friendly hand remains to deck them. To supply the demand for the chaplets of artificial flowers, shops are opened for the sale of them near the gate of the cemetery, at the price of a few sous each. Upon the sod over several of the graves, I noticed beautiful French porcelain vases, filled with bouquets of bright colored artificial flowers, which are protected for a long time from the injurious effects of the rain by oval glasses, of the same kind as those used for covering the similar vases of flowers and clocks, arranged to embellish the mantlepiece of a drawing room. Over the fresh earth of a new grave 108 PORCELAIN VASES, &c. PLACED ON GRAVES. I saw an oil cloth canopy stretched upon hoops, forming a little sheltered arch, like the head of a cradle. Beneath this canopy was a diminutive wax figure of the Virgin, and small pictures, and flowers, that resembled, from the minute arrangement of these articles, the petty details of a child's baby-house. Over another grave, upon one of the black crosses of wood, which Catholics are so fond of setting up where more imperishable materials cannot be afforded, was nailed a piece of white paper that attracted my attention from a distance. It proved to be a manuscript eulogy upon the loveliness of an only daughter, whose many virtues a doting father had inscribed upon this frail memorial. Thus exposed, the first shower would obliterate all traces of this effusion of parental love. It seemed to be all he had to bestow, and though an humbly written eulogy, it spoke the genuine language of the heart. Our guide conducted us over the grounds to the tombs of many distinguished men, whose names are familiarly known beyond the shores of the Atlantic. Here, hè observed, rest La Fontaine and Moliere,* near each other; and here, Hauy, the mineralogist, and Fourcroy, the chemist. Pointing to a little grassy inclosure, where no stone was perceptible above the smooth surface of the greensward to receive an inscription, he said, here lies Marshal Ney, "the brave among the brave." Upon one of the stones which serves to support the iron fence of the small inclosure, some friendly hand has rudely chiselled "Ney." His name, however, requires not the chisel of the sculptor to preserve it from oblivion on tablets of brass or marble. A portion of the burial ground is appropriated to the *It is stated that a profligate bishop of Paris denied to the remains of Moliere the usual rites of sepulture, on account of his profession as an actor, even after having been requested by Louis XIV. to allow to the greatest genius of the age a Christian burial. |