thought, for the wants of other public vinces especially became a source of great much of the public spoil in so short a emolument. The applicant usually depos- time. There was no consideration, they ited a sum of money varying from half a conto to one or two contos, in the hands of a third party, a certain shopkeeper, generally of the Cabral party, living in the Roçio. The greater portion of this money in all probability went into the hands of the subordinates; but the disbursers were left to presume that if not all, at least the greater portion, went into the hands of the minister, or his brother and colleague. These suspicions, well or ill-founded, acquired unfortunately strong confirmation from the sudden possession of great wealth on the part of the two ministers. In 1842, when Antonio Cabral came into power, he was The president of the Council of Minisin indigent circumstances, his salary being ters and minister-of-war, the Duke of Terhis only means of subsistence, as he him- ceira, a soldier of fortune, or rather a forself publicly declared in the Cortes. His tunate soldier, thought it consistent with his brother was still worse off then, but now honor to sit in the same cabinet with two both are rich, possessed of lands, houses, such colleagues; and incapable himself of and public securities. The ex-minister of making money by any indirection,' he satthe interior is the proprietor of a castle at isfied his conscience by maintaining the Thomar, a palace in Lisbon, and all the Cabrals in power without ever affording luxurious requisites of a vast establishment. their integrity a good word in private. The creation of the bubble companies, The duke is not the wisest man in the the nature of the terms entered into with world, nor the most wealthy, but he needs the public contractors, the necessary ex- money, and loves to live well, and so long penses of a government bayoneted up by a as he got 'pintos' for his honorable serlarge military force, increased heavily the vices, it mattered not to him how or charges on the treasury (in four years they whence they came. He rendered the queen exceeded the revenue by 8000 contos). It good service, and has had the rare felicity was necessary not only to increase tax- of experiencing gratitude for his adhesion ation, but to create new places, payable by to the cause of the Restoration. fees, for the unfortunate supporters of gov- duke has the merit of having more than ernment, especially for those by whose once checked his colleagues in headlong agency the late elections had been carried courses of violence against their political at the point of the bayonet, and at a large opponents. expense both of blood and money. Hence came into operation the new system of taxation and the health law, the immediate cause of the recent rebellion. It is to be observed that the law in question was one of the thirteen signal violations of the charter, inasmuch as it was enacted, not by the legislature, but by royal ordinance, during one of the periods of the acknowledgea dictatorship of Senhor Costa,Cabral. The men who bought their places in the provinces, or obtained them for such services as we have alluded to, thought only of turning them to the best account in the shortest possible time; for every body of common sense foresaw the result of this regime of violence and venality. It was not in the nature of things that it could last. The very hottest of the partisans of the Cabrals hated them for acquiring so The The Minister of the Marine, Senhor Falcao, like the Duke of Terceira, came into power with the reputation of an honest man. He was a very poor one, the son of a sailmaker of Lisbon, and had risen suddenly from a very humble position. He filled the situation of a clerk for many years in a merchant's office in Lisbon, obtained a clerkship in the marine department, rose to the rank in it of official mayor, and eventually to that of minister. With his 7501. a year salary he has however contrived to purchase a palace and a small estate, and to keep a handsome equipage. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senhor Castro, has never been charged with venality. His political virtue is of a very easy kind however. He has never opposed his colleagues in any acts of violence or illegality, but has continually lent himself to the deception practised on the public by had ever such strong and sincere support fraudulent expositions of the state of the from the court; no representations against it finances, and has used his official station were listened to. The king, who acts for for private speculations in the funds, which the sovereign as he is directed to do by his have been moderately fortunate. This gen- former tutor and present councillor, the tleman, a few years ago, kept a small retail German Dietz, seems to have thrown himshop in Oporto. He is a man of some self and the interests of the crown wholly talent, a great deal of astuteness and flex- into the hands of the Cabrals. ibility of principle. It is a matter of general notoriety that His colleague of the finance department, the king came to Portugal accompanied by Count Tojal, the son of a physician of Dom this German gentleman, and has retained John VI., is one of those public men of him in the palace ever since. Strong easy virtue, who never themselves commit objections were raised to this foreigner reany egregious acts of barefaced venality maining in the country, and about the and corruption, but who wink at their com- person of the king, exercising great inmission while they pursue their own less fluence, and entertaining very strong feelless flagitious schemes for acquiring riches ings of dislike to the Portuguese nation, The count is possessed of considerable which he took little trouble to conceal, and wealth. About twenty years ago, as plain still stronger dislike to the form of governJohn Oliveira, a wine-merchant and after- ment given to the nation by the father of wards a stock-broker, not very successful, the sovereign. He occupied no ostensibly he was well known in London and on the political situation at court, but he disstock-exchange. He came into office with charged the duties of a councillor to the some property inherited from his uncles, it king, a tutor to the young princes, and an is said, to the extent of 30,0007. He is now intendant of the palace, in which situation, possessed of upwards of three hundred and every action of the queen, even to the most forty thousand pounds invested in the trifling affair of the household, was watched, Portuguese stock of the foreign debt, be- meddled with, and controlled by this German sides capital to a considerable extent in- favorite. The interference of this foreigner vested in the spoil of the church and in a in all the concerns of the court, but more manufacture of paper. All this property, especially in all important matters of state, with the exception of the first sum men- exasperated the Portuguese; their press tioned, was made during the last four years loudly inveighed against it, and the cry was by successful operations, for example, the echoed by political men of all parties, with purchase, of paper' claims on the treasury the exception of the Cabrals. The fact for salary discounted by him, and lucky of the education of the young princes, in a hits in the funds which his official position country in which the Catholic religion is afforded him the opportunities of making. by law the religion of the state, being comIt fortunately happened for the creditors mitted to a foreigner of a different religion, that the interests of the finance minister afforded likewise grounds of complaint; but were for a time identified with theirs. But all such complaints have been treated with it was only for a time, and a very short one, contempt by the court, and no wonder, for though the count labored hard to convince over it Mr. Dietz, the German, virtually then it would be for a long period. Men reigns. It has ever been a weakness of the of great cunning and eagerness to amass Braganza family, to allow themselves to be riches frequently deceive themselves, prac-governed by menials; but it is something tise on the credulity of others, and end by novel for the favorite to be a foreigner, in becoming the dupes of their own artifices. this country above all others, where stran This, in all probability, has been the case gers are received with so much jealousy. of the Count Tojal. Such are the men who have exercised despotic power over Portugal, and by the rapacity and tyranny of their government have brought that country to its present alarming condition of open rebellion and impending bankruptcy. Their course has been a continued career of illegality, and wanton wickedness in their manifold violations of the charter. No previous ministry VOL. IX. No. II. 14 From the Dublin University Magazine. PARIS IN 1846. changed all this. The wand of an enchanter has been waved over the city, and a magical transformation has been effected. The ornamental has ceased to monopPARIS as it is after fifteen years' rule of olize the attention of government, and the the throne of the Barracades, and Paris as useful has claimed its due care. The frightit was under the divine-right crown of the ful ravages of the cholera, in 1832, left a Restoration-Paris as it presented itself to warning which has not been unheeded. In the staring wonder of the crowd that rushed an incredibly short space of time a perfect from Corn-hill to the Palais Royale as soon system of drainage by sewers throughout as the echoes of the cannon had died away this vast city has been completed. Footways on the plains of Waterloo, and as it now have every where been constructed. The addresses itself to the twenty thousand stran- system of carriage pavement with square gers that swarm between the Rue de la Paix blocks of granite, forming a convex road, and the Arc de Triomphe, is a subject in- with side drains leading to the sewers, has teresting to contemplate. Under the con- taken the place of the concave street with sulate and the empire, as of old under the an- open centre gutters. The offensive effluvia cien regime, the fine arts, in all their depart- which excluded the English visiter from cerments, engrossed the attention of the gov-tain quarters of Paris no longer exists, and ernment, and captivated the public. The the demon of malaria has been expelled. substantial comforts, the convenience and Gas illumination, extending now through health of the people, were subjects of com- every quarter, including the interior of paratively minor importance. Magnificent buildings as well as the streets, has superbuildings, splendid monuments, and gor-seded the suspended lanterns; and it is geous palaces every where attracted the eye; and in their immediate vicinage, poverty, filth, and misery. The marble walls of temples and palaces were defiled by the river of filth and offal which flowed through But the achievement which will be rethe sewerless streets. The passenger who membered in connexion with the reign of aspired not to a coach, unprovided with a Louis Philippe with the most grateful footway, scrambled along the inclined pave- feelings by the philanthropist, is undoubtedment which sloped from either wall to the cen-ly the example he has afforded even to the tral gutter, which discharged the functions advanced civilization of Great Britain in of a sewer, and was from time to time bespat- his efforts for the repression of gambling tered with the mud and filth flirted around and prostitution. He has accomplished by the wheels of the carriages in which the what the English authorities have not even more wealthy were transported. Lanterns thought of attempting. There are now no suspended like a performer on a cord volante, public gambling tables in Paris, and even at distant intervals, like angels' visits, few private play is subject to so many restraints, and far between, in the centre of the street, that it has been stripped of half its evils. and at a height sufficient to allow carriages The purest female may now walk the pubto pass under them, served as a sort of light-lic thoroughfares of the city by day or by houses for the navigation of the vehicles of night without the risk of having her sight the rich through the streams of puddle, but outraged or her ears polluted by the indeby their distance, height, and position, af-cencies which are still suffered to prevail forded no benefit to the humble pedestrian. in the most frequented streets of the meTo say that they illuminated the streets tropolis of Britain. The theatres and would be an abuse of language; they just served to make darkness visible. Fifteen years of constitutional liberty, and the substitution of a representative government-presided over by a prince who has been schooled in misfortune, had experienced the sweet uses of adversity, and had known what it was to eat the bread of his own industry-for the throne of the restoration, vainly struggling against the spirit of the age and the popular will, have hard to say which most attracts the admiration of foreigners, the gaiety of the streets, boulevards, and public walks by day, or their brilliancy when lighted up by night. other places of public resort are equally purified. Even the Palais Royale-that temple of vice-has been thoroughly reformed; and it is due to the present king to add, that this reformation has been effected by a large sacrifice of his private revenue, a considerable portion of the rental of the Palais Royale having arisen from the extensive and long-established gambling rooms by which it was occupied, and by the employment of the loftier stories for At The lines of railway now in actual operation are the following: still more impure, and not less profitable its own funds all the moveable capital nepurposes. cessary for the operation of the line. Among the improvements in the arts of the termination of the lease, the property life, imported from England, the most strik- in the line reverts to the state. ing, at the present moment, is the railway This method of proceeding is attended system, which is progressing in France with several obvious advantages. The more rapidly than is imagined at our side general projection of the lines of commuof the channel. The manner of accom-nication through the country is not left to plishing these public works here is essen- chance or to the fancy of individuals or tially different from the English system, companies, or the suggestion of local coand has certainly some advantages over the teries, but is governed by the high and genlatter in a national point of view. To eral interests of the state. By retaining a comprehend it, and the circumstances out general control and surveillance, which of which it has arisen, it must be remem- form part of the conditions of the lease, bered, that the construction and mainte- the interests of the public are better pronance of the public roads has always con- tected, and abuses of administration are stituted a department of the government in more effectually prevented than could be France, under the title of L'Administra- effected if the railways were the property tion des ponts et chausées, or the Department of independent bodies and associations, as of Roads and Bridges. Connected with in England. After the expiration of the this department there is a public school of leases, these enterprises becoming national engineering, the pupils of which ultimately property, may either be made a direct source form a corps of engineers in the immediate of revenue to the state, relieving the public pay, and under the control of the state. in a proportionate extent from less tolerable By this corps, or under their superintend- burthens, or be worked for the public benence, all the great public communications efit at rates only sufficient to maintain of the country are made and maintained. them. When the invention of railways, therefore, had been advanced so far in England, as to supersede, to a greater or less extent, common roads, and the improvement had forced itself upon the French public, the construction of such lines of intercourse by private companies presented a novelty in the civil administration of the country; and after the concession of one or two of the first enterprises of this kind to joint stock companies (a large portion of the share-holders of which were English), the government reverted to the established usage, subject, however, to a slight modification. The great lines of railway are now projected, surveyed, and executed by or under the immediate superintendence of the Administration des ponts et chausées, and at the cost of the state. When they are completed, or nearly so, they are offered to public competition, on a lease for a specified time, varying from forty years to a century. The company, or individual, who, under sealed proposals, sent in within a specified time, and to be opened on an appointed day, offers the terms most advantageous to the state, obtains the lease. The lessee company usually replaces the capital expended by the government in the construction of the road, and provides from *It is well known that the Palais Royale is the private property of Louis Philippe. Paris to Versailles (right bank)... Paris to Rouen........................ Paris to Valenciennes (and thence to Brus- Strasbourgh to Basle....... Mulhouse to Thann..... Montpelier to Cette..... St Etienne to Roanne..... Nismes to Alaix... Nismes to Beaucaire.. DISTANCE TIME Miles. H. M. 0 30 12% 0 30 12% 0 30 86 4 0 79 4 0 133 5 0 12%2 1 Besides these, there are several important lines of railway in a forward state of construction, among which may be mentioned the continuation of the Paris and Rouen railway, by two branches, to Havre and to Dieppe; a branch of the northern railway from Amiens to Boulogne and Calais; the railway from Paris to Lyons, &c. &c. The effects which in a few years may be expected to be produced on the inter-communication of different parts of Europe, but especially between France and England, when these enterprises come into operation, must be very striking. It is presumable that between two capitals so important as sceptre, and the Church revives under its Paris and London, no known practical fostering influence. After the revolution of means of expeditious communication will July, the few ecclesiastics who under the be neglected. At present, the express restored Bourbons had gained a sort of trains between London and Exeter travel footing in society, fell into such disrepute (stoppages included) at fifty miles an hour. that no one appeared for several years in The stoppages being much less frequent, it the public streets in the clerical costume. may then be expected that express trains The shovel and three-cornered chapeaux between Paris and Boulogne will travel at were laid aside, and the loose robe was the same rate at least; in which case the abandoned for the ordinary coat and round trip between Paris and Boulogue will be hat of the layman. In the churches, on made in less than three hours. Steamers the Sabbath, the congregation consisted of improved efficiency may easily make the almost exclusively of females, with a slight passage between Boulogne and Folkstone sprinkling of old men, generally of the in an hour and a-half, and the trip between humbler classes. Within a few years, howFolkestone and London (eighty-eight miles) ever, it has-for what reason would be hard may be made in two hours. Thus the en- to say-become fashionable among the Patire distance between Paris and London, risians to observe the external forms of relimaking allowance for fair stoppages, may gion; and when the Parisians adopt any be effected in seven hours by express trains, fashion, they don't do so by halves. The and by common trains may certainly be streets now have become a perfect rookery. brought within twelve hours!! On an Black robes of every cut and fashion, emergency, a despatch may be sent to shovel hats, three cornered hats, and every Paris, and an answer obtained, in fifteen other characteristic of clerical costume, hours! But this emergency itself may be abound. The churches, on Sundays, are superseded by the electric telegraph, which as overflowing as the theatres, and as brilliant in the rank and fashion of the assem will reduce the hours to minutes!! The railway from Paris to Lyons, and blies which fill them. Go to the Madethence to Marseilles, is also in rapid pro-leine, and look at the luxurious velvetgress. This distance will be about five covered prie dicus, and you will discover hundred miles, and at the same rate of the rank of the habitués by the names of travelling for express trains, may be com- their owners engraved on the pretty brass pleted in ten hours. Thus an express train plates attached to them. Madame La may reach Marseilles from London in Duchesse de M-, Madame La Vicomtesse seventeen hours! The same rate on the de N-, Madame La Princesse de P-, Sardinian and Tuscan lines, when con- &c. &c., attest the rank of the votaries at structed, would reach the frontier of the this fashionable temple. papal states in a few additional hours; but here we must stop. The states of the Church forbid the construction of railways within their precincts, as dangerous to Christianity! There we must surrender the locomotive, and betake ourselves to the road. The papal authorities of the nineteenth century are as hostile to the speed of the railway as those of the sixteenth were to the orbitual motion of the earth, and are as strongly opposed to Stephenson as those of the latter were to Galileo. Fashion is every thing in Paris. Its sway is omnipotent and universal. It rules the camp, the court, the grove, And men below and gods above." Even religion here is not exempt from its * Since the above was in type, Pope Gregory XVI. has died, and it is announced that his suc cessor, adopting a more enlightened policy, has decided on the construction of railways. Shops have been opened in the vicini ties of all the principal churches, pour la vente des objets religieux. In the windows are displayed rosaries of exquisitely carved beads; crucifixes in gold, silver, and ivory, beautifully sculptured; Agni Deis, Virgins and infant Saviours; ecce homos, missals, gorgeously bound in the richest velvet, with sculptured crucifixes on the covers; priests' robes of the richest cloth of gold; little shrines for the private closet of the faithful; and an infinitely various assortment of like objects, by which religion is rendered ornamental and externally attractive. The children are reminded of the observances of their religion in their playthings and their sweetmeats. The toy shops exhibit in their windows baby-chapels, The boy who used to take his pocket money with baby altars, shrines and crucifixes. to purchase little soldiers, now buys little monks, and the girl shows you her doll |