the city rang out their call to prayer, and the sound from their tongues came floating on the breeze which bore the echoing melodies in widening circles upwards and onwards, until it reaches His ears who recognises the intention to worship, even though the performance fall short of the purity which ought to characterise it. The Romans had erected strong fortifications on this high ground, and the works of the masters of the world, were so well executed, that the ruins remain to this day. The Emperor of the French has had the fort repaired, extended, and improved, the strong walls with their embrasures and port-holes frown over the city, and are a constant menace to it, but the views from the fortification are indeed very fine. France is the country for costumes: from the streetsweeper to the Emperor, every class of officials is arrayed in his peculiar dress. The cabmen are in uniform; the Custom House officers have their dress; the police theirs. The dress of the soldiers is varied and picturesque. The clergy have long black petticoat-looking robes, and black neckties fringed with white beads. The peculiar brown robe, with a rope round the waist, and bare feet, though they use sandals, of the cordeliers contrasts with the broad turned-up hat and black dress of the other clergy. I was glad to regain my hôtel, and rest before going to the English Episcopal church, which is situated in the Rue de Pavie, a narrow street-we should call it a stable lane-which runs between the church of St. Bonaventura and the Quai de Bonne Rencontre. I had some difficulty in finding it. The kicking horses disturbed the service. The building is a plain, dingy-looking place, supported by voluntary con tributions. Our splendid and impressive Litany brought with it its refining and harmonising feelings, and established a fresh link between us and those dear ones who in a distant land were at the same time listening to its teachings. The Anglican service is so arranged that the whole Church which uses it, is engaged at the same time in the consideration of the same passages of Scripture, the same lessons, the same Epistles, and the same Gospel. Those of the day were the visit of Naaman to Elisha, wherein God's power in removing the leprosy from one man, and placing it upon another whose heart had gone after mammon, is shown. The other, St. Paul's speech before Felix, where the apostle with wonderful boldness appeals from the governor to his master, and demands to stand before Cæsar. sermon was preached by the Rev. James Gaussen, the chaplain, who is very attentive to English visitors, and bears a good report from them that are without. He took for his text Job v. 6, 7: Although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth sorrow spring out of the ground, yet man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.' He called attention to trouble, national as well as individual, and alluded to the cholera which was visiting some places, and was evidently sent for a purpose; because affliction cometh not out of the dust it is designed for good. I was glad to see that the Colonial Church and School Society had helped this church with a gift of books. The The market is near the church, and was open. There seemed to be but few buyers at that late hour. It is rather surprising how the French live in public. Some of the market people were cooking, others eating their dinner, careless of who saw them. This seems to characterise many of their relations. LYONESE SILK WORKERS. 55 The English like to be more alone or to themselves. Amongst the strange sights in the market were the boxes of live fish: there is a constant stream of water running through them. A person wanted some fish, and the woman thrust in a net like our landing nets, and brought up a lot 'All alive oh,' from which a selection was made. I greatly fear the Lyonese workers have before them an ordeal very similar to that which came upon the hand-loom weavers of Lancashire and the north of Ireland, when power looms will be invented of sufficient delicacy to weave silk, and that the competition between the machine and the human arm, will prove fatal to man. If this takes place, Lyons, with its 120,000 workers, will suffer very heavily. I doubt greatly, whether we are either better or cheaper clad than we used to be in olden times. We get more garments, each of which costs less, but I think we annually spend more than we used to do. The Lyonese silk weavers comprise about 120,000 out of a population of under 300,000. As silk is a branch of French agriculture, I inquired into its position and the prospects of the trade. France possesses within her own bounds, three out of the four fibrous substances from which clothing is made: she has flax, wool, silk. The latter, which employs so many people at Lyons, is grown farther south. The silk is separated from the cocoons, and is spun in other districts. The trade of Lyons consists in weaving cloth from the thread which is brought into the town. The silk grown in France is not sufficient to supply the demand, and she imports raw silk from Italy. The culture of silk receives considerable attention in France, where the Government seems to act upon the idea expressed in the China laws, which point out two classes as deserving the gratitude of all-the grower of corn and the grower of silk, the former supplying food, the latter clothing. Lyons has none of the peculiarities which we usually connect with a manufacturing town. There are no tall chimneys, no dingy warehouses, no immense factories, no smoke. The looms are light and are erected in the houses of the people; they are worked by hand. Thus you do not see at certain hours busy masses of people flowing to and from the same spot. The work goes on quietly; a good deal of it is, as the silks are narrow and the throw of the shuttle short, done by women. The price paid for weaving plain silks is about 7d. per yard, for rich and flowered silks it is more. This trade had suffered much from the American war, which greatly lessened the demand, and the people are not now working more than about half time. The silk manufacture of France originated in the luxury of the court of Francis I. In addition to that grown in France, the imports of raw silk were, in 1792, 136,800 lbs. The manufacture had increased so much that the quantity imported in 1851 had increased to 2,291,500 lbs., or about seventeenfold. Lyons has on several occasions been the seat of trade outbreaks in consequence of attempts to introduce machinery or to alter the rate of wages. The cost of carrying coals will always operate in favour of manual labour. Great Britain offers a large and an increasing market. She used to import raw silk and manufacture it in England, but the importation of raw silk has decreased, and silk manufacturing has lessened. The imports of raw silk have lessened to one-half, of silks from India to one-fourth, while the import of silk from Europe has increased nearly tenfold, and that of ribbons has IMPORTS AND EXPORTS-GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE. 57 doubled.* An idea very generally prevails that Great Britain has been making a progress unrivalled in the history of the world. It is pertinent to the object of my inquiry to examine whether this idea is correct, and to compare the progress of England and France, as shown by the imports and exports from each country. To make this test of any value, I must exclude from the comparison articles which merely pass through the English ports on their way to the places of consumption. The value of these commodities forms a large item of our carrying trade, and must be excluded both from the returns of the import of articles for home consumption, and the export of articles or domestic production. This branch of trade from Great Britain (re-exported foreign and colonial produce) was, in 1863, 50,300,0677., and in 1864, 52,220,000l.† *The import of silk and silk manufactures into Great Britain was as follows: |