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Show OUR EUROPEAN LETTER. (From our regular correspondent.) Undismayed by recent and ruinous failures, the tide of speculation shows no signs of ebbing. New lotteries are being organized every day and in one of the papers of this morning I notice a grave proposal for establishing lotteries in the postal and telegraphic services, and in connection with such great railway companies as the Nord and Paris, Lyons, and Mediterranean, which number their employees by thousands. Post-office and telegraph clerks, letter carriers, ticket-clerks, guards, porters, engine drivers, and signalmen are to be invited to consent to a trifling deduction from their monthly pay, in consideration of which they are to have tickets in a lottery, which is to be drawn every four weeks and the first prize in which is to be 40,000 francs. That nothing shall be wanting to intensify the rapidity of the financial whirlpool in which the Parisians are at present engulfed, ?? on the turf is becoming among all classes of the population extremely general. There have been races, somewhere or another, in the neighborhood of Paris almost every day within the last three weeks, and for the conveyances of the many headed to St. Germaine or ??, Longchamps or Vincennes, there are provided enormous vans or "lapissires," and "chars-a-brac," with rows of seats above as well as under the roof. These huge vehicles are drawn by four and six horses ridden by burly men arrayed in all the traditional finery of the Postillon de Lonjameau. Spring is full upon us, and May is cheated this year out of her blossoms for the showers of March brought forth the flowers in April. The skies have been clear and sunny, smiling a bright welcome on the tourist and enticing the artist and student away out into the fields and pastures green. "Wait till after the opening of the Salon." says the student, "and I'm off for the country." The opening draws near and the jury are working very hard indeed to get the pictures satisfactorily hung before the appointed hour. It is no small task to pass judgement upon and arrange so many pictures as are received and hung in the Paris Salon the greatest annual art exhibition of the day. Thousands of pictures are sent in and thousands are rejected, and after the best from the thousands are selected [unreadable] the more difficult work of satisfactory hanging. A number of Americans are to be represented, prominent among whom is Mr. Henry Mosler, who I hear has been awarded number one by the jury on his picture entitled "Les ??" Ever since I saw it the first time I have prayed that it might go to America and be retained there but I am very much afraid it will never have an opportunity of crossing the water. Monsieur ??, by the way, a well known French poet, and one who rendered valuable assistance to Longfellow when he was in France, has composed a poem on the picture, which will be printed in one of the foremost art journals here when the Salon opens. The ruins of the Tuileries Palace are, it is said, to be demolished and the site thrown open as a public square, connecting the gardens in front of the present ruin with the Place du Carrousal in the rear. There was talk one time of restoring the edifice, and moving to it the collection of pictures now now in the Luxumbourg, but it was found that the building was too damaged to be reconstructed without too great cost I suspect, too, the republic will be glad to be totally rid of this nucleus of the empire, for at least since 1800 it has been the residence of the reigning monarch. The north and south wings, which were long ago rebuilt and are now occupied as public offices, were never so intimately associated with royalty as the portion still in ruins, which contained the imperial chambers; and besides they are practically new buildings altogether. The history of the palace of the Tuileries is the history of France from the time the palace was begun. Catherine de Medicis, in 1564, caused its beginning, where once had been nothing but a lowly brick and tile yard, whence the name. And now, after witnessing those centuries of mobs and fires, and of bloody revolutions, its silent and vacant halls are to be levelled once more to the dust. Will they ever rise again? It is impossible to answer, but let us hope that the brickyard of 1564 will never more see a palace, and never again be the scene of blood and destruction but rest quiet and peaceful beneath the flag of the mighty republic. August. Paris, France, May 1, 1882. |