sanguinary and grotesque, lamentable and ludicrous, spread over the last ten months. Europe--the portion of it, that is to say, which has not been bitten by the same rabid and mischievous demon--has looked on, in utter astonishment, at the painful spectacle of a leader of its civilisation galloping, with Folly on its crupper, after mad theories and empty names, and riding down, in the furious chase, its own prosperity and respectability. We repeat, then, that these great follies of to-day eclipse the minor ones of yesterday. When we see France destroying, in a few weeks, her commerce and her credit, and doing herself more harm than as many years will repair, we overlook the fact, that for upwards of fifteen years she has annually squandered from three to five millions sterling upon an unproductive colony in North Africa. France used not to be petty in her wars, or paltry in her enterprises. If she was sometimes quarrelsome and aggressive, she was wont at least to fasten on foes worthy of her power and resources. Since 1830 she has derogated in this particular. A complication of causes--the most prominent being the vanity characteristic of the nation, the crooked policy of the sovereign, and the morbid love of fighting bequeathed by the warlike period of the Empire--has kept France engaged in a costly and discreditable contest, whose most triumphant results could be but inglorious, and in which she has decimated her best troops, and deteriorated her ancient fame, whilst pursuing, with unworthy ferocity and ruthlessness, a feeble and inoffensive foe. This is no partial or malicious view of the character of the Algerine war. Deliberately, and after due reflection, we repeat, that France has gravely compromised in Africa her reputation as a chivalrous and clement nation, and that she no longer can claim--as once she was wont to do--to be as humane in victory as she is valiant in the fight. For proof of this we need seek no further than in the speeches and despatches of French generals, of men who themselves have served and commanded in Africa. We will judge France by the voices of her own sons, of those she has selected as worthiest to govern her half-conquered colony, and to marshal her legions against a handful of Arabs. More than one of these officers testify, voluntarily or unwittingly, to the barbarity of the system pursued in Africa. What said General Castellane, in his well-known speech in the Chamber of Peers, on the 4th July 1845? "We have reduced the country by an arsenal of axes and phosphorus matches. The trees were cut down, the crops were burned, and soon the mastery was obtained of a population reduced to famine and despair." And elsewhere in the same speech: "Few soldiers perish by the hand of the enemy in this war--a sort of _man-hunt_ on a large scale, in which the Arabs, ignorant of European tactics, having no cannon-balls to exchange against ours, do not fight with equal arms." Monsieur A. Desjobert, long a