"There exist at present," he remarks, "sixty-eight laws in France, all intended to suppress, curtail, weaken, emasculate, and even to strangle newspapers; but not one single law to foster them in their dire misfortune. If any private French gentleman wishes to establish a newspaper, he must first write to the Préfet de Police, on paper of a certain size and duly stamped, and give this functionary notice that he intends to establish a newspaper. His signature has, of course, to be countersigned by the Maire. But if the paper our friend wishes to establish is purely literary, he has first to make his declaration to the police, who rake up every information that is possible about the unfortunate projector. After that, the Ministère de l'Intérieur institutes another searching inquiry, and these two take seven or eight months at least. When the _enquête_ and the _contre-enquête_ are ended, the _avis favorable_ of the whole Ministry is necessary before the paper can be published. Another six months to wait yet; but this is not all. Our would-be newspaper proprietor or editor possesses now the right of publishing his paper; but he has not yet the right to sell it. In order to obtain this, he must begin anew all his declarations and attempts, so that his purely literary paper may be sold at all the ordinary book-sellers' shops. But if he wishes it to be sold in the streets--or, in other words, in the kiosques--he must address himself to another office _ad hoc_, and then the Commissaire de Police sends the answer of the Préfet de Police to the unfortunate proprietor, editor, or publisher, who by this time must be nearly at his wits' end. But even this is not all. If the unhappy projector proposes to illustrate his paper, his labors are still far from ending. "He must," continues the writer, "obtain, of course, the permission of the Ministère de l'Intérieur for Paris, or of the prefects for the provinces. The Ministère asks for the opinion of the Governor of Paris, who asks, in his turn, for the opinion of the Bureau de Censure, a body of gentlemen working in the dark, and which, to the eye of the obtuse foreigner, appears only established to prevent any political insinuations to be made, but to allow the filthiest drawings to be publicly exposed for sale, and the most indecent innuendoes to be uttered on the stage or in novels. The Censure demands, under the penalty of seizing, forbidding, and bringing before the court, that every sketch or outline shall be submitted to it. When this is done, and the Censure finds nothing to criticise in it, it requires further that the drawing, when finished, be anew laid before it, and, if the drawing be colored, it must be afresh inspected after the dangerous paints have been smirched on. When our happy editor wishes to publish the caricature or the portrait of any one, he can not do so unless he has the permission of the gentleman or lady whose likeness he wishes to produce." [Illustration: Honoré Daumier.]