It is wrong, too, to suppose that the average French people speak more rapidly than the Anglo-Saxon. They are more vivacious, and they often put more emphasis and gesticulation into their conversation than their island neighbours; but there are Englishmen who have a right to speak, who will affirm with the greatest assurance that the French are the slower and more deliberate speakers of the two! No doubt it will take a long time to entirely eradicate from among ill-informed Anglo-Saxons the notion that a French menu is largely composed of strange creatures not usually regarded as edible, but the excellence of French food and cooking is getting so widely known and appreciated that this ancient misconception is being steadily dissipated. Perhaps it is because no sooner does the visitor land at Calais or Boulogne, or step out of the railway terminus in Paris, than he sees a kiosk where comic papers full of improper drawings are boldly exhibited, that he comes to the conclusion that the French are an entirely immoral people. But painful as it is to witness this flaunting of vulgar suggestion before the casual passer-by, it is not quite a fair gauge by which to take the standard of morals in France. There was no wave of Puritanism in France as in England, and the standard of public decency is therefore lower, but French home life is probably nearly as moral as in England, and it is a well-known fact that girls belonging to the middle classes live irreproachable lives in the almost unnatural seclusion maintained by their parents. The attitude of the young man towards the other sex before he marries is certainly lamentably inferior to that of the Anglo-Saxon who may fall from the ideal to which he has been trained, but nevertheless regards his failure as a disaster, while the French youth looks upon such matters as a recognised feature of his adolescence. Justification for the idea prevalent in Anglo-Saxon countries that the French are exceptionally lax in their morals, can be found in the fact that in all ranks of French society there is no secrecy maintained when irregular relations have been established, and also in the fact that the illegitimate births are considerably more than twice as numerous as those of Great Britain and Ireland. It should be remembered, however, that Germany stands only a trifle better than France in this matter, while six other European countries are infinitely worse. [Illustration: IN THE CAFE ARMENONVILLE IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE, PARIS.] What are to the man in the street the characteristics of the French race are, therefore, so wide of the truth, that until simple and accurate books on this great and talented people are used in all British schools it will take a considerable time to put matters straight. In the meantime an opportunity occurs here to do something in this direction.