The motor craze has superseded the cycle craze. The _bourgeois_ bicycles so much that the youth of fashion needs something to distinguish him on the road from his inferior brother. So somebody came to his rescue with the motor-car. Go to Paris if you would realise what a perilous thing the crossing of a street may be. In such a neighbourhood as the Place Pereire it is almost mortal. I imagine it as a machine invented by the upper classes to replace the guillotine, and run down the miserable foot-passengers to avenge the beheadings of a century ago. Whenever I return home, and discover that I have lost a purse, a book, a packet according to my invariable habit, I am so thankful to feel that I am still alive, in spite of the automobile which charges through the streets in such a dreadful way, that I balance loss and gain, and count myself still a winner in the game of life by every new day to my account. In London you are everywhere enveloped in a sense of public protection. The cab drivers know how to drive, a feature of their trade they are most imperfectly aware of in Paris. The policeman is there when he is wanted, and, thanks to him, the nervous passer-by is valiant and unafraid. But in Paris the driver regards him with an eloquent hostility. His one hope is to get a free chance of running over him. He is insolent, overbearing, and menacing, unfettered by policeman or law in his man-crushing career. And, as if regretting the very slight limits still left him, Paris cast forth upon the public way the motor-car. This machine of destruction hisses along, leaving a trail of petroleum in the air, and you have barely time to start back for its passage, such is the fury of the horror in the hands of its fashionable owner. There are many motor-cars in use for the big shops and public offices; but these, being in no sense competitive in luxury, measure the ground by a speed less fatal, the drivers seem to desire to leave you whole, and suggest by their pace and bearing, some glimmering of humanity in their heart. For it is only the rich young men who give one the notion of wishing to avenge the massacres of the French Revolution. For the benefit of these flowers of the race, exhibitions of motor-cars take place, under the patronage of dukes and counts more or less authentic. And, so encouraged, these wild Parisians set out in their automobiles for the harmless and distant provinces, and charge down the long French country roads with purpose often more deadly than that displayed in the capital. The newspapers acquaint us with frequent accidents; and whatever the general sentiment regarding these accidents may be, I always feel that they are a well-merited chastisement. Why must the poor, the obscure, the inoffensive clerk and shop-girl, go in fear and trembling of their lives, that the privileged few may add a fresh sensation to their list of entailed emotions? Is not the luxury of a horse good enough for those busy idlers, without adding