This Journal has, as I have said, from 40,000 to 50,000 subscribers, in order to serve whom it was necessary that the presses should be at work as early as eleven o’clock at night. But there is no difficulty in doing this, where news not being the _sine quâ non_ of journalism, provincial and foreign intelligence is given as fresh, which in England would be considered much behind in time. But even when commencing business at the early hour above mentioned, I found that it had been necessary for the paper to be composed twice over, in order to save time; and thus two printers’ establishments were required to bring out each number of the journal in sufficient time for the country circulation by early morning trains. The necessity for this double composition is still existing in most of the French newspaper offices, but had been obviated here lately, by the erection of a new printing-machine, which sufficed by the speed of its working to print the given number of copies necessary for satisfying the wants of each day. Having seen through the premises, and witnessed all that was interesting in the day-time, I was politely requested to return in the evening, and see the remaining process of printing the paper and getting it ready to send out from the office. Punctually at eleven o’clock I was in the Rue du 24 Fevrier. Passing through the offices which I had seen in the morning, I was led by a sort of guide down some passages dimly lighted with lamps. To the right and to the left we turned, descending stone steps into the bowels of the earth as it seemed to me; the walls oozing with slimy damp in some parts; dry and saltpetry in others. A bundle of keys, which were jingling in my guide’s hand, made noises which reminded me of the description of prisoners going down into the Bastille or Tower. At another moment a sound of voices in the distance, reminded me of a scene of desperate coiners in a cellar. These sounds grew louder, as we soon entered a vast stone cellar, in which rudely dressed men, half-naked as to their breasts and arms, were to be seen flitting to and fro at the command of a superior; their long beards and grimy faces, their short pipes and dirty appearance, made them look more like devils than men, and I bethought me that here, at last, I had found that real animal—the printer’s devil. There were two or three printing-presses in the room, only one of which was going. Its rolling sound was like thunder in the cave in which we stood. As paper after paper flew out from the sides of this creaking press, they were carried to a long table and piled up in heaps.