Among the many recent improvements in Paris which evidently owe their origin to England, those which strike the eye first, are the almost universal introduction of carpets within doors, and the frequent blessing of a _trottoir_ without. In a few years, unless all paving-stones should be torn up in search of more immortality, there can be no doubt that it will be almost as easy to walk in Paris as in London. It is true that the old streets are not quite wide enough to admit such enormous esplanades on each side as Regent and Oxford Streets; but all that is necessary to safety and comfort may be obtained with less expense of space; and to those who knew Paris a dozen years ago, when one had to hop from stone to stone in the fond hope of escaping wet shoes in the Dog-days--tormented too during the whole of this anxious process with the terror of being run over by carts, fiacres, concous, cabs, and wheelbarrows;--whoever remembers what it was to walk in Paris then, will bless with an humble and grateful spirit the dear little pavement which, with the exception of necessary intervals to admit of an approach to the portes-cochère of the various _hôtels_, and a few short intervals beside, which appear to have been passed over and forgotten, borders most of the principal streets of Paris now. Another English innovation, infinitely more important in all ways, has been attempted, and has failed. This was the endeavour to introduce _maisonnettes_, or small houses calculated for the occupation of one family. A few such have been built in that new part of the town which stretches away in all directions behind the Madeleine; but they are not found to answer--and that for many reasons which I should have thought it very easy to foresee, and which I suspect it would be very difficult to obviate. In order to come at all within reach of the generality of French incomes, they must be built on too small a scale to have any good rooms; and this is a luxury, and permits a species of display, to which many are accustomed who live in unfurnished apartments, for which they give perhaps fifteen hundred or two thousand francs a year. Another accommodation which habit has made it extremely difficult for French families to dispense with, and which can be enjoyed at an easy price only by sharing it with many, is a porter and a porter's lodge. Active as is the race of domestic servants in Paris, their number must, I think, be doubled in many families, were the arrangement of the porter's lodge to be changed for our system of having a servant summoned every time a parcel, a message, a letter, or a visit arrives at the house.