If considered as a museum and nursery for botanists, we certainly cannot presume to compare our comparatively new institution to that of Paris; but, zoologically speaking, it is every way superior. The collection of animals, both birds and beasts, is, I think, better, and certainly in finer condition. I confess that I envy them their beautiful giraffe; but what else have they which we cannot equal? Then as to our superiority, look at the comparative degree of beauty of the two enclosures. "O England!" as I once heard a linen-draper exclaim in the midst of his shop, intending in his march of mind to quote Byron-- "O England! with all thy faults, I can't help loving thee still." And I am quite of the linen-draper's mind: I cannot help loving those smooth-shaven lawns, those untrimmed flowing shrubs, those meandering walks, now seen, now lost amidst a cool green labyrinth of shade, which are so truly English. You have all this at the Zoological Gardens--we have none of it in the Jardin des Plantes; and, therefore, I like the Zoological Gardens best. We must not say a word, my friend, about the lectures, or the free admission to them--that is not our forte; and if the bourgeoisie go on much longer as they do at present, becoming greater and more powerful with every passing day, and learning to know, as their mercantile neighbours have long known, that it is quite necessary both governments and individuals should turn all things to profit;-- "Car dans le siècle où nous sommes, On ne donne rien pour rien;"-- if this happens, as I strongly suspect it will, then we shall have no more lectures gratis even in Paris. From the Jardin des Plantes, we visited that very magnificent hospital, La Salpêtrière. I will spare you, however, all the fine things that might be said about it, and only give you a little anecdote which occurred while we stood looking into the open court where the imbecile and the mad are permitted to take their exercise. By the way, without at all presuming to doubt that there may be reasons which the managers of this establishment conceive to be satisfactory, why these wretched objects, in different stages of their dreadful calamity, should be thus for ever placed before each other's eyes, I cannot but observe, that the effect upon the spectator is painful beyond anything I ever witnessed. With my usual love for the terrible, I remained immovable for above twenty minutes, watching the manner in which they appeared to notice each other. If fancy did not cheat me, those who were least wildly deranged looked with a sort of triumph and the consciousness of superiority on those who were most so: some looked on the mad movements of the others and laughed distractedly;--in short, the scene is terribly full of horror.