At the beginning of winter, the farmers, who are called _habitants_, kill hogs, cattle, and poultry, sufficient to serve them till spring, as well as to supply the markets. The carcasses they store in their garrets, where they soon become frozen, and keep without injury; or they bury them, and dig them out as wanted. Vegetables are preserved in a similar manner. The French Canadians are chiefly Roman Catholics; the other inhabitants are of various sects. ―――― I DON’T WANT TO GO!――A curious incident occurred near Paris, not long since, in consequence of a balloon starting on its own hook, without the consent of the proprietor. A large concourse of people had assembled to see an æronaut take flight for the regions of upper air, but, unfortunately, before he took his seat in the car, the ærostat got loose, and the grappling-hook, which was dangling from the machine, hitched into the indescribables of a boy, who was gazing, open-mouthed, at the ascending mass, and carried him up willy-nilly. The women screamed and fainted, but the lad, who seemed to have been a hero in his way, clasped the rope tightly with his hands and his feet, and, with an awful rent in his aforesaids, was introduced by his inflated companion into the _upper circles_. After a short voyage, the balloon descended, and deposited the little fellow safe and sound on the firm earth. [Illustration] A Chinese Dandy. The following description of a Chinese exquisite, is from a new work on China, by P. Dobel, formerly Russian Consul to China, and a resident in that country for seven years:―― “His dress is composed of crapes and silks of great price, his feet are covered with high-heeled boots of the most beautiful Nankin satin, and his legs are encased in gaiters, richly embroidered, and reaching to the knee. Add to this an acorn-shaped cap of the latest taste, an elegant pipe, richly ornamented, in which burns the purest tobacco of the Fokien, an English watch, a toothpick suspended to a button by a string of pearls, a Nankin fan, exhaling the perfume of the tcholane, (a Chinese flower,) and you will have an exact idea of a fashionable Chinese. “The Chinese dandy, like dandies of all times and all countries, is seriously occupied with trifles. He belongs either to the Quail Club or the Cricket Club. Like the ancient Romans, the Chinese train quails, quarrelsome birds, intrepid duellists, whose combats form the subject of senseless wagers. In imitation of the rich, the poorer Chinese place at the bottom of an earthen basin, two field crickets. These insects they excite and provoke, until they grow angry, attack each other, and the narrow field of battle is soon strewed with their claws, antennæ and corselets. “There is between the Chinese and the old Romans as great a difference as there is between the combats of the crickets and the terrible combats of the gladiators.”