It should be understood that the French cars are arranged with small compartments like stage coaches, and the passengers sit face to face, with the warming tube above described under their feet. One tube for every six persons. We should be glad, indeed, to see this plan introduced here. But it is not to be expected that our city railroad companies will do anything for the comfort of their passsengers, while without such trouble they continue to reap rich harvests. Very likely the idea of loading a lot of hot water upon their cars, for passengers to stand upon, would strike them as a good joke. Their poor, broken down, spavined horses, could not stand any additional load. * * * * * Getting Your Money Back. The French are a curious people and one of the novelties of Parisian enterprises is a large warehouse, in which are sold, at retail, all manner of goods, from a diamond necklace to a shoe brush. The purchaser, having paid the price, receives not only the goods, but a bond for the whole amount of his purchase money, payable, after thirty years, and guaranteed by the Credit Foncier and other moneyed corporations. The prices charged are said to be no greater than in any other retail shops. This is really eating your cake in order to keep it; the more you spend the richer you will be; indeed it sets at defiance the whole of Franklin's code of proverbs, and proves "Poor Richard" a silly fellow. Imagine Jones lecturing his wife on her economy, and reproaching her for a spirit of saving, "My dear, if you had bought this camel's hair shawl thirty years ago, it would now be a source of income to us; if you had not been so close we should now be wealthy." Smith acquires an independence by giving his children an expensive education, and sees in every new dress or costly jewel which his growing daughters wear, a new mine of wealth for himself. If he can only persuade them to spend money enough he is sure of a support in his old age. * * * * * A GIGANTIC BRIDGE.--A suspension bridge is to be erected by M. Oudry, engineer, over the Straits of Messina, Sicily, from Point Pezzo, on the Calabrian Coast. It is to consist of four spans of 3,281 feet each, elevated about 150 feet above high-water level, so that the largest ships may pass under. The proposed Roebling bridge over the East River, between New York and Brooklyn, is to have a single span of 1,600 feet. * * * * * The through mails to the West now go in iron-bound boxes instead of leathern bags. Each box, tightly packed, contains about eight hundred letters. * * * * * The first steam vessel used in Great Britain was called the _Comet_, and built by Henry Bell in 1812. It was thirty tuns burden. * * * * * OFFICIAL REPORT OF PATENTS AND CLAIMS Issued by the United States Patent Office, FOR THE WEEK ENDING DECEMBER 10, 1867.