WHILE upon the subject of optical wonders, we should hardly be forgiven if we did not give a description of the amusement known as Chinese shadows, or Fantocini. In the winter time it is difficult to pass through any of the large thoroughfares of London after nightfall, without seeing a crowd admiring the popular fantocini farces of the “Broken Bridge,” or “Billy Button;” and although these dramatic exhibitions are not always free from vulgarity, they are received with vociferous applause by at least the younger portion of the audience. The apparatus for the exhibition of the fantocini is generally very simple. The screen on which they are shown is generally made of calico rendered semi-transparent with copal varnish, and the figures are cut out of cardboard. Frames containing landscapes and scenes of different kinds are also provided, which are cut out in the same material. The _dramatis personæ_ are generally made with moveable limbs, which they throw about in the most unanatomical manner, and the showman is often endowed with ventriloquial talents of no mean order. This amusement is to be found in all parts of the world, from the Strand and Tottenham Court Road London, to the streets of Algiers and Java. A graphic writer in the _Magasin Pittoresque_ gives a pleasant description of the fantocini, as exhibited at the Arabs’ theatre in the Mohammedan quarter of the city of Algiers. It was on the occasion of the feast of the Bairam, which immediately follows the termination of the Ramadan, or Mohammedan Lent. The theatre, which was the only one frequented by the Arab population, consisted simply of a long vaulted hall, without seats, boxes, or galleries; but the audience, who had already been there some time, did not seem to regard the omission as of any consequence, but had seated themselves on the ground with great coolness, chatting in whispers, and waiting patiently until the director should consider the place full enough to begin the performance. Half an hour elapsed, and the spectators still chatted on quite unconcernedly; an hour, and yet there was no hissing or stamping of feet from the grave and patient spectators. At last they reached the maximum, and a boy came forward and blew out the few lamps with which the theatre was lighted, leaving them to smoulder away with a perfume that was certainly not Oriental in its character. First came the legend of the Seven Sleepers; then Scheherazade relating her bewitching stories to the Sultan. These were followed by Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, a story that is as popular in Algiers as it is in London or Paris; the whole culminating in a kind of burlesque, in which a great deal of gross fun was mixed up with a number of rebellious allusions. The devil, for instance, who is of course one of the members of the troupe, is portrayed as a French soldier, bearing a cross on his breast like an ancient Crusader. After him came Carhageuse, who is the buffoon of the Eastern stage, and who