having each a span of eighty-seven feet; western and even of the southern and midthe breadth between the parapets is fifty land parts of France. Its situation on feet, and the road way is nearly level. The the Garonne, not far from the estuary of difficulties attending the creation of this bridge was very great, owing to the depth of the river, which in one part is twentysix feet at low-water, with a rising tide of from twelve to eighteen feet, and a current which often flows with the velocity of seven miles an hour; and, to add to these obstacles, there is a shifting and sandy bottom. The bridge was begun in 1811, and finished in 1824.

the Gironde, which receives the waters both of the Garonne and the Dordogne, gives to Bordeaux the advantage of nearly one thousand miles of river navigation. The Canal du Midi, 154 miles long, connects the Garonne with the Mediterranean. Bordeaux has always been celebrated for its wines, which forms the staple article of commerce.

BARGAIN-HUNTERS.

HERE is a large class of persons who are so inveterately prone to bargain-hunting, that they seldom

or

never purchase anything of an abate

Several of the finest streets are lined with trees, and form a fine promenade. Thus the Cours d'Albret is nearly half a mile long, and the Cours du Tourny and du Jardin Public form together a line three quarters of a mile in length. The principal square is the Place Louis Philippe Premier, formerly Place Louis Seize, each side of which is a quarter of a mile long. At one end it is open to the river; on the other it is crossed by the Cours Douze Mars, beyond which the place is enclosed by a range of houses in the form able nature which of a crescent. On the sides plots of con- they do not cheapen as much as possible. siderable size are planted with trees, form- This habit is not so much attributable to ing the Allées Angoulême and de Berri. any lack of means in the buyers, as to a There are several other fine squares or childish love of obtaining a maximum "places," and a public garden. The ex- quantity at a minimum value, which af change and the customhouse, both fine fords them the additional gratification of edifices, form two sides of the Place boasting afterward of their bargains, and Royale. The quays stretch to a great complimenting themselves on their own length along the river, and have an ap- shrewdness. With such persons the purpearance at once interesting and imposing. chase of sixpennyworth of oranges is as The public bonding-warehouses for colonial eagerly seized to gratify their favorite and other merchandise and produce are propensity as the order for a set of plate; remarkable for their extent and beauty. and we have known instances of indiThe principal theatre for size and mag-viduals, possessed of ample pecuniary renificence is scarcely exceeded by any in sources, so confirmed in this habit, as to Europe. Neither the cathedral nor the wander in anxious uncertainty from stall Hôtel de Ville are marked by any very to stall before they could decide the mostriking features. Bordeaux possesses all mentous question as to which was the the public establishments of a city of the most eligible pennyworth of apples. first class.

There are a mint, an observatory, an académie universitaire, a collége royal, schools of architecture, hydrography and navigation, botany and natural history, drawing and painting, medicine and surgery; several learned societies, a public library, museum of antiquities, and a gallery of paintings.

Bordeaux is the chief outlet of the south

This habit of bargain-hunting, while we laugh at it for its folly, deserves to be denounced for its mischief. It holds out a premium to unfair trading, to trickery and lying: it is a cruel oppression of him who buys upon him who sells, and powerfully assists in lowering the hard-earned wages of the poor mechanic. The manufacturer is compelled, in order to gratify the morbid love of cheapness, to produce

goods of the most trashy and useless | moralities of trade. The seller, while he description, and to reduce the wages of introduces the article to his customer, feels those whom he employs to the lowest frac-a conviction that unless he adds an untruth tion. The shopkeeper, in order to secure this description of customers, is forced to adulterate his articles; to profess them to be what he knows they are not; to exert himself, by short weight, lying puffs, inferior substitutions, and a thousand unworthy artifices, to keep on a fair equality with his neighbors. No sooner does a new shop open, the owner of which professes to sell cheaper than usual, than he is patronised by the bargain-hunters, to the great injury and often ruin of his more conscientious competitors. Whether he himself ever intend to pay for his stock is not inquired into; whether he intend to pursue an honest and honorable course is held to be no business of the customers: he sells cheapest, and this supersedes every other consideration. The consequence too often is, that the bargainoffering tradesman, after having injured many a respectable shopkeeper around him, suddenly decamps at the expiration of a few months, and the secret of his bargains is at length apparent; namely, that never having intended to pay for the goods himself, any receipt must be a clear gain to him, and he could thus afford to sell at prices which must be ruinous to the upright dealer.

This cheapening mania exercises also a most pernicious influence in producing distrust, duplicity, and unmanly feeling, between seller and buyer. The seller, sharpened by past experience, is in selfdefence compelled, in order to obtain a remunerating profit, to ask more than the real value of the article, in order to leave room for the abatement which he expects as a matter of course to follow. The offer by the buyer of less than is asked is really an insult, for it virtually implies that the seller is either a fool or a rogue -a fool to take so little, or a rogue to ask so much; and thus the straight-forward honesty and integrity which should characterize dealings in the market or the shop, as much as anywhere else, is set aside, and seller and buyer meet together with a feeling that confidence and honor are out of place there, and that cunning and overreaching are among the recognised

to the specification of the price, unless an assertion is made or a warranty given which it would be absurd to believe, the article will be rejected, and the hesitating customer will not purchase it, but patronise some other less scrupulous tradesman. The bargain-hunter, on his side, turns the article over in a contemptuous manner, exerts his ingenuity to find some fault in it which shall afford a pretext for a lower offer, and having found a real or an imaginary one, bids something below what he often must know is its real value. The poor tradesman wants ready money, the article really cost him more, he knows of other shops where it may be had at that price, and, with a sickening heart and an inward condemnation of the selfishness of man, he accepts the offer, and the purchaser departs with his bargain. But, strange metamorphosis, the article so recently pronounced almost worthless, the purchaser now boasts of as excellent, worth double the money, and delights to hear his friends innocently express their surprise how it could possibly have been made for the price. Such a mode of dealing is unmanly, ungenerous, and unjust, and requires but to be candidly considered to be denounced by all who think and feel rightly.

The influence of this pernicious system upon the laboring part of the community is cruel and disastrous. We see every few days deplorable accounts of women who are compelled to sew for the merest pittance, and the shopkeepers are denounced for their cruelty. But the blame, we are persuaded, lies less with the immediate than the remote employers. The public, which vents its anger on the shopkeeper, is the real transgressor; for the dealer merely obeys the popular demand. Pressed upon by the insane cry for lowpriced articles, as well as by a general competition, the manufacturer and shopkeeper, if they would do business at all, must reduce their expenses to the lowest point in order to obtain any profit, and to this end are compelled to wring from their workpeople the utmost amount of work for the least possible remuneration. Un

A HABIT OF OBSERVATION.

reasonably protracted hours are resorted
to, toil is not allowed to cease with the
day, the labor of the woman is introduced
to supersede that of the man, and that of
the child to supersede both, education is
necessarily neglected, deformity produced,
stimulants resorted to, vicious habits form-
ed, and squalor and disease are induced;
and all this too often that the purchaser
may procure an article at a fractional
abatement. The occasional subscription
and the cold donation of charity are but
a poor reparation for depriving the work-
man of his honest earnings, and the manly
independence of pocket and of character
which it is so desirable he should possess.
It is true that the payment of fair prices
by the buyer will not always secure fair
remuneration to the operative, but the
habit of cheapening must have a tendency
to lower wages and inflict misery on the
producers.

The pernicious practice of bargainhunting is by no means confined to the rougher sex. It is to be lamented that the practice is far too common among that sex whose kindness of heart and sensibility need no eulogy, and whose propensity in this respect we can attribute to no other source than thoughtlessness. It is perhaps also partly to be accounted for by the fact, that females generally have less money at command than men, and therefore when they spend it are perhaps somewhat more unreasonable in their exchanging expectations. A little thought as to the amount of misery to others which must result from the gratification of this propensity, would surely be sufficient to convince them of its unreasonableness and inhumanity. Little do ladies think, while they are cheapening the thread and the tape, or the shawls, or the linens, they purchase, how much poverty and misery they are assisting to entail on the sickly operative who makes them, and how much of the ignorance and destitution and vice, the bare mention of which shocks their sensibilities, is traceable to this baneful practice.

The habit we have denounced is also very fallacious in a pecuniary point of view. The most shrewd and practised cheapener is often deceived, and finds, after he has secured the bargain, that, to

use the common phrase, "it is too cheap
to be good," or that he did not really want
it, and therefore it was dear at any price.
He discovers too late that what he has
bought was made to be looked at rather
than used, to deceive rather than satisfy,
and that the little he gave for it was far
too much for such an article, as it was
really worth nothing. The cheapest things
may be very dear, and the dearest very
cheap, and good articles can not reason-
ably be expected at any other than fair
prices. Independently therefore of the
injury which the habit of cheapening in-
flicts upon the workman, it is deceptive
and unprofitable even to the purchaser.
The prices of shopkeepers are certainly
not always to be paid without demur, for
this would be to hold out a premium to
imposition and extortion, but there should
be considerateness on the part of the
purchaser as to what ought to be the fair
price of such an article. To deal as much
as possible with tradesmen who are known
for their integrity and uprightness, with-
out being seduced by every unprincipled
adventurer who professes to be "selling
off under prime cost," and closing business
at a "tremendous sacrifice," will be found
in the long-run not only the truest econo-
my, and the most satisfactory to the pur-
chaser, but also the most advantageous to
the wellbeing of society and the general
interests of honesty and honor.

A HABIT OF OBSERVATION. THE means of exciting thought and reflection are not confined to books. Nor is intellectual progress confined to the is full of instruction, study of books. The whole world, both of nature and of man, and if studied, it will not only fill the mind with knowledge, but will afford that inIf then you tellectual exercise which will promote intellectual development. have formed the habit of observation, you will never be at a loss for employment for your thoughts. Every person you meet will, in the peculiarity of character presented, afford food for thought; every event of providence, and every object of nature, will thus be the means of intellectual development. But what is the habit

MARSEILLES.

ARSEILLES,

the great sea

port of France on the Mediterranean, was founded six centuries before the Christian era, by the peo

of observation? It is not merely the looking at things, but the habit of thinking and reflecting upon what you see. The man of observation is not the man who has actually seen the greatest number and greatest variety of objects; he is the man who has reflected the most carefully upon what he has seen, and in this way, derived the most valuable instruction from. them. What we would have you seek is the habit of inquiry, and thought, and reflection, in regard to every object that may be presented to your notice, seeking the peculiarities, inquiring the causes, learning the effects, and tracing the relations and connexions of one circumstance, event, or object, with another. In this way you will be constantly making improvement-important place of maritime commerce. your intellectual powers will be constantly acquiring new strength and greater freedom and more full development. Form, then, the habit of close, accurate observation, and you will be possessed of a powerful instrument for intellectual improve

ment.

Nay more, this habit will have a further and more extensive influence. If you can employ your mind in thinking about the objects you have seen, you can also, under the influence of the same habit, employ it in thinking about the lectures and discourses which you have heard. And who is it that derives the greatest profit from what he hears? Not the one who hears the most or listens with the deepest interest at the time. But he who thinks most carefully of what he has heard after he has done hearing. And here is the point where many fail, and the reason that they do not derive so much improvement as they might otherwise from the lectures and discourses which they hear. They hear with interest and with pleasure, but when they have done hearing, they turn their thoughts to other things. What they have heard is soon gone from their minds, and no distinct and lasting impression is left. But if they would think over what they have heard, or talk it over with their companions, or write out an abstract, they would make it more entirely their own, they would gain much valuable knowledge, which they now let slip, and they would acquire by the means great intellectual strength and development.

ple of Phocea, a Greek colony of Asia Minor. It soon flourished, and its inhabitants formed minor settlements on the coasts of Gaul, Spain, and Italy. From its earliest infancy Marseilles has been an

The soil in its neighborhood is sterile, and does not bountifully repay the labors of the cultivator. This circumstance, and the advantageous position of Marseilles, naturally diverted the energies of its popu lation to trade. At the present time a

fifth of the customs' duties collected in France, or nearly $5,000,000, is contributed by Marseilles; and its commerce is increasing, the occupation of Algiers by the French having brought the trade with that part of Africa into the hands of the Marseillaise. There are many soap manufactories and tan-yards at Marseilles. The refining of sugar is an important branch of industry. The trade in perfumery and olive-oil is also considerable. The exports of Marseilles consist of colonial produce, brandy, wine, liqueurs, syrups, preserved fruits, capers, anchovies, oil, soap, verdigris, perfumery, madder; manufactured goods, consisting of light woollens, silks, shawls, ribands, gloves, hardware, &c.; and the chief articles of import are sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo, pepper, iron, dye-woods, hides; and, when the trade in grain is active, wheat from the Black sea, Sicily, Italy, and Africa. The harbor is in the heart of the city, capacious and sheltered, but it does not admit vessels of the larger class; and as the accumulation of refuse from the shipping is not carried away by tides (the Mediterranean tides being scarcely perceptible) the port is frequently offensive. The form of the harbor resembles an elongated horseshoe the entrance is defended by forts