CURRENT LuERATIME.
A Handbook for Visitors to Paris. With map and plans. (John Mar- ray.)—This is really a good handbook. It is small enough to be port- able, and yet tells the visitor everything he really wants to know. And it is an advantage to have a handbook written in thoroughly good taste, free from flippancies and vulgarisms, and accurate in its his- torical statements. In Paris, too, something of the sort is especially wanted, for the museums are on so vast a scale that a lady or even a man who is not very strong may wander about till he is tired without ever finding the part of the institution he most wants to see. There are few: persons who have not experienced this at all events in the Louvre or at- Versailles, where you may very easily walk half a mile in:fruitless en- deavours to find the right entrance. A plan removes all trouble of this sort at a glance. We must, however, point out some trifling errors in
the naming of the plans. The text rightly speaks of the ground floor and first floor of the Louvre, while the plan of the ground floor is labelled " first floor." In the case of Versailles the blunder, is more for the ground-floor plan is labelled "first floor," and the first-floor plan is labelled" ground floor." The general plan of the book is alphabetical, certainly the most convenient for reference and the most concise. A short account of the different routes from London to Paris is prefixed, and a very well written essay on hotels, restaurants, cabs, French money and weights and measures, cafes, and reading- rooms. Also there is a scheme for seeing all the sights in twelve days, and the best map of the city we have ever seen. The handbook is a success.
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