Almanach Hachette. (Hachette et Cie.)—This is rather a French "What's
What" than a French " Whitaker." It describes itself as a "Little Popular Encyclopedia of Practical Life," and carries out the description very well. Matters which here are held of great importance are absent. We hear nothing about the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate. the Official World or the Judiciary. The Army has four and a half pages assigned to it and the Navy half a page. But domestic economy, medicine, sport, and other practical matters without number are fully treated. And there are some things which we may describe as especially French. There is a lamentation over the scarcity of French children, and another lamentation over a map which exhibits the battles fought by France in her own land and in the rest of Europe. There is, says the author of this "Carte des batailles de la France," a restless spirit in the nation which makes it " courir a la delivrance des peuples opprimes." That is not exactly the way in which we all regard the past history of France, but the map is certainly an interesting sight. Victories are printed in upsight, defeats in sloping letters. Talavera is among the former (England was so deluded as to give the van- quished general a peerage), Salamanca is not marked at all. There are, of course, the usual falsehoods about South African affairs. These " atrocities" are charged against the leaders in the field, as they must be, however partisan speakers may choose to shuffle.
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