or costly sofas, and every person that enters, is expected to order some kind of drink or refreshment as soon as he has taken his seat.  Both sexes frequent them alike, and a grand sight it is to see a brilliant company of ladies and gentlemen sitting in groups and couples about these gorgeously decorated halls, enjoying their wine and each other’s company, thus presenting scenes of gayety and festive pleasure that are seldom outvied, even in the ball-room and the opera in this country.  A band of musicians render music from an elevated platform all evening, and an open space in front of the platform is provided for the accommodation of those who delight in the dance.  The waiting girls of these cafes are usually ladies of remarkable beauty and refinement, whose elegant dresses, graceful manners and rare accomplishment in conversation and address, are well in keeping with the charming brilliancy of the hall, and the merryand refined company around them.

It is astonishing how cheap these splendid accommodations of the cafe, almost princely in their style, can be rendered.  A person may enter a cafe early in the evening, sit down with his friends and acquaintances, order a glass of wine or beer and enjoy the best music and the pleasures of the most refined society for an hour or two, and when he leaves, his purse is only from three to eight cents the poorer for it.  A gentleman may take a lady to the cafe five evenings in a week, for between thirty cents and a dollar.  He may spent twice as much or even ten or fifty times as much, if he washes to spend his time in a building whose very window sashes and external ornamentations glitter with gold; but such a lavish expenditure of money is not required to be comfortable and happy.  These cafes are very orderly houses.  It is not fashionable to consume a glass of wine or beer in less than half an hour, and many drink the whole evening at one glass.  No one can get drunk at this rate, and any one who would drink fast and should become wild, he would not be tolerated in the cafe, as no lady would remain in his society.

There are some fast drinking-houses even in Paris, and more in some sections of Germany, but even those sent few or no drunk men upon the streets.  A fellow that would stagger upon the pavement would be conducted to the station house at once.  I did not see a single drunk person in Paris in half a month’s stay, and only several in the rest of my tour through Europe.  It is an encouraging sign of the times, that the cafe is being introduced in America.  May it soon take the place of our gambling-halls and drinking-hells.  See what Macaulay says of the Cafe, as he is quoted by Webster in his Unabridged Dictionary under the word Coffee-house.

Champs Elysees,