THE FREE-TRADE SCHOOLMISTRESS AND HER FRENCH SCHOLAR.

There was a boy in Pa-ris; his name was Lou-is Na-po-le-on. He was a great big boy, and he made all the lit-tle boys do what he pleased. Now all the lit-tle boys want-ed to buy all their things in France, when they might have sent to Eng-land for many of those things, and bought them there twice as cheap. Was not this fool-ish of them? They said, “If we spend all our mo-ney at home, a-mongst our-selves, then none of it will go a-way to Eng-land.” But they forgot that if they bought cheap Eng-lish things, the Eng-lish would buy cheap French things, and so their mo-ney would come back a-gain.

Lou-is Na-po-le-on was cle-ver boy as well as a bug boy, and he thought the lit-tle boys were in the wrong. But he had been fond of play-ing at sol-diert, with ri-fles and can-nons, and knew more a-bout such things than he did a-bout buy-ing and sel-ling.

Just af-ter he had fin-ish-ed a game of sol-diers, which he won, and when he was sit-tong down to rest him-self, there came to the town of Pa-ris, where he lived in the Tui-le-ries, a nice old la-dy. Her name was Cob-den. She did no like play-ing sol-diers at all, but loved to see lit-tle boys, and big boys as well, play at com-merce in-stead. What they would let her, she was glad to teach them those gen-tle games. Lou-is Na-po-le-on said to him-self, “I would like to take some les-sons in com-merce of Mis-tress Cob-den, so as to be a-ble to teach the un-der boys.” So he went to her house, and asked her to come to him and tell him all a-bout it; and Mis-tress Cobden went and told him, and ex-plain-ed ev-e-ry thing to him that he wish-ed to know.

It was fun-by to hear her make him spell,- F, r, dou-ble e, Free; T,r,a,d,e, Trade,- Free Trade: and I,m,p,o,r,t,- Im-port, and E,x,p,o,r,t,- Ex-port; and also Ta-riff and Du-ty, and so on; and teach him the mean-ing of all those hard words of one, two, and more syl-la-bles. At last, when he was per-fect in his les-son, he went and re-peat-ed it to the lit-tle boys, to try and make them learn it. And then he told them they must now be-gin to let one a-no-ther go and buy things wher-e-ver those things were to be sold, and not cry and make a piece of work if French boys dealt with o-ther boys.

Now French boys are to deal with Eng-lish boys, and buy cof-fee and su-gar, and knives and scis-sors, per-haps they will not be so rea-dy as they were to quar-rel and fight. And if they take what we have to sell, we must take what they have to sell. We must let their wine in at a lo du-ty. It is good wine; some of it is cal-led Cla-ret. Let us pour out a glass of nice Cla-ret to drink the health of Dame Cob-den, and suc-cess to her pu-pil Lou-is Na-po-le-on in his new game of Com-merce and Free Trade.

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