666 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



if he pays attention to them, to begin at the right time, and at tho right end of what 

 he has got to do, and to do it to the best advantage. 



DIFFICULTIES IN OPENING EXHIBITION. 



His first step is, for any exhibition whatever, to make his application to the chief 

 of police for his license, which is in all cases doubtful, and in all cases also is sure to 

 require two or three weeks for his petition to pass the slow routine of the various 

 offices and hands which it must go through. If it be for any exhibition that can be 

 construed into an interference with the twenty or thirty theater licenses, it may as 

 well not be applied for or thought of, for they will shut it up if opened. 



It is also necessary to arrange in time with the overseer of the poor, whether he is 

 to take one-eighth or one-fifth of the receipts for the hospitals — for the hospice, as he 

 is termed, is placed at the door of all exhibitions in Paris, who carries off one-eighth 

 or one-fifth of the daily receipts every night. It is necessary also, if catalogues are 

 to be sold in the rooms, to lodge one of them at least two weeks before the exhibition 

 is to open in the hands of the commissaire de police, that it may pass through the 

 office of the prefect, and twenty other officers' hauds, to be read, and duly decided 

 that there is nothing revolutionary in it; and then to sell them, or to give them away 

 (all the same), it is necessary for the person who is to sell, and who alone can sell 

 them, to apply personally to the commissaire de police, and make oath that be was 

 born in France, to g'.ve his age and address, &c, before he can take the part assigned 

 him. It is then necessary, when the exhibition is announced, to wait until seven or 

 eight guards and police, with muskets and bayonets fixed, enter and unbar the doors, 

 and open them for the public's admission. It is necessary to submit to their friendly 

 care during every day of the exhibition, and to pay each one his wages at night, when 

 they lock up tho rooms and put out the lights. In all this, however, though expen- 

 sive, there is one redeeming feature. These numbers of armed police, at their posts, 

 in front of the door, and in the passage, as well as in the exhibition rooms, give re- 

 spectability to its appearance, and preserve the strictest order and quiet amongst the 

 company, and keep a constant and vigilant eye to the protection of property. 



LADIES LEADING LITTLE DOGS. 



During the time I was engaged in settling these tedious preliminaries, and getting my 

 rooms prepared for their exhibition, the Indians were taking their daily rides, and get- 

 ting a passing glimpse of most of the out-door scenes of Paris, They were admitting par- 

 ties of distinguished visitors,who were calling upon them, and occasionally leaving them 

 liberal presents, and passing their evenings upon their buffalo skins, handing around 

 the never-tiring pipe, and talking about the King, and their medals, and curious 

 things they had seen as they had been riding through the streets. The thing which 

 as yet amused the Doctor the most was the great number of women they saw in the 

 streets leading dogs with ribbons and strings. He said he thought they liked their 

 dogs better than they did their little children. In London, he said he had seen some 

 little dogs leading their masters, who were blind, and in Paris they began to think 

 the first day they rode out that one half the Paris women were blind, but that they 

 had a great laugh when they found that their eyes were wide open, and that instead 

 of their dogs leading them, they were leading their dogs. The Doctor seemed puzzled 

 about the custom of the women leading so many dogs, and although he did'Wt in any 

 direct way censure them for doing it, it seemed to perplex him, and he would sit and 

 smile and talk about it for hours together. He and Jim had at first supposed, after 

 they found that tho ladies were not blind, that they cooked and ate them, but they 

 were soon corrected in this notion, and always after remained at a loss to know what 

 they could do with them. 



On one of their drives, tho Doctor and Jim, supplied with a pencil and a piece of 

 paper, had amused themselves by counting, from both sides of the omnibus, thenum- 



