Julius Cornet of Hamburgh understands thirty-eight different languages, not in the superficial manner of Elihu Burritt, but so well that he is able to write them with correctness, and to make translations from one into the other. He has issued a circular to the German public, offering his services as a universal translator, and refers to some of the most prominent publishers of Leipsic, whom he has many years served in that capacity.
Fraser's magazine contains a reviewal of Texier's new book on the Paris journals and editors, from which we copy the following paragraphs:
The _Débats_ is chiefly read by wealthy landed proprietors, public functionaries, the higher classes of the magistracy, the higher classes of merchants and manufacturers, by the agents de change, barristers, notaries, and what we in England would call country gentlemen. Its circulation we should think 10,000. If it circulate 12,000 now, it certainly must have considerably risen since 1849.
The chief editor of the _Débats_ is Armand Bertin. He was brought up in the school of his father, and is now about fifty years of age, or probably a little more. M. Bertin is a man of _esprit_, and of literary tastes, with the habits, feelings, and demeanor of a well-bred gentleman. Of an agreeable and facile commerce, the editor of the _Débats_ is a man of elegant and Epicurean habits; but does not allow his luxurious tastes to interfere with the business of this nether world. According to M. Texier, he reads with his own proprietary and editorial eyes all the voluminous correspondence of the office on his return from the _salon_ in which he has been spending the evening. If in the forenoon there is any thing of importance to learn in any quarter of Paris, M. Bertin is on the scent, and seldom fails to run down his game. At a certain hour in the day he appears in the Rue des Prêtres, in which the office of the _Débats_ is situate, and there assigns to his collaborators their daily task. The compiler of the volume before us, who, as we stated, is himself connected with the Parisian press, writing in the _Siècle_, and who, it may therefore be supposed, has had good opportunities for information, states that, previous to the passing of the Tinguy law, M. Bertin never wrote in his own journal, but contented himself with giving to the products of so many pens the necessary homogeneity. But be this as it may, it is certain he has often written since the law requires the _signature obligatoire_.