Duchâtelet-the Newton of harlotry-in The aristocracy of the profession, the his elaborate work, De la Prostitution de kept mistresses, have nearly all of them la Ville de Paris,* enumerates the in- their favoured lovers, whom our author stances in which near relations have simul- warns us by no means to confound with taneously presented themselves for regis- their ostensible protectors: many of these tration. Out of 5183 registrations, 164 favourites occupy an elevated position in cases have occurred of two sisters present-society-general officers-men of lettersing themselves at the same time, 4 instances financiers-noblemen.' The next rankof three sisters, 3 instances of four; and the still more fearful spectacle of a mother and her daughter presenting themselves together has occurred no less than sixteen times!!

the higher class of street-walkers-who live free from personal restraint, exercise their trade during the day, and devote their nights to the society of their lovers, whom by preference they choose from among the This is a work d'une grande célébrité in of these grand divisions is consecrated to a philoFrance. We marvel not that it should be so; for sophic analysis of the veteran rank of the profession. never was there a book more radically and essen- Here, in fourteen sections, we have given to us their tially French. The subject well deserves the atten- nomenclature-the gradual purifications in the tion of the philanthropist and the statesman: it is French language on this important subject during the treatment of it--the blending together philosophic a long succession of ages-the exact year, 1796, in gravity and trivial minuteness-the needless abomi- which their present decorous appellation was connation of detail-which makes the English reader ceded to then-their domestic pursuits, studies, and fling it from him with wonder and disgust. The amusements-their opinion of themselves, a nice author had prepared himself for his revolting task point-their special and individual affairs of the heart by a long familiarity with kindred subjects: the the discomfort to their establishments when these death-spreading industry of Montfaucon the ob-extend to more than two cherished objects at oncestructed sinks and sewers of Paris--had been the their tournure d'esprit'-their maternal solicitude; objects of his care, before he busied himself with and, to complete the interesting picture, their calm these darker impurities. To them he devoted almost exclusively the last eight years of his life. His zeal and energy in the pursuit were unceasing; and among the mass of facts which he has collected and brought into system many are of high importance and utility. But from long dwelling upon one favourite and engrossing subject, his eye lost by degrees the faculty of correct perspective: things absolutely unimportant, things altogether base and trivial, became from proximity magnified into objects of philosophic grandeur. What moral or statistical advantage, for example, can result from ascertaining with mathematical accuracy and reducing into decimal fractions the proportionate ratios of the eyes, grey, brown, blue, red, and black, of every street-walker in Paris? What practical utility in mastering the still more difficult problem of the colour of their eyebrows? There may be some interest in knowing exactly the height of the Venus de Medicis, and of the Pucelle d'Orléans ;-but to ascertain, within the fraction of an inch, the altitudes, in an ascending series, of TWELVE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR Parisian pros-pedient to be accurate in our references.) titutes is a department of science, a species of philosophy, which we are convinced no human being but a Frenchman would ever have thought of cultivating.

As an author, Parent Duchâtelet's merits are considerable. His language is correct, clear, and even eloquent; but the measureless attachment which he feels towards his subject betrays him sometimes into an energy of phrase singularly ludicrous. Subjects of loathsome disquisition, needless and frivolous impurities, are thus pompously ushered in: 'Je consacre un chapitre,' Cette opinion étant d'un poids immense, J'ai puisé largement à cette source précieuse,'--' Cet inestimable document ;'-and on one occasion, when dilating on a subject supereminently revolting and disgraceful, filled with gratitude towards his co-explorers, he exclaims, Ils l'ont étudiée pour moi, et m'ont donné à ce sujet des précieux renseignemens!!

In elaborate correctness of arrangement the work is a master-piece: each of its grander divisions is subdivided into numerous subordinate sections, every one of which has its duplex enunciation, the one concise, the other full and comprehensive. One

secession from the toils of life-their provincial retirements-their gradually extending respectability -their charitable cares-their rural piety-their eager participation in the holiest ceremonials of the church:-the whole wound up with what should have been its commencement, had there not existed, as we are expressly told, insurmountable difficul ties' in so doing-the whole wound up with

'DEFINITION d'une Dame de Maison.'

The accuracy of every statement contained in this volume is repeatedly insisted upon by M. Frégier, and the work carries within itself the strongest evidence of truth. There are, nevertheless, some very startling assertions in it. We scarcely know which of the three following is the most incredible:-

1st. That one of the physicians of Paris, observing the uniform increase of fat which courtezans acquire from the use of mercury, suggested the expediency of subjecting all animals intended for the food of man to a like course of treatment!! (Page 116 of the Brussels edition of 1836-we deem it ex

2d. That in one of the forty-eight quarters of Paris, that of l'Ile Saint Louis, in a population of 7500, not one single prostitute is to be found!!! (Page 327)

3d. That one woman of a superior grade-but we will quote the original words, to prevent the possibility of error-assurait la santé de tous ses cliens. Pour cela elle ne recevait que des hommes mariés que tous se connaissaient; on n'était admis chez elle que sur la présentation de quelques habitués, et avec l'assentiment de tous les autres au nombre de quarante à cinquante'!!!! (Page 81.)

Parent-Duchâtelet was a skilful and valuable public servant. We believe, also, that he was a virtuous man; and the disgust with which we cast aside the book does not extend to its author. Nor would we be unjust to the work itself. As it exists, it would be unendurable in this country; but if divested of all its unnecessary grossness, all its trivial details, we should be glad to see, in an English dress, the solid information which it contains. We warn our readers against supposing that they will find what we speak of in a late trumpery publication of the Edinburgh press.

est.

reduced to the same hard fare and the same coarse dress, the inferior fails not to take a bitter revenge. The mistresses of the houses of Tolerance have in their pay agents in the different hospitals, who form acquaintance with the handsomest of their fellow-patients; and, on their report, the Dame de Maison enters into a treaty with the girls thus selected, and makes them a present of clothes, and a

students of law and medicine, and the ju- | men than the disdain which the higher ranks venile attorneys, 'the intelligence and wit among them express for those of an inferior of these young men rendering them espe- grade, the one grand criterion of their recially attractive.' These women never ex-lative dignity being the price at which they act any payment from their favourites; on accord their favours. Should any individual the contrary, they lavish their money upon forget herself so far as to lower her terms, them; and the number of young men in she is exposed to the anger and revilings of Paris who degrade themselves by being her fellows: this is an offence which, in their thus supported is considerable. This total opinion, admits of no excuse. The contempt absence of mercenary views,' says our of the superior class naturally draws down author, is universal through all the grada- upon it the vindictive hatred of the other; and tions of prostitution, even to the very low- when members of the two meet, as they perTowards their lovers, the disinterest-petually do in the prison or the hospital, both edness of these abandoned women is unmixed and perfect.' The next class in the descending scale are perhaps the least corrupted and vicious of the whole: these nearly all of them exercise some industrious trade, in addition to their regular profession: many are economists, and invest their money in the savings-banks: not a few of them in the capital thus accumulated find ultimately the means of emanci-weekly allowance of four or five francs dupating themselves, and set up in some decent business. The lovers chiefly sought after by this class are shopmen, journeymen hair-dressers, and journeymen tailors, the latter especially. In this rank there are many women whose degradation has sprung from poverty, and not from any propensity to vice. The lowest class is that which most demands the strict attention of the police; for with them are constantly associated men of the vilest and most dangerous character, their lovers or their souteneurs, who are for the most part liberated convicts. The attachment of these women for their favourites knows no bounds: the vilest treatment at their hands, blows, even wounds, will not shake it. The duty of the souteneur is to warn his mistress of the approach of the police, when she is infringing the prescribed rules; and in the event of her being arrested, he is always prepared to do battle in her defence.

ringthe remainder of their stay in the hospital, the agent herself receiving a much higher remuncration. These selections chiefly take place from among girls out of place, and work-women without employment; who, on leaving the hospital, have no alternative before them but famine or vice. The houses of the lower class are recruited from the prisons by similar agency. Many of the Dames de Maison obtain their recruits by the aid of correspondents in the country, especially in the manufacturing departments: they often employ regular travellers for the same purpose; and not a few are in league with the persons who keep offices for the hiring of servants, who, without remorse, when a girl more than usually handsome applies for a place, send her to the address of one of the most showy of the licensed Maisons. The train is so well laid, that it very generally succeeds-flattery, dress, luxuries of all sorts, conquer her repugnance, These are the four chief classes which and she devotes herself to a life of shame, constitute that division of the system in without even being aware that she has been which the women continue to be free agents, the victim of a conspiracy. Especial care and mistresses of their own actions; with is taken to keep these unhappy creatures the exception only of their constant subjec- totally penniless, lest they should emancipate tion to the sanatory regulations, and, in the themselves from the thraldom they endure; event of misconduct, to imprisonment. From and if they are suspected of economising, the highest to the lowest, from the femme every art used to lead them into extravagalante who lives surrounded by every lux-gance. In the more splendid establishments ury, to the half-clothed prowler through the personal indulgences are granted to them in streets, all are alike subjected to the dispen- excess; yet, no sooner does disease attack sary, the hospital, and the prison. The visits them, than they are hurried off without symto the dispensary are required to be made pathy or remorse from the very centre of twice every month, and are recorded on a luxury to the melancholy wards of a hoscard, which they are bound to produce, when pital. The vilest, the most revolting, and called upon to do so by the police. Nothing the most dangerous of all these licensed is a more marked characteristic of these wo-establishments are the dens in those parts of

the city where the lower classes congregate; the benefit to the offenders would be imsuch as the Grand Barriers and the outward portant and permanent; they would beBoulevards. Day and night, one unceasing come less immoral, and less dangerous subround of riot, debauchery, drunkenness fight-jects to the state. But experience has ing, and theft, takes place in these hot-beds proved that this cannot be. The fact is notorious, that the law is not able to bring within its coercive powers one-half of the class. But this is not, we conceive, the chief objection to it. A portion of the class, having the sanction of the law, being under its care, legalized and protected, establish

of crime.

Clandestine prostitution has a range as wide as that which is regular and avowed. A large proportion of the total number of femmes-galantes, or kept-mistresses-femmes à partie the girls who habitually frequent the theatres-workwomen-maid servants es at once a line of demarkation between -and, last and most melancholy of all, it and the remaining part, which holds itchildren, form the catalogue of the 4000 fe- self aloof from all restraint. The consemales who constitute the mass of prostitu- quence is inevitable-the unrestricted portion which does not submit itself to the law. tion become, from the mere circumstance The femmes à partie are a distinct race: they of this distinction, this separation, more are women distinguished generally by their depraved, more audacious, and more danwit and fascinating manners, who are, or gerous than they would be, were there no have been prostitutes. They keep a good such division. The slightest acquaintance table, and receive all visiters who are in- with the nature of the human mind would troduced to them by friends in whom they convince us, à priori, that this must be so; confide: they give dinners, balls, soirées; but not only M. Frégier's volumes, but the and collect around them as many beautiful more circumstantial work of Parent-Duchâfaces as they can-divorced wives-actresses telet, prove, beyond a shadow of doubt, -opera-dancers, and femmes galantes of all that such is the case. From the amount, kinds: they live by the spoils of the thought- therefore, of good, which the exertions of less young men of fortune. In disgraceful the law effect in one half of the mass, is to conduct the women who beset the theatres be deducted the amount of evil which equal-they cannot exceed-their parallels results to the other. in London. This stain upon our national manners has been far too patiently endured, and we hail with gratitude the recent effort of Mr. Macready to free our capital from so foul a reproach.

It has been painful to us to go into these details; but as of all the divisions of society this is the one in which the greatest difference exists between the two nations, we have deemed it right specially to direct the attention of our readers to it. That both in a moral and a religious point of view it is a subject of the deepest importance none can doubt; and it deserves, consequently, the calm attention of the political economist. English feelings and English prejudices may, perhaps, bias our judgment; our neighbours consider us antiquated and unwise in our views on this branch of civil government; and we know that the French system of legalized prostitution is gradually spreading over other European nations. We do not wonder that it should do so; for, unquestionably, there are many advantages connected with it. These are upon the surface. The objections lie deeper. If legal surveillance could, without undue interference with the liberty of the subject, be made to extend over all those who are tainted with this vice, great good, great diminution of crime, disease and misery, would be the result;

But the question

which relates to society at large is one of far greater importance; and here there is no balancing of good and evil. The legalizing, the trafficking with vice, the protection and countenance given to it, cannot exist without baneful effects extending themselves directly or indirectly over all divisions of society. The national scale of morality is brought down; the distinctions of right and wrong are defaced. A licensed brothel and a licensed gambling-house are less dangerous places to those who frequent them than similar abodes of vice unsubjected to control; but to society at large the injury resulting from the union of crime and law is incalculably greater. France has already perceived this as regards the one vice, and sanctioned gambling-houses have ceased to exist.

It is proved, that among the prostitutes in Paris a considerable number economize their gains, are depositors in the savingsbanks, and acquire the means of quitting their vicious course of life: it is proved, also, that a large proportion of these unhappy women do ultimately obtain re-admission into their original classes of society. Could we restrict our views to these individuals, the knowledge that such is the case would be consolatory: but we must look also at those by whom they are received: we then perceive that it is the ab

sence of high moral feeling in society at large which renders it possible for beings who have so degraded themselves ever to recover the station they have lost. The lax and depraved tone of society, which leads them to hope that such an event is possible, leads also to their economy and their savings. Instances of similar re-admission into the ranks of honesty are comparatively rare in England. It is not with

sorrow that we assert this to be so. It is the purer morality of the social system with us that renders the exclusion final and irremediable; and we hold that, where the loss to the unhappy class is as one, the gain to society is as a thousand.

The vagabonds are the next class described. They hold an intermediate place between the beggar and the robber.

ty. These are the voluntary members of the driven to do so by the neglect or the cruelty of fraternity; but many join it unwillingly, being their masters: many are orphans. The efforts made by the police to reclaim these juvenile offenders are unceasing; but severity and kindness are alike ineffectual. Again and again are they arrested, and punished or pardoned as the case requires; and again and again do they resume the same lawless course of life. A singu lar case is on record of one of these children, who was arrested no less than forty times: he was always alone; and, strange to say, in no one instance had he committed any punishable crime; his only proveable offence was that of being day and night a houseless wanderer.'

The points of resemblance between the pickpockets, the sharpers, and the robbers of Paris and London are so numerous and so strong as to render it unnecessary for us to follow our author through the whole of his details. Many of his statements might be mistaken for extracts from our own police reports. We shall therefore touch only

on those forms of crime which are least known in England.

'Ragged and idle, vegetating in a state of torpid carelessness, and solely occupied by the present moment, these degraded beings abound in all the great centres of population. A numerous division of the tribe hang about the market-places, to pick up a few pence, by exe- The octroi duty, which is levied on all articuting commissions, and eke out their daily cles of consumption brought into Paris, forms gains by petty thefts and begging. The young- by far the most considerable portion of the city er division of the class is recruited from among revenue. In 1840 it amounted to no less a sum the boys expelled from the schools or the manu- than 40,606,535 francs, (£1,624,261). To evade factories for inveterate idleness and misconduct, this tax innumerable modes of smuggling are and who pass their entire days loitering in the resorted to, and not only by professed thieves, streets, in defiance of the remonstrances and and by women and children, who devote themcorrections of their parents. These young rep- selves to it as a legitimate branch of inrobates, whose ages vary from seven to sixteen, dustry, but also by a large number of the opare soon enticed by other boys, more advanced erative classes when out of employment. in vice, to band themselves together into gangs, These latter, however, when their Own sometimes to the number of eighteen; one es- accustomed occupation is again offered them, pecial article of their compact being mutually to willingly quit their illicit trade. Many of these assist one another in escaping from the search bands of smugglers are armed, have their capof their parents, or of the masters to whom they tains (chefs d'équipes,) and carry on their trade have been apprenticed. The most timid and avowedly, and in defiance of the agents of the the least depraved frequent the markets, and octroi, with whom they sometimes come into beg or execute commissions; the bolder and open collision. But by far the greater quantity of more accomplished rob. With all of them, smuggled goods are introduced secretly...... La without exception, gambling is the ruling pas-fraude sous vêtement is effected by bladders arsion; next to this the theatre; and, in order to ranged around the corsets of women, or by a collect money to pay for their admission, they hollow cuirass of tin neatly fitted to the shape. will frequently fast for a couple of days. Wher- La fraude par escalade takes place only during ever there is noise, tumult, or sedition, there the night: a ladder, with a strong cord at the these gangs are sure to be seen. Those who end of it, is placed against the city wall; up this rob, lord it over the rest, as it is from their the smuggler ascends, charged with a leathern gains that the more timid and the new recruits sack filled with wine or spirit, and the cord enare supported. They are ambitious to form the ables him to descend with his burden on the acquaintance and receive the instructions of other side. La fraude par jet de vessie is pracgrown-up robbers; but indeed the fathers of tised in open day. The point of communication many of them are robbers. An instance is being fixed upon, the exterior smuggler throws known of one of these boys who, when not bladder after bladder over the wall, and they are quite three years old, was able to pick a lock; caught by his accomplice. Unwholesome meat and when soon afterwards he commenced busi-is introduced into the city in the same manner. ness in the streets, the childish naïveté with which he recited his little felonies is said to have "filled his father's mind with delight and pride." These thievish imps swarm on the Boulevards, and insinuate themselves more especially into the groups which surround the ambulatory exhibitions and the print-shops. In short, every crowded place is the theatre of their activi

But of all the modes of smuggling, the one which most largely detracts from the city revenues is that effected by means of subterranean excavations. A gang hire a house outside the walls, having attached to it a court or garden suitable to their purpose: opposite to this, inside the walls, they occupy another building, and from the one to the other they open a subterra

The great abundance and variety of silver coin give the sharpers of Paris an important advantage over their London breth-gazing intently on the beautiful little padlocked Le vol à l'Américaine would be little productive with us; in France, although it has been perpetually exposed in the newspapers, it is still practised with as much