mencing at five in the morning and ending at
midnight. Between their rounds they examine
and sort the cargoes which they bring in, and
which they term their merchandise: and, hav-
ing done so, go and sell the arranged treasures
to the master or managing chiffonnier: for, like
all other professions, this has it gradations of
ranks, the higher of which are only reached
after long periods of subordinate labour. Many
of these chiefs keep furnished lodgings, which
they let out exclusively to those ambulatory
chiffonniers who have no fixed residence; re-
serving to their own use the ground-floor as a
magazine for their wares. The important ope-
ration of sorting his booty, if the chiffonnier is
one of the better class, and desirous of a healthy
lodging, is performed either in a separate room,
hired for the purpose, or, when the weather will
permit, in the open air; but the far greater
number possess only a single room, and in this,
surrounded and assisted by their children, they
spread out, examine, and sort the filthy produce
of each journey. The floor is covered with rags,
fragments of animal substances, glass, paper,
and a thousand other things, some whole, some
broken, and all begrimed with dirt; whilst the
several selections fill all the corners of the room,
and are heaped up under the bed. The stran-
ger who enters is almost suffocated by the stench,
which is rendered still more offensive by one,
and sometimes two, large dogs, which form part
of the domestic establishment of most chiffon-
niers, and which they take out with them in
their nocturnal rounds. It is matter of astonish-
ment that habit should enable these people to
endure with impunity the putrid exhalations
amidst which they live. The hotte of the chif-
fonnier is not merely the receptacle of his
merchandise, it is also his market-basket: among
all the filthy trash which he collects, he takes
care not to neglect the luxuries of his table-tutes of the lowest order.'
vegetables for his soup, pieces of bread, half-
rotten fruit, everything which he conceives to
be eatable. It is not unamusing to watch the
sorting of all this, and to listen to the profess-
ional talk which seasons the operation when
the sorter is in good temper, as he generally is,
if his basket has been well filled and you ad-
dress him with civility. Squatting down be-
fore it, he will show you, with a smile of exul-
tation, a large beef-bone-a perfect beauty-and
other articles of equal worth; and as he ar-
ranges his several heaps on the pavement, he
will tell you "competition kills trade-that
cooks have become dead to all sense of humani-
ty, that they now make money of everything,
bones and broken glass especially!" These rag-
amuffins have their moments of good fortune
and joy—it is when, in breaking apart a mass of
filth, they see glittering before their eyes a sil-
ver spoon or fork; and, thanks to the careless-
ness of servants, these rich prizes are not of
rare occurrence. The happy individual forth-
with proceeds to the barrier with his friends,
generally in a hackney-coach, to celebrate the
event by a copious repast: the coachman, who
anticipates the dirty state of his cushions, being
the only dissatisfied individual of the party.
The daily gain of the lady-chiffonniers amounts
to, perhaps, fifteen or twenty sous; that of the

children, to about ten. Many children, who run
away from their parents at a very early age,
take to this trade as a means of subsistence.
The life they lead is almost savage: they are
remarkable for the audacity and harshness of
their manners. Some become so perfectly es-
tranged that they lose all recollection of their
father's abode, nay, even of his name.

'As with all other classes of operatives, the wine and spirit shop is the constant resort of these rubbish-hunters. To the aged chiffonniers, still more to the aged females of the class, brandy has an attraction which nothing else can equal. These women believe, and act upon the belief, that spirituous liquors afford the same nourishment as solid food: they conceive that the artificial tone which results from the use of them is genuine strength; and the error is persisted in, until the constitution is destroyed. No wonder that the rate of mortality in this class is so high.

All the lower ranks display a certain pride and ostentation in their expenditure at the cabaret, but the chiffonniers more than any other. The ordinary sort of wine will not suffice them; hot wine is their usual luxury, and they are vastly indignant if the lemon and sugar be not abundant. The cabaret-keepers are greatly scandalized by these extravagances-that is to say, when a difficulty occurs, as it frequently does, in making up the reckoning. The generous sentiments which animate the better class of operatives are totally wanting among these people: shunned and scorned by every one, they in return shun and hate all their fellow-creatures; they affect a cynic tone and manner, and appear to pride themselves on proclaiming their degradation and their vice. A considerable proportion of the men have passed through the hands of justice; and many of the women are prosti

In speaking of the vicious portions of the middle ranks, M. Frégier confines himself to the writers, or copying-clerks, the students, and the shopmen: all the other divisions of society have their tainted spots, but it is in the three which he has selected, more than in any other, that vice shows itself in a special, distinct, and extended

form.

The number of persons who gain their bread by the use of the pen, in public offices, banking-houses, law-establishments, and elsewhere, amounts, in Paris, to many thousands: these, taken as a whole, are not more immoral than the rest of society; nor is it of these that our author speaks, but of the persons employed by the mastercopyists, whose trade it is to prepare writings for attorneys, notaries, and the public generally :—

'There are about 150 such establishments in Paris, and the number of clerks employed in them exceeds 600. Most of the offices or stalls in which the business is carried on are slight and temporary erections in some of the busiest

thirty sous a day, prefer to yawn away their time, and just cover a sufficient number of pages to keep themselves from sheer starvation. Docrust and water for their breakfast, a dinner for four sous, and a night's lodging for still less, suffice them. The rags worn by these men are actually infectious; nor do they attempt to replace them by others until they will no longer hold together. They will then apply for work at some of the stalls where they are known, gain a few francs, refit themselves in a set of better rags, and sink back at once into their state of torpid slothfulness. The master-copiers, utterly as they despise these men, are careful not to offend them, as in the moments of pressure which frequently occur in their business they cannot do without them. This class, viewed collectively, is one of the most degraded in Paris.'

be trained

streets, and around and within the Palais de Justice. Among these clerks indolence and reckless and brutal vice are carried to a point to which it is difficult to conceive that human being nothing is their supreme happiness; a dry ings possessed of some degree of talent and education could descend. The master-copyists give to their writers two-thirds of the sums they receive. The set attached to each establishment is classed by numbers, so that the four or five highest on the list are sure of employment. Their weekly gains range from eight to fifteen francs; but the more skilful, and especially those who write a fine hand, can gain forty francs. Some of these men work in the stalls of their employers, others at their own abodes. The class, with some few melancholy exceptions of ingenious and well-educated young men and meritorious fathers of families, who have been driven into it by poverty, is a vile compound of expelled students, dismissed merchants' clerks, bankrupt schoolmasters, cashiered officers, and liberated convicts. Their predominant vices are drunkenness, gluttony, gambling, and idleness; the whole accompanied and set off by a degree of filthiness and disregard of the decencies of life which almost surpasses belief. It was from this crowd that Lacénaire stepped forth, eminent alike for his crimes and his excesses. The favourite pursuits of this "felon wit" were gambling and gluttony; all that escaped the one was lavished on the other. Eight or ten francs for his breakfast or dinner were no uncommon expenditure with this man; and his consumption of coffee was unbounded. Fraud and robbery were his most usual modes of obtaining funds for these indulgences; and it was only at intervals that he would condescend to have recourse to his pen. Before he had entirely shaken off all social restraint, and had devoted himself, soul and body, to crimes of the deepest dye, he was much sought after by the mastercopyists, in consequence of the beauty of his penmanship and his marvellous rapidity of execution. Sometimes, tempted by the high rate of payment offered him, he would undertake a long piece of writing, and labour at it, fixed at his desk, for twenty-four or even forty-eight hours, almost without intermission. His task was no sooner finished than the gambling-table, or a glorious champagne breakfast, again rendered him penniless. Lacénaire scorned to be called a copyist; he only condescended to use his pen in moments of pressing need, when no robbery offered him an easier mode of filling his

purse.

Many of these men are remarkable for the ragged and offensive dirtiness of their dress. The soiled rags of the beggar are displeasing to the "nicer sense;" but the humble and careworn appearance of him who wears them converts disgust into pity. It is far otherwise with the class of which I am speaking: their insolent and boisterous manner, their sensual look, and their brutal filthiness, combine to render them the most revolting objects that the eye can meet; and, strange as it may appear, some of the most skilful of the class are of this description. Others, again, carry the vice of idleness to a pitch scarcely to be believed. Men, who could with ease obtain twenty or

We appreciate the immense advantage of late given to heads of families resident in London, from the institution of superior seminaries, where their sons may by able masters during certain hours of each day, returning to spend the evening under the paternal eye and roof; but we are sure that, except as to medical studies, which cannot now be adequately prosecuted in small places-where there are of course no great hospitals, and where eminent surgeons can seldom be expected to fix themselves-young men whose parents live in the country should never be exposed to the danger of education in a popufous metropolis. Paris is the great focus of all education for the youth of France; and the consequences in respect of morality are most painful to contemplate. M. Frégier gives some pleasing sketches of the students from the provinces: their warmth of friendship, their close union among themselves as a distinct class, their kind offices to each other in the hour of need, and the energy with which, after having yielded to the seduction of pleasure, they again devote themselves to study. But a much darker picture follows. All the facilities to vice surround these young men. Women, gambling, extravagance in all its shapes, tempt them at every hour: and, new as they are to the world, separated perhaps for the first time from their parents, frequent are the instances, not merely of a temporary falling away from virtuê, but of utter ruin. M. Frégier traces out their progress from extravagance to dishonesty. When they have no longer trinkets or clothes of their own to pawn, they borrow those of their companions; they order others from the tradespeople, and all alike travel to the Mont de Piété. Again and again funds are asked to meet fictitious

An additional danger besets those young denizens of the counter who are cursed with the fatal gift of beauty. Kept mistresses, ladies'-maids, nursery-maids, and all the descending gradations of frailty which crowd the entre-sol and the kitchen, select these handsome shopmen as the objects of their especial tenderness: they are led to do so partly by inclination, partly from a calculating determination to obtain by their means the materials for their toilets, without the disagreeable necessity of paying for them. A tall, well-made, silkmercer's apprentice, with bright eyes, fresh complexion, white teeth, elaborately-parted hair, and redundant whiskers, stands on the verge of a precipice every yard of ribbon that he measures. If he ventures on mustachios, and cherishes a tip, his doom is fixed. In these cases two brilliant wardrobes are to be furnished instead of one, and the descent to crime and ruin is more than doubly rapid.' *

booksellers' and doctors' bills, until the | Little investigation takes place, little opparent's anxiety is aroused, and he resolves portunity for defence is given. It is held to ascertain the real state of things. All to be the safest plan to dismiss the fine manner of frauds are then got up to estab- gentleman, and he is thrown upon the world lish the fact of sickness; and a due num- without character and without resourcesber of books are hired for the probable du- how rarely to escape from the gulf of ration of the parental visit: a regular train crime which yawns to receive him! of deception and falsehood is put into action, and the bewildered senior returns to the country, half satisfied and half suspicious. These delinquencies lead on to darker. Among the students there never fail to be found individuals who affect to separate themselves from the rest of the world, and to disdain all moral restraints. These young men, frequently of high talent, are quarrelsome, enemies to all fagging, perpetual frequenters of the coffeehouses, and pride themselves on their cynicism, and the open boldness of their vices. Their number is small; but, unhappily, one of their chief pleasures and pursuits is the propagation of their own vicious habits and opinions amongst the incautious youths around them. To complete the ruin of these striplings, and at the same time to prey upon them, is their aim and their boast. It is among these abandoned parasites and their victims that nearly all the cases occur of students who are brought before the tribunals of justice. Our author, having indicated what he conThe shopmen form another distinct di-ceives to be the chief sources of aliment to vision of society. There is less of close crime, now enters upon the more direct and fellowship among them than among the immediate subject of his investigation,— students, less esprit de corps. The ruling the dangerous class itself, its habits, and vices are the same; but the order of their the causes of its depravity. He commences intensity is reversed. With the student by an able sketch of the Moral Topograit is gambling, women, dress; with the phy of Paris.' Through this we have no shopman dress is the supreme good, wo- space to follow him; nor is it necessary. men and gambling are subordinate. The The habits of a savage animal are of more employment of these young men, especially importance than its locality. One of the of those who serve behind the counter, chief haunts of the dangerous class is the renders attention to their personal appear- quarter of 'the City;' it may be taken as a ance a matter of importance, nay, of ne- specimen of the whole. Its dark, dirty, cessity. With many this grows into a pas- and narrow streets are formed of lofty and sion, and leads them into expenses totally many storied houses, the gloomy entries to disproportioned to their narrow salaries. which are seldom guarded by a porter. Petty abstractions from the goods under These are crammed with prostitutes, vagatheir care, especially articles of male attire, bonds, and the more hardened class of are then had recourse to; and these in the larger houses very often escape detection. Impunity renders the culprit bolder; the thefts become gradually more important, the appearance of the youth more splendid. He becomes the subject of conversation to his fellow shopmen: the thoughtless laugh, the grave shake their heads; and the suspicion reaches the master of the establishment, by whom this species of domestic robbery is considered as one of the chief dangers of his trade, one which it is most important he should detect and punish.

VOL. LXX.

2

The English reader will be reminded of some vivid sketches of London shop-life in the remarkable novel of Ten Thousand a Year. Those sketches are indeed excellent; but it is in the portraitures of the attorney class that Mr. Warren has displayed the full strength and variety of his talents and his observation. His work deserves more than a passing note-it appears to us superior to any other novel of familiar life recently produced in this country; we even think he might have secured for it a permanent place among our classics of prose fiction, if he had, in revising it for separate publication, struck out a large half of his sentimental details, and the whole of his temporary politics.

criminals. The lodging-houses in which or an unexpected plunder has put them in funds. this vile population dwells, are intermixed Followed unceasingly by the dread of being diswith numerous eating-houses, and brandy covered and arrested by the police, they hasten and smoking shops of the most obscene description.

The most striking characteristic of the lodging-houses is an excess of uncleanliness, which renders them so many centres of infection. It is only the most select which have beds; the greater part contain merely truckle bedsteads, disgustingly dirty. The rooms open into passages which have neither light nor air; the leaden sinks and latrines on each floor exhale a suffocating stench; their leakage extends from the garret to the ground floor, and renders the stairs, which are covered with a humid mud, almost impassable. The court-yard of these houses is only a few feet square; and the windows of the densely-crowded rooms look into this; but many of the smaller chambers have no other opening than the door which leads to the stairs. The windows are covered with oiled paper instead of glass; and in many houses the whole of the inmates sleep on heaps of rags, collected in the streets, and kept in one of the lower rooms, to be given out to the lodgers as they enter. I enlarge upon these details, because the very harshness of the picture will throw a strong light on the habits of the dangerous class.'

to the gaming-table to drown their fears in its violent excitement. Play is at once the business of their lives and their most cherished pleasure; debauchery and gluttony follow as subordinates. This cruel passion accompanies and domineers over them even in the prison, and leads to excesses which approach insanity. There are instances of prisoners, who, after having lost in one instant the produce of an entire week's labour, have not feared to glut their passion by staking in advance the bread which is to support them for the next month, or even for a longer period; nor are there wanting beings so remorseless as to lie in wait during the distribution of the food, and snatch from their debtors the bread which is necessary to their very existence.

The medical attendants in the Central House of Mont Saint-Michel remarked a convict who played with so unconquerable an ardour, that when he was in the infirmary, and in the extremity of disease, he abandoned to the chance of the die the broth or wine absolutely necessary to restore his strength. This man, in the end, died of actual inanition.'

The 'medical attendants,' we presume, were placed there for some other purpose 'Gamblers'—for it is with this class of crimi- than merely to 'remark the ardour' of such nals that our author commences are, from a patient! the very nature of their pursuits, subject to such We believe there is no portion of their sudden vicissitudes of fortune, and are driven on social system on which our Gallic neighby such a reckless ardour, that they are not only bours more pride themselves than on their looked upon by the police as dangerous persons, code of erotic laws; and it is with somebut become objects of dread to all the well-dis- what of a flourish of trumpets-a pauloposed. Of all our evil propensities, the love of

play is the most tyrannical, devouring, and majora-canamus sort of a tone-that M. Frétenacious; and there are no excesses to which gier enters upon the subject :

:

This vice," he exclaims, "begotten by one

it does not lead. Among the professed gamblers there are many, especially of the lower and of the educated but necessitous classes, who are of the passions the most imperious in man, and solely occupied by the craving appetite for play, to which the progress of civilisation has in vain the activity of which absorbs in them all other attempted to oppose any efficacious barrier, exwants. They retrench as much as possible ercises more especially its influence in mighty their food and clothing, to furnish the means of cities. It reigns-such is the recital of travelindulging this deadly passion. They frequent lers, such is the testimony of writers the most the lowest lodging-houses; and whilst they risk accredited-over the entire surface of the at the gaming-table every franc they possess, it globe!'

is with regret that they part with two or three sous to pay for a bed of rotten straw, or of rags In Paris, prostitution exists under two covered with mud. Such is their destiny, day distinct forms: it is public, and it is clanafter day; and it brings them to the level of the destine; the inscription of names in the

robbers and cut-throats who inhabit the same

dens. It is this community of abode, this close register of the police being the line of sepaapproach to criminals of the worst description. ration. Convinced of the necessity of the which so powerfully seconds the pernicious evil, the municipal authorities have eninfluences of the passion that controls them. deavoured to render it obedient to such Deprived by the cast of the die of their last crown, laws as should restrain its excesses-to and urged to desperation, they throw them- organize it, as far as its nature will perselves into the career of crime in the train of the mit. During the last five-and-twenty

robbers with whom they dwell. This extremity of guilt is sooner or later the fate of almost years, and more especially of late, the every gamester. These same men, who, when police have,' we are told, evinced great neither fraud nor luck has befriended them, can wisdom and firmness in the ameliorations submit to every privation, give way to the wild- they have introduced into this division of est extravagance when the chance of the cards the community; and Paris has become

distinguished among all the capitals of counsel of some early friend who is herself decivilized nations, as the one in which pub-voted to vice. In all these cases the police prolic order, morals, and health, are the best guaranteed against the influence of this

vice.'

ceed with extreme caution. The cause of morality being the one object they have in view, it is by no means unusual for them to refuse the inscription, if they see any remains of good feelIn England prostitution is tolerated, in ing, and the girl is not suffering under disease. France it is sanctioned: advantages and They do more. To preserve her from the dandisadvantages result probably from both ger of clandestine prostitution, and to do away systems; but neither the pages of our au- with any pretext for remaining at Paris, they thor, nor the voluminous treatise of his give her a passport and funds to enable her to return home. Even in those cases in which the great authority, M. Parent-Duchâtelet, police perceive that this course cannot be adopthave convinced us that the cause of virtue ed, they do not, in the first instance, definitively is promoted by legalizing vice. This at inscribe the name: a communication is addressed least is certain, that the proud supremacy to the mayor of the place in which the girl was of moral discipline, which these two politi-born, requiring him to furnish, free of expense, cal economists claim for Paris, exists only a certificate of her birth; and although the obin part: clandestine prostitution has re-ject for which it is demanded is not expressed, sisted every attempt to bring it under control; nor can it ever be so brought, without an undue and most dangerous infringement of the liberty of the subject. The obvious, the admitted result of this imperfect, this half submission to the law is, that the clandestine and ex-legal division of the class is more depraved and more dangerous than where there is no such separation; and that this is the case the pages of our author abundantly prove.

The two classes are so distinct, that he has deemed it necessary to treat of each separately :

"The inscription has for its object to prove the individuality of the woman who surrenders herself to an immoral life; and thus to give the inspectors of the police the means of arresting her if guilty of disorderly conduct or crime. The registered female, aware that she is thus subjected to a constant surveillance, abandons herself less willingly to those excesses which are almost inseparable from her vocation; and has no hope, if guilty of crime, of escaping from the pursuit of justice. The inscription declares the fact of prostitution; but it does not grant her the authority to prostitute herself, as is commonly supposed to be the case.

"If the girl who presents herself and demands her inscription, or who is brought by the police, is of age, and appears not utterly hardened in vice, the executive employs all its efforts to induce her to return into the bosom of her family. The interrogation which she undergoes as to her previous conduct enables them to judge whether anger or despair has driven her to take this step; nor is her name inscribed until, after a mature investigation, they are convinced that there is no hope of reconciling her to her family. Many of those who apply for inscription are from the provinces. Ensnared by a transitory attachment, they quit their native place; are brought to Paris by the seducer, speedily abandoned by him, and compelled by actual want to add their names to the registry of infamy: or, willing to hide a first fault, they separate themselves from their family and seek concealment in the capital, and to do this they are frequently led by the

the researches which the local authorities are

obliged to make suffice to apprise the friends of the girl where she is, and the danger in which she is placed. It rests with them to negotiate her return either by the intervention of the mayor, or by a direct application to the police. It is only when this document is transmitted without any accompanying remark that the provisional inscription becomes final.

A different line of conduct is adopted in the case of a minor. If from the country, the local magistrates are requested to ascertain the situation of her parents, and what steps they are willing to take to secure her return to them. During the period of this negotiation, she is put in separate confinement in the prison of St. Lazarus. If, which is very frequently the case, she is not claimed by her relations, the regis tration takes place. When the parents reside in Paris, the same solicitude is shown. They are brought before the prefect of police, and urged to pardon their child. Sometimes the efforts of the civil authorities are successful; but these reconciliations are seldom durable. The girl is again guilty, and again arrested: her relations break off all connection with her, and it becomes necessary to add her name to the list.

'Each girl, when she is registered, is required to sign, either with her name or her mark, a formal printed declaration, by which she engages to submit herself to the sanatory regulations, and to the prescribed system of surveillance connected with them. This is an important document: it constitutes a sort of legal right in the police to inflict, as they are perpetually compelled to do, the slighter kinds of punishment on these unfortunate women, without control and without appeal. It is found, also, to have a strong moral effect upon the girls themselves; they feel that by thus pledging themselves they have entered into a kind of contract with the police: this tends to render them obedient, and to restrain their conduct within some bounds of propriety.'