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 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 singular case is on record of one of these children, who was arrested no less than forty times: he sorrow that we assert this to be so. It is was always alone; and, strange to say, in no the purer morality of the social system with one instance had he committed any punishable us that renders the exclusion final and ir-crime; his only proveable offence was that of remediable; and we hold that, where the being day and night a houseless wanderer.' 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. 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 executing commissions, and eke out their daily gains by petty thefts and begging. The younger division of the class is recruited from among the boys expelled from the schools or the manufactories for inveterate idleness and misconduct, and who pass their entire days loitering in the streets, in defiance of the remonstrances and corrections of their parents. These young reprobates, whose ages vary from seven to sixteen, are soon enticed by other boys, more advanced in vice, to band themselves together into gangs, sometimes to the number of eighteen; one especial article of their compact being mutually to assist one another in escaping from the search of their parents, or of the masters to whom they have been apprenticed. The most timid and the least depraved frequent the markets, and beg or execute commissions; the bolder and more accomplished rob. With all of them, without exception, gambling is the ruling passion; next to this the theatre; and, in order to collect money to pay for their admission, they will frequently fast for a couple of days. Wherever there is noise, tumult, or sedition, there these gangs are sure to be seen. Those who rob, lord it over the rest, as it is from their gains that the more timid and the new recruits are supported. They are ambitious to form the acquaintance and receive the instructions of grown-up robbers; but indeed the fathers of many of them are robbers. An instance is known of one of these boys who, when not quite three years old, was able to pick a lock; and when soon afterwards he commenced business 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 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. 'The octroi duty, which is levied on all articles of consumption brought into Paris, forms by far the most considerable portion of the city revenue. In 1840 it amounted to no less a sum than 40,606,535 francs, (£1,624,261). To evade this tax innumerable modes of smuggling are resorted to, and not only by professed thieves, and by women and children, who devote themselves to it as a legitimate branch of industry, but also by a large number of the operative classes when out of employment. These latter, however, when their own accustomed occupation is again offered them, willingly quit their illicit trade. Many of these bands of smugglers are armed, have their captains (chefs d'équipes,) and carry on their trade avowedly, and in defiance of the agents of the octroi, with whom they sometimes come into open collision. But by far the greater quantity of smuggled goods are introduced secretly...... La fraude sous vêtement is effected by bladders arranged around the corsets of women, or by a hollow cuirass of tin neatly fitted to the shape. La fraude par escalade takes place only during the night: a ladder, with a strong cord at the end of it, is placed against the city wall; up this the smuggler ascends, charged with a leathern sack filled with wine or spirit, and the cord enables him to descend with his burden on the other side. La fraude par jet de vessie is prac tised in open day. The point of communication being fixed upon, the exterior smuggler throws bladder after bladder over the wall, and they are caught by his accomplice. Unwholesome meat is introduced into the city in the same manner. 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 nean communication, through which articles of every description are conveyed in immense quantities. Once within the walls, they are speedily forwarded to the retailers, between whom and the smuggler there is an established league. The seizures made by the police are innumerable; and formerly it was the custom in many of the stations to collect and hang up the various arms, instruments, and curious apparatus which had been captured; but these became so numerous, that the offices were gradually converted into museums and arsenals, and it was deemed expedient to destroy the whole.' situation; the transaction is an important one; he will not part with his own silver, nor will he allow the young woman to part with hers, until he has ascertained the purity of some of the gold pieces. He takes two or three of them to the nearest money-changer, and returns with crown-pieces; all doubts on their side are now at an end. Not so with the American: he, in his turn, says that he must ascertain that her silver is good. His ignorance excites a laugh, and the nature of the coinage of the country is fully explained to him. Still he persists; and at length the friendly adviser consents, but on the express condition that he himself shall go with him to the shop with the girl's packet of silver. The great abundance and variety of sil- feels deeply this kind attention, and pours out ver coin give the sharpers of Paris an im- her thanks. They depart and leave her alone, portant advantage over their London breth-gazing intently on the beautiful little padlocked Half an hour Le vol à l'Américaine would be little purse, which is left in her care. productive with us; in France, although it passes, but of course no one returns; she be comes alarmed, the master of the wine-shop is has been perpetually exposed in the news- summoned; he is, or affects to be astonished; papers, it is still practised with as much the purse is cut open, and, to the unspeakable horror of the poor girl, the rouleaux are of copper.' ren. success as ever. "Those who devote themselves to this branch of industry loiter near the Bank of France, the Treasury, or the coach offices, on the watch for persons carrying a sack of crown pieces; and when they espy a rustic looking man or woman thus burdened, and whose appearance pleases them, they immediately commence operations. A young girl, for instance, is seen to come out of the Treasury with a budget well filled, and carefully tied round; two sharpers follow her, and the one who plays the part of the American steps forward some hundred paces; the other accosts her in so civil and good-humoured a tone as not to alarm her; she answers him as civilly; the conversation goes on; he talks economy, praises saving-banks, and wishes there were more young work-women of her age who had as prudent and saving habits as he is sure she has. In the midst of these flattering words the American retraces his steps, and, on approaching the girl, asks her in broken French if she will change the crowns she is carrying for gold; if so, he will give her a bonus of 100 sous on every 20 francs. She is startled, and somewhat shocked at this offer. Not so the complimentary gentleman by her side; he is less scrupulous, and says at once that he himself will accept the terms. The American forthwith produces a handful of gold pieces: the poor girl's surprise augments, but it becomes extreme when the care less foreigner declares that he has brought tons of gold with him to France on board his vessel, and that current coin he must have at once, let it cost him what it will. She now, in a timid whisper, tells her new acquaintance that she thinks she should like to participate in the traffic. He confirms her in the prudent resolution, and proposes that they should go into a wine-shop with the rich foreigner. Having established themselves in a private room, the American not only displays numerous pieces of gold, but also a beautiful little sack made of some rich skin, fastened with a padlock, and crammed full of the rouleaux which he wants to change. The other man now feels the responsibility of his She A man of unexceptionable appearance enters a shop, makes some purchases, produces gold, and requests that the change may be given him in some particular coin, that of the Republic, for instance, or of the Kingdom of Italy. The obliging shopkeeper pours out his sack of silver on the counter, and the customer draws out with great care from the heap the peculiar coinage which he seeks. During this public process of selection he carries on a private one; and, with a skill which many a professed juggler might envy, abstracts as many crown-pieces as he can venture to take, without too much diminishing the heap. Then follow thanks and apologies for giving trouble; and complimentary speeches having been made on both sides, the unsuspicious tradesman restores the diminished silver into its bag; and it is only when at the end of the day he counts its contents that he discovers his loss, which sometimes amounts to 600 or 1000 francs. The ladies are proficients in this art: their powers of conversation and their personal attraction aid greatly; but the mystery lies in their fingers, of which, says M. Frégier, la souplesse et la force a quelThe fair sex que chose de merveilleux.' are indeed great shoplifters. Their pelisses and mantles are furnished with huge pockets, artfully constructed in the foldings: an immense shawl is very favourable to the operation; and those who assume the garb of Paysannes have their coarse thick petticoat formed into a perfect series of secret compartments. One of the modes adopted is new to us, and there is a shade of maternal tenderness thrown over the transaction, which gives it a peculiar interest. A well-ous occasions. Falling on his knees, he dressed lady enters a shop, followed by a implores, with an eloquence almost irresistnursery-maid with a baby in long and flow- ible, the pardon, the compassion, of the ing robes: the lady requires all manner of benevolent man whom he frankly admits he smart things to be shown her, lays them has so deeply injured-it is his first, his aside with the usual fastidiousness of fe- only offence-the fatal love of play has led male taste, and demands others. In the him to it-to decide upon his fate will be to midst of her purchases she is seized with decide also upon the fate of as respectable a sudden paroxysm of tenderness for her a father as ever breathed-a father who baby; the good-humoured smiling bonne would die were he to know of his son's sets the darling on the counter, that its lit- dishonour! This frequently succeeds: the tle face may be close to mamma's; and, proprietor contents himself with kicking when the caresses are concluded, takes it the penitent down stairs; who, well aware again upon her arm, and with it, under that his honour is of that description that cover of its long robe, two or three selected knows no stain, considers this mode of repieces of silk. treat equivalent to a victory. Every crowded street, every theatre, has its contingent of pickpockets, between whom and the police there is one unceasing conflict. As a specimen of our author's style, we will give his lively sketch of this warfare : les groupes par les motifs même qui y conduisent The system of several distinct families living in one house, with a common staircase, affords the Parisian robber facilities unknown in London. Bonjouriers, Voleurs au bonjour, Chevaliers grimpans, are the happily significant names given to the numerous class of whom we are now speaking. They disdain the use of false keys, break open no doors, scale no walls; their only preparation is ascertaining the name of two of the residents, and this the printed Directories enable them to do. Well dressed, shod with noiseless pumps, and relying on his self-possession and ease of manner, one of these thieves boldly demands of the porter whether M. B- is at home, M. A- being the person he intends to rob. No sooner is he upon the stairs than he is all eyes to detect an unfastened door. He sees one with a key in it; he knocks again and again; if no one appears he steps in as far as the diningroom, makes straight for the buffet, fills his pockets and hat with silver, and glides out again. Should the owner of the apart ment, M. A, make his appearance, the robber with a courteous and smiling air demands whether he has not the honour to address M. B? he is told that M. B― lives on the next floor, and the unsuspected villain, uttering a thousand apologies, departs with the best grace imaginable or suspicion may be half aroused, the party may be a matter-of-fact Englishman, or a slow-witted German, who looks The pickpockets of the highest class are grave and dangerous, and the Frenchman enabled, by the elegance of their dress and perceives that his safety hangs upon a manners, to insinuate themselves into all thread. Nothing daunted, the rogue reite- public assemblies, even the most select. rates his rapid apologies, and performs a Splendidly dressed foreigners are the grand semicircle of active bows until he gets in objects of their attention. 'Ils rechera straight line with the door, and then chent avidement les Anglais, et s'attachent à vanishes with the rapidity of lightning leurs pas comme à une proie riche et facile,’ Nay, should he be seized, and the stolen the outside and well-filled pockets of our plate actually found upon him, he is not countrymen being greatly to their taste. without his resources. He has a tale of Exploiter les positions sociales is the prowoe, ready cut and dried for all such peril-fessed occupation of a numerous class of VOL. LXX. 3 swindlers. Many an industrious family, who bear a fair reputation in the world, have some fatal secret connected with them, which, if divulged, would crush them for ever. A liberated convict, for example, has become a reformed man, has married a respectable woman, and has set up in business, neither his wife nor his neighbours having the slightest idea of his former habits of life. One of his companions in prison finds him out, or the fact becomes known, by hazard, to some of the wretches who are constantly on the look-out for their prey. They open a correspondence with the wife; mysterious dangers are hinted to her; she becomes suspicious and alarmed; the husband is compelled to divulge his secret to her; and the dread of exposure induces them to accede to the demands of the robbers, in whose power they feel themselves to be. These demands for money are again and again repeated; and the unhappy couple may consider themselves fortunate if the scoundrel, after he has carried on his exactions for months, does not hand them over to some other of his tribe, to be subjected to a new series of threats and extortions. The prevalence in Paris of an offence of a hideous nature gives scope to a still darker species of conspiracy, unknown in England. We cannot stain our pages by explaining the machinations of these infamous gangs, who, with an audacity scarcely to be believed, frequently assume the garb and functions of the police. In Paris, as elsewhere, each separate class of villains has within itself a certain number, generally very limited, of ferocious spirits, who, with a reckless indifference, are willing, for any cause, or none, to dye their hands in blood. The Parisian robbers affect to consider that these sanguinary and brutal propensities are to be found only among the rustics who join their ranks; but this is not the case. Many of the most merciless ruffians are town-bred, and have reached the pinnacle through a long gradation of crime. Even among their companions these men are feared and shunned, and they in return affect to despise and domineer over all those who are less bloodthirsty than themselves. In enumerating the different species of crime, M. Frégier abstains entirely from any mention of those offences which are connected with political movements: he does so on the ground that, as the causes which lead to them are transitory and of rare occurrence, they form no part of the general elements of society. His view in this may be correct-but we are surprised that he should also have omitted in his catalogue of crime the frequent and murderous duels which disgrace the French capital, as well as those vastly moving and romantic police-historiettes which perpetually adorn the journals, half murder and half suicide, and in which young ladies and gentlemen, to prove the ardour of their love, blow out each other's brains, or poison themselves in pairs. With regard to suicide, in fact, we see reason to suspect that our author looks upon it with favourable eyes.* Looking at the general mass of crime in the two cities, we are inclined to doubt whether in intensity of guilt London may not claim a bad pre-eminence over Paris. The gay, good-humoured, and buoyant disposition of the French, so amiable and pleasing among the good, may, though faintly, be still traced among the depraved; and renders their pickpockets, their swindlers, and their thieves, some shades less revoltingly wicked than our own. The chief difference is in style and manner of procedure, not in the extent of talent and genius. In elegance of person, and dress, easy selfpossession, agility of limb, abundance of expedient, and cheerful submission to reverses of fortune, we believe that a Parisian scoundrel beats a Londoner hollow; but for steady, calculating villany, for deepsettled and well-combined plans of fraud and violence, we doubt whether the superiority be not with us: and, despite all the vapouring of M. Vidocq, and all the miracles of skill which he records, let us take an individual from some of our northern counties, let us give him the advantage of a couple of London seasons, and we are afraid that he might brag the world. The preservatives from vice form the third division of the work. They are discussed with sense and feeling, and many important subjects are brought forward forcibly and well. There is, however, a good deal of amplification, and needless labour of demonstration; and many points of political economy which have long ago been fixed, are analysed and argued as if they were new ground. He well says:— 'Let public institutions or private philanthropy exert themselves as they may, the fate of the child and of the future man mainly depends on all, the most powerful school to teach what is the example of his parents. Our home is, after good or what is evil. In the large majority of families of every rank the anxious desire of the parents is to lead their children into the paths Vide vol. i., page 207. of virtue; and it is this holy feeling which keeps down and limits crime. Labour is natural to man; his moral happiness, however little he much as his bodily sustenance. This is one of the may be disposed to think so, depends upon it as most important lessons that can be taught; and it is best taught by the example of industrious parents. But to render a life of unremitted labour endurable, to control and neutralise the evil propensities of our nature, to check idleness and discontent, demands wisdom and benevolence on the part of the masters.' We with sorrow confess our belief that deign to look at them whilst one paragraph are by this means rendered much less injurious to the operative class than they would otherwise be. It is this facility of turning their hands to different occupations, ters' bench, that brings into Paris at cerfrom the plough to the loom or the carpen there is in France more paternal watchfulness, more kindly feeling on the part of the manufacturer and master-workman towards those whom they employ than there is in England. M. Frégier gives noble exam-tain seasons a large body of operatives, who, ples of liberality and goodness exhibited by provincial manufacturers; but it is not to these that we advert: they might be met, we well know, by instances of equal wis. dom and virtue in our own country. We found our opinion upon the numberless circumstances which prove that there is, on the whole, more unison of feeling, more sympathy, more mutual dependence and support between the different ranks of industry, between the employers and the employed, in France than with us. The national advantages resulting from this are most important; and it is to this cause, we conceive, in a great degree, that the combinations among workmen to enforce an increase of wages, which have at different times been carried to such a fearful extent in England, are in France, comparatively speaking, unknown. We are well aware that there are other operating causes; but we believe that the one we have adverted to is the most effective of all. M. Frégier is energetic in his appeal to the newspaper press to devote a portion of the vast power which it wields to the enlightening, controlling, and rendering contented and tranquil, the national industry— taking that term in its most extensive sense, as embracing agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. He asks indignantly, 'Why they have not done this?' The answer is obvious. Disquisitions on political economy, however elementary and familiartreatises on agriculture and commercemoral essays, however well meant and well written, will not make any newspaper in France sell; and were the editors of all the journals in Paris, moved by a simultaneous fervour of benevolence, to devote a portion of their columns to such matters, we are quite convinced that little or no good would result from it: the classes for whom they were intended would never during the rest of the year, live with their fer the same individual to the city, place * It is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, that the English newspaper supposed to be patronised most largely, and almost exclusively, by the highest classes of our society, is the only one that ventures to place before its readers in regular or nearly regular succession, a series of Essays treating on high and important questions of morality, social arrangement, and the merits of established works of literature. We can hardly believe that ble-Talker of the Morning Post would find extensuch a writer as the amiable and pure-hearted Tasive favour with the mass of those who take in any other morning paper in London. What a vast interval between the scope and tone of his elegant essays (two volumes of which are now collected) and the literary feuilletons of the fashionable journals of the French capital! |