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THE

LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. CXXXIX.

FOR JUNE, 1842.

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lon, we may very probably be mistaking elegancies for barbarisms. A more important fault is, that our author, carried away by his great anxiety to conquer all objections to his favourite system of solitary confinement, has been led to falsify all the proportions of his book, by devoting a very undue number of pages to this one branch of his subject.

We cannot but suspect also that M. Frégier's essay in 400 pages, which obtained the prize, may have been a more perfect treatise with reference to its proper and specific theme than the present expanded work.

Seventy-fours, cut asunder and lengthened into nineties, seldom retain their firmness and solidity of structure; and books, when from one trim, compact volume, drawn out into two, have always their weak points; the joinings never hold well together-the materials have no unison and easy play among themselves; and the whole structure is very apt to give way when exposed to the rough sea of criticism. In the present instance the original treatise, in accordance with the terms of the submitted question,* was confined entirely to the dangerous classes among the lower orders of society. In the published work the author has extended his subject, and

THE modern French press has sent forth few works more interesting than this, or better calculated to do good service, not to France alone, but to the countries around her. To none does it offer more useful instruction than to England, similarly situated as she is in the progress of civilisation and in many of the leading features of national character. Despite the difficulties and annoyances, nay the dangers, which surrounded the subject he had to investigate, M. Frégier appears to have made himself accurately master of it in many of its ramifications. To mere literary merit his volumes have little claim: occasionally we meet with passages extremely well expressed; but in general the style is somewhat complicated and redundant; and it is deformed by the perpetual introduction of termes de Palais,' in places where the subject in no degree requires their use. We should say, too, that the pages are tinged The thesis proposed was as follows:with some vulgarisms, were it not that, in 'Rechercher d'après des observations positives, the rapid strides which modern French is dans toute autre grande ville, cette partie de la popquels sont les élémens dont se compose à Paris, ou taking to emancipate itself from the shack-ulation qui forme une classe dangereuse par ses les of the Dictionary of the Academy, and vices, son ignorance, et sa misère; indiquer les the way in which year by year, nay almost moyens, que l'administration, les hommes riches ou day by day, it is separating itself from the aisés, les ouvriers intelligens et laborieux pourraient language of Pascal, Molière, and Massil- dépravée.

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introduced another class, perfectly distinct in its position and in its nature -the literary dangerous class.' How ever interesting this division of society may be, however great the danger to be apprehended from it, and the necessity therefore of studying it with care, still its connection with the real and direct object of the prescribed work was not such as to have rendered its introduction either necessary or expedient; and it is evident that the propounders of the question were of this opinion. It is less ably treated than the other divisions of the subject; less philosophically and profoundly understood by the author; and the natural consequence of this-less fully and clearly brought out to the reader. We think also that some of the other parts of the book where interpolations have taken place-all of which are carefully noted by the author -are, comparatively at least, deficient in interest and importance.

The one great principle, to the illustration of which M. Frégier has addressed himself, is this: that in society, and amongst its lower classes more especially, vice leads to crime, and crime to danger. This subject he treats under a fourfold division. 1st. The statistics of the vicious and dangerous classes. 2d. Their manners, habits, and modes of life. 3d. The preservatives against the 'invasions of vice. 4th. The remedies to be employed to lessen and control it. The author fixes his point of view at Paris.

The causes of crime and its effects are,' he says, 'every where the same; the mode of committing it and the characters of those who commit it vary with every country and every place: but if its nature and effects, as developed in full perfection in Paris, be carefully and fully analyzed, the information thence resulting will, by easy induction, be rendered applicable to the other great towns in France; and also, in a considerable degree to all the principal cities of

other nations.'

M. Frégier having assumed, as an admitted fact, that it is from the poor and vicious of the operative classes that the crimi nal portion of the community is chiefly recruited, it was necessary for him, in the first place, to ascertain the total numerical strength of those classes. Notwithstanding the numerous and well-organized police of Paris, and its elaborate system of civil administration, the functions of which are far more searching and extensive than with us, there appears to be great difficulty in exactly ascertaining the numerical value of the different classes of society; and indeed, after all his exertions to accomplish this object, M. Frégier was compelled to content

himself with a somewhat vague approximation to the truth. The system of livrets, books analogous to the pocket-ledgers of our soldiers, afforded him little or no assistance; the possession of such books is not compulsory upon the working classes; and of the men who come to Paris from the Departments, bringing their books with them, a large proportion merely have them examined by the Prefecture of Police, and cannot be induced to exchange them for Paris books. The returns, therefore, of the number of livrets issued afford no data by which to ascertain the actual number of operatives resident in the capital. The approximation at which M. Frégier arrives is as follows:

There exists in Paris, of male operatives, a number varying from 75,000 to 105,000. Of these 50,000 are married, or live with female companions. Of female operatives the number is about 60,000: of these 40,000 are the wives or domesticated companions of workmen. Of apprentices the number is about 100,000, being assumed at the rate of two to each of the 50,000 workmen who live as family men. The number of chiffonniers is about 4000, one half of whom are men, the other half women and children. The above numbers give a total, varying according to the season of the year, the activity of work, especially of building, and other causes, of from 239,000 to 269,000 persons; and on this number M. Frégier bases his calculations.

We cannot but demur as to the validity of this mode of procedure. Almost every page of his volumes proves the close resemblance between the vices and crimes of London and Paris; and certainly we should consider as radically defective any calculations regarding our metropolitan population which were limited to its operatives only, even taking that appellation in its most extended sense. In all great cities there are numerous sections of the lower population, whose employments do not come under that category. To instance a few only: persons employed about public vehicles of all descriptions, or with horses; boatmen; soldiers; the ranks of the police; the extremely numerous classes of servants, male and female, and more especially male servants out of place-a division of society which, we conceive, furnishes a contingent to crime larger in proportion to its numbers than any other. All these, and many others, should have been included; and the fallaciousness of not doing so will at once be apparent, when we consider that the total population of Paris exceeds 900,000 persons; and that conse

quently the classes to which M. Frégier restricts himself are considerably less than one-third of the whole.

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extrêmes par leur nature, se touchent dans leurs effets: elles aboutissent toutes deux au crime.'

those who are such by profession, but the other bad characters who addict themselves to this vice, are the most numerous division of the whole. The contingent which the middle and higher classes furnish to the division of sharpers and gamblers is estimated at 100.

Of these classes of society, thus arbitra- Many of the individuals of the dangerous. rily selected, M. Frégier supposes that the class belong to several of its divisions: the portion habitually devoted to the two kin-same man is often gambler, bully, smugdred vices of idleness and intemperance is gler, sharper, pickpocket, and robber-the about one-third; viz. 35,000 men and 20,- receiver of stolen goods is frequently a pro000 women-he takes no account of the fessed sharper; and many loose women are apprentices and that of these numbers, also robbers and receivers of stolen goods. again, one-half of the men and two-thirds It is this multiplicity of functions which has of the women are thoroughly vicious; as baffled every attempt to ascertain the nuare also one-half-2000-of the chiffon-merical strength of the several departniers, men, women, and children; making ments of vice. One thing only is certain, altogether a total of about 33,000 persons, that the gamblers, including not merely who constitute the very dregs of the population. Omitting any enumeration of the contingent of vice afforded by the remainder of the lower classes, those which, as he expresses it, are strangers to the industrious arts,' he next proceeds to state that the criminal part of the middle and upper ranks les classes aisées'—may be taken as about equal to one-tenth of the above, that is 3300 persons. At this number he arrives by a different process. The annual average of criminal prosecutions in Paris is 3500, and about one-half of these end in convictions. The average annual number of convictions in the middle and upper classes is ascertained to be 157, which is very nearly one-eleventh of the whole; he therefore assumes that the total numbers of the thoroughly vicious in the lower and upper classes bear to each other 'On ne désigne pas des localités qui alimenthe same proportion of ten to one; and tent le libertinage plus particulièrement que consequently that, as the former amount to malheureuse Irlande, décimée par la misère, au d'autres, comme cela existe à Londres, où la 33,000, the latter may be taken at 3300.profit de la débauche, envoie un si grand nombre All this appears to us to be very vague and arbitrary; and the more so from the palpable error which we have pointed out in the first element upon which it is based.

The number of registered prostitutes is 3800-of unregistered or free, about 4000. One in twenty of these women is a foreigner. Paris and its environs give one-fourth; the rest are from the provinces; and the proportions which they furnish decrease as they are more remote, except in the case of some of the northern manufacturing districts, and certain garrison towns, the supply from which is disproportionally large.

de prostituées qu'il est hors de toute proportion avec les contingens fournis par les autres parties de la Grand Bretagne.'

Such, however, being assumed as the We are sorry to see the universal prejunumerical strength of the vicious class, the dice of the French against England peepauthor next proceeds to estimate the coming out in the statistics of such a book as ponent parts of the dangerous class. These this. Every magistrate in London well are the gamblers, the prostitutes, the men knows that what is here said as to Ireland whom they attach to themselves either as is not only untrue, but flagrantly and dialovers or bullies-souteneurs—or in the dou- metrically opposed to the truth. ble capacity; the mistresses of the houses The number of the mistresses of houses of ill-fame; the vagabonds, smugglers, of ill-fame is about 372, one-half only of sharpers, pickpockets, robbers of both whom have licensed houses. Each prostisexes; and the receivers of stolen goods, tute having, as an invariable rule, her lover of both sexes also. The predominant vices or souteneur, these men-and they are the of all these are idleness and debauchery-vilest of the vile-amount to 7800. Nearly the power which puts them in motion is all of them belong to one or more of the greediness of gain. Some of these per- other categories of vice, being sharpers, sons follow useful occupations, and many thieves, or pickpockets, and gamblers also, of them with especial ability; but they as a matter of course. labour only to obtain the means of indulg- From a similar blending of professions, ing their vices.- La fainéantise et l'acti- it is impossible to ascertain the number of vité vicieuse,' says M. Frégier, 'quoique vagabonds who come within the dangerous

class. Adults and children, they may be taken-limiting the title to its strictest sense -at about 1500.

The receivers of stolen goods are about 600. Adding to these specific divisions the Protean mass of gamblers, smugglers, sharpers, pickpockets, and robbers, the author fixes the total amount of the dangerous class at 30,072; making, with the 33,000 previously ascertained as being the thoroughly depraved portion of the work-wages, with the exception of a trifling sum for

3300.

sick. The proportion of cases is very large in which a long period of cohabitation takes place before marriage. If a young couple find that they live happily together, sooner or later their union is rendered legal, and no distinction whatever is made between the children born before and after marriage; all alike are sent to school until the age of twelve, and then are bound apprentices. The operatives in Paris are generally paid once a fortnight; the more orderly give over at once to their wives the whole of their their own personal expenses; some give them the half; whilst others retain to themselves the control of the whole of their earnings, and allow their wives to dispose as they please of their own wages. The exhausting nature of the work to which many are exposed demands a liberal diet, and still more a sufficient but moderate portion of wholesome wine, which to a French artificer is one of the chief necessaries of life: it not only repairs his strength, but it renders him cheerful-it chases away his

cares.

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ing class, a total of 63,072 persons of both sexes and all ages, composing the entire mass of Parisian crime and vice. But in this statement he omits to include the vicious of the middle and upper classes, which he has previously fixed as amounting to If these be added, the total number of persons either criminal or utterly vicious, and therefore dangerous or tending to danger, is 66,372; being somewhat more than one-fourteenth of the entire population of Paris. Such are the numerical results to which our author's calculation leads us. We must again remark, that they appear to proceed on a very partial basis. The total population of Paris in 1836-the period to which these volumes refer-was 909,126: the only classes of which he treats are the operatives, 265,000, the dangerous class, 30,072, and a portion of the middle classes, say 33,000, 'The operative,' says M. Frégier, 'rises be in all 328,072. If we estimate that the midfore the day; he goes to his workshop, on his dle and upper classes amount altogether to 200,000-a number probably far above the route he meets an old companion, whom he has not seen for some time; an affectionate greettruth-there will remain no less than 381,- ing takes place; and "Let us have a glass to054 persons in the lower walks of life, to-gether" are among the first words which they tally excluded from our author's calculations.

The second division of the work commences with a general view of the operative classes, for it is of the operatives only that he still continues to speak:

'Those,' he says-we shall abridge rather than translate his pages-those who study them minutely and without prejudice will find among their ranks many examples of virtue. They are good-natured, anxious to serve their comrades, devoted to the interests of their employers; and charitable, narrow as their means are, not only to their fellow-workmen when out of employment or sick, but to all who are near them, to all especially who lodge in the same house. They labour to reclaim their vicious comrade; they visit and console him in prison. When a manufacturer or a master artisan has the skill and good judgment to obtain the love of those whom he employs, there is no exertion they will not make to serve him. The warmth of heart of the operative, renders him always eager to give his aid and to expose himself to danger, when accident occurs in the street, or casual tumults arise. There are no bounds to the sacrifices which they make to procure comforts for their wives and children when

This is the bright, but, alas! the smaller division of the picture. The proportion of the entire class which adopts and maintains this regular and orderly course of life is sadly limited. The attraction of the public house is one of the most fatal to the labouring classes, and more than anything else decides their lot.

both utter, for the idea is always uppermost in their minds. They talk of work-of their masters-the conversation goes on, glass in hand— again their masters are criticised-their several and peculiar bad qualities-how little they

know how to conduct their trade-their stinginess-their irregularity in paying their workmen—their severity, which is declared to be beyond all bounds. As a matter of course each of the orators deems it a point of honour to "stand his turn." The philippics continue-from the masters they descend to the overseers and foremen; and from them to their fellow-workmen. The hour of labour arrives; one of the two friends fears the reproaches of his master if he enters the workshop too late, and prefers losing a third of his day; he seeks to entice his com panion to tarry with him, and proposes a third round of glasses; the prudence of the other by degrees gives way: they settle themselves at table; they breakfast; they become heated with wine; and not the third part, but the whole of the day is lost; and they may deem themselves fortunate if they are in a state of work on the

morrow.'

We have given this scene, not because it is painted in a lively manner, and is characteristic of the gay, talkative disposition of

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