the French mechanic, but because it is one wish of every girl's heart in the lower of never-ceasing recurrence. From such ranks of life; and the good conduct which casual beginnings of indulgence and idle- accompanies this effort often secures its ness, the author traces up the career of the success. The fate, however, even of these operative, who gives way to intemperance, young women depends greatly upon the until he becomes an habitual drunkard, re- continued guardianship of their parents. gardless of his wife and children, lost to If left to themselves, they must possess a all self-respect, selling everything he pos- rare degree of good sense and prudence to sesses, even his garments, to supply the resist the temptations and ill examples by means of gratifying his passion for wine; which they are surrounded. The influence and frequently labouring for days together, of such examples may also be powerfully half-clothed, with no other aim or intention checked by the character of the master and than, when be obtains payment for his work, those in authority under him. If they do again to abandon himself to unrestrained their duty, there is external decorum, at debauchery. These are the men-and least, within the establishment; and in this many of them are eminently skilful work-case the greatest danger which the young men-who gradually become entangled in workwoman incurs is in her out-of-doors the meshes of crime. Drunkenness leads to connections with her fellow-labourers. But all other vices; and in the end conquers if the master is occupied solely by the ardour of gain, and either does not regard or does not understand the important moral situation which he fills, the case is far otherwise: the unfortunate girl will find herself at once, and without any power of retreat, in an atmosphere of avowed guiltamid companions who make it a task and a pride to render each new-comer as depraved as themselves. At first she is shocked and depressed by this; but too frequently, as it becomes familiar to her, it undermines her principles. It is at this crisis, this danger and absorbs them all.' and alarm; they should labour to confirm her virtuous intentions, and at any sacrifice to themselves they should remove her from a region of guilt to one of decency and good morals. If they neglect to do this, she The most efficient checks to this course of ruin are to be found in the good sense and good management of the masters and their foremen. The kindness and paternal admonitions of the one, the good example and strict discipline of the other, can control and keep down the passions and habits of those under their charge, to an extent which could scarcely be believed, were it not proved by the wide difference which exists in the characters of the workmen-not one, but all, or nearly all-belonging to illous entrance into life, that the vigilance of or well-conducted establishments. her parents is most necessary; they should If a strong sense of the moral duties at-study the slightest indication of melancholy tached to its situation is important in the master who has men under him, it becomes still more so on him on whose prudence and paternal solicitude the virtue, the respectability, and the happiness of the female artisan depend. Far more than with men is lost. does the well-being of women in the lower The avarice of parents is a frequent walks of life depend on their strict regu-source of ruin to their children. Many of larity of morals. In many families among them appropriate to the payment of the dothe working-classes order and economy mestic expenses the whole of the daughform the rule of action. The daughters learn ter's wages, and leave her without the to place all their moderate hopes of happi- means of clothing herself as well as others ness in a life of unintermitting but tranquil of her class. Smartness of dress is, labour; as much as possible they perform amongst the female working-class, as their work at home, and under the eye of amongst all other classes of women, one of their parents if it be necessary that they the first necessaries of life. If unduly curshould labour in a crowded workshop, they tailed in this, the young person gets discarry with them their good habits; they are satisfied with her condition: she feels huconstant in their attendance, and exact in | miliated, and takes an aversion to her home. the performance of their daily task. The Whilst her mind is in this state she falls young girls, whose characters have been an easy prey to the addresses of the first formed by such domestic training, seldom young man-her fellow labourer-who apon festival-days leave their homes except pears to compassionate her situation-acunder the protection of their parents. cepts his proposal to live with him; and at Following the example of their mother, they hoard up by dint of assiduous exertion a little marriage-portion, which is to aid them in obtaining a husband, the first once, and without a single word of intimation, quits her parents' house. These separations of parents and children are of, very frequent occurrence; and it is the There are two marked divisions in the female operatives at Paris-those who belong to shops and workrooms, and those who are employed in manufactories. The latter class are far inferior in education, manners, and language to the former. harshness and injustice of the parents which I together-and at that age when the spirit lead to the greater portion of them. of imitation is the strongest, a very few days suffice to fix the character of nearly all of them. Their older companions, totally uneducated, and unrestrained by any moral influence, make it their pastime, by laboured and exaggerated impurity of language, to corrupt the children who work by their side. It is seldom the master of the establishment and his deputies pay any attention to all this, engrossed as they are in their one great aim, the execution of a certain quantity of work in a certain space of time; and blind to the fact, self-evident as it is, that morality is the best foundation of order and discipline. In nearly all these establishments, le vice,' says M. Frégier, 'siège à côté du travail.' The wages of the young women employed in shops and workrooms seldom exceed twenty-five or thirty sous a day. Those who reside with their parents, and are properly treated by them, are comfortably off; and it is they who form the virtuous portion of the class. But those who are harshly used at home, and those who, having no parents, must look to their own slender resources alone for lodging, food, and clothes, are sadly pinched by poverty. It is this deficiency of means, this actual want, which wrecks the virtue of so many of them. A young and inexperienced girl, placed in this position, feels the necessity of assistance and support: her heart expands towards any one who addresses her with kindness: if it be a young man of her own class, she readily attaches herself to him as to a friend and protector, and, as a matter of course, a lover: they swear eternal fidelity, and an illicit connection is formed, which very frequently lasts for many years, and not rarely ends in marriage. Immoral as are these unions, they are looked upon with indulgence and kindly interest, as having their origin in real affection on both sides; and this at least is certain, that in the great majority of instances a far worse course is pursued. Pressed by penury, a casual temptation or a few deceitful words are all that is required to turn many such girls from the path of virtue: again and again they are deluded and deserted; many of them become mothers; and, when abandoned by their lovers, are driven by the combined pressure of actual want and maternal tenderness to throw themselves into the abyss of degradation. It is well known also that many do this to procure the means of existence for their sick and aged pa It is Among these girls chastity is almost unknown;' many of them become mothers at a very early age. Without shame or repugnance they enter the lying-in hospital; the maternal feelings are scarcely known to them-they separate themselves from their infant without a pang, and reenter the manufactory with the full determination of resuming the same guilty course. Of those who have families, not more than one-third are married. only necessary to watch the exit of the gangs from the manufactories: boisterous, grossly indecent, insolent, ready to overwhelm with abuse any modest woman who may pass near them, disgust and compassion must fill the mind of every well-disposed person who observes them. Many are drunkards; and it is in ardent spirits that they indulge more frequently than in wine. On Sunday and on idle-Monday, nothing is more common than to see young cotton spinners, half-clothed and emaciated, coming out of the brandy-shop completely drunk; often hanging on the arm of their half-intoxicated mothers. Whilst these densely-peopled nurseries remain as they are, the ranks of vice and crime will continue crowded to overflowing. It is in Paris only that the chiffonniers, or rubbish-hunters, form a distinct and specific class : thirty years has added to the dignity of this proThe extension of industry during the last fession, which is alike followed by men, women, and children. It requires no apprenticeship, no previous course of study, no expensive outfit: a large and compactly-shaped basket, a stick with a hook at the end of it, and a lantern, are the entire stock-in-trade of this singular species of labourers. The men gain, on an average, and according to the season of the year, from twenty-five to forty sous a-day; but to do this they are obliged to make three rounds, two by day and one during the night; their labour com 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 estranged that they lose all recollection of their father's abode, nay, even of his name. 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. 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, having 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 'As with all other classes of operatives, the of these chiefs keep furnished lodgings, which wine and spirit shop is the constant resort of they let out exclusively to those ambulatory these rubbish-hunters. To the aged chiffonchiffonniers who have no fixed residence; re-niers, still more to the aged females of the class, serving to their own use the ground-floor as a magazine for their wares. The important operation 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 All the lower ranks display a certain pride and of each journey. The floor is covered with rags, ostentation in their expenditure at the cabaret, fragments of animal substances, glass, paper, but the chiffonniers more than any other. The and a thousand other things, some whole, some ordinary sort of wine will not suffice them; hot broken, and all begrimed with dirt; whilst the wine is their usual luxury, and they are vastly several selections fill all the corners of the room, indignant if the lemon and sugar be not abunand are heaped up under the bed. The stran- dant. The cabaret-keepers are greatly scanger who enters is almost suffocated by the stench, dalized by these extravagances-that is to say, which is rendered still more offensive by one, when a difficulty occurs, as it frequently does, in and sometimes two, large dogs, which form part making up the reckoning. The generous senof the domestic establishment of most chiffon- timents which animate the better class of operniers, and which they take out with them in atives are totally wanting among these people: their nocturnal rounds. It is matter of astonish- shunned and scorned by every one, they in rement that habit should enable these people to turn shun and hate all their fellow-creatures; endure with impunity the putrid exhalations they affect a cynic tone and manner, and appear amidst which they live. The hotte of the chif- to pride themselves on proclaiming their degrafonnier is not merely the receptacle of his dation and their vice. A considerable propormerchandise, it is also his market-basket: among tion of the men have passed through the hands all the filthy trash which he collects, he takes of justice; and many of the women are prosticare not to neglect the luxuries of his table-tutes of the lowest order.' vegetables for his soup, pieces of bread, halfrotten fruit, everything which he conceives to be eatable. It is not unamusing to watch the sorting of all this, and to listen to the professional 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 address him with civility. Squatting down before it, he will show you, with a smile of exultation, a large beef-bone-a perfect beauty-and other articles of equal worth; and as he arranges his several heaps on the pavement, he will tell you "competition kills trade-that cooks have become dead to all sense of humanity, that they now make money of everything, bones and broken glass especially!" These ragamuffins 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 silver spoon or fork; and, thanks to the carelessness of servants, these rich prizes are not of rare occurrence. The happy individual forthwith 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 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 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 beings 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 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 or ten francs for his breakfast or dinner were no 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 thirty sous a day, prefer to yawn away their time, and just cover a sufficient number of pages to keep themselves from sheer starvation. Doing nothing is their supreme happiness; a dry crust 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.' 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 be trained by able masters during certain hours of each day, returning to spend the evening under the paternal eye and roof; but we which cannot now be adequately prosecutare sure that, except as to medical studies, ed 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 populous 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 and the energy with which, after having offices to each other in the hour of need, 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 virtue, 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 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. 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.' Our author, having indicated what he conceives to be the chief sources of aliment to crime, now enters upon the more direct and immediate subject of his investigation,— the dangerous class itself, its habits, and the causes of its depravity. He commences by an able sketch of the Moral Topogra phy of Paris.' Through this we have no space to follow him; nor is it necessary. The habits of a savage animal are of more importance than its locality. One of the chief haunts of the dangerous class is the quarter of the City;' it may be taken as a specimen of the whole. Its dark, dirty, and narrow streets are formed of lofty and many storied houses, the gloomy entries to which are seldom guarded by a porter. These are crammed with prostitutes, vagabonds, and the more hardened class of The shopmen form another distinct division of society. There is less of close fellowship among them than among the students, less esprit de corps. The ruling vices are the same; but the order of their intensity is reversed. With the student it is gambling, women, dress; with the shopman dress is the supreme good, women and gambling are subordinate. The employment of these young men, especially of those who serve behind the counter, renders attention to their personal appearance a matter of importance, nay, of necessity. With many this grows into a passion, and leads them into expenses totally disproportioned to their narrow salaries. Pelty abstractions from the goods under their care, especially articles of male attire, are then had recourse to; and these in the larger houses very often escape detection. Impunity renders the culprit bolder; the The English reader will be reminded of some vivid sketches of London shop-life in the remarkathefts become gradually more important, ble novel of Ten Thousand a Year. Those sketchthe appearance of the youth more splendid.es are indeed excellent; but it is in the portraitures 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. 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. |