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racterises every public establishment in Paris, a clock. the left were inscribed over two adjoining doors the generic words Bureaux," "Economal." On the right was a lofty chapel, containing two tiers of windows.

About eighteen years ago there were in France no less than 296 foundling-hospitals, into which babies-often carried through the streets three or four together in a basket at the back of a porter employed to collect them-were injected without the slightest inquiry. In 1833, in consequence of the great mortality that had been observed to take place among them, and for other equally cogent reasons, the permission to do so was so far restricted that it was deemed necessary the infants should be presented with "a certificate of abandonment," signed by a commissary of police, who, although he was permitted to admonish the mother or person abandoning the child, was not authorised to refuse the certificate required. This check, natural as it sounds, reduced the number of foundling hospitals to 152. The restraint, however, was so unpopular that in 1848 forty-four councils general, out of fifty-five, voted for its abolition; and accordingly at present babies are received through the black turn-about as before. They are also received from almost any mothers who declare themselves unable to support them; besides which, by order of the Prefect of Police, the establishment is obliged to accept orphans (from two to fourteen years of age), and also the children of any persons who will certify that they are too poor to maintain them.

Almost as fast as the babies arrive, the healthy ones are despatched into the country to women who receive for them, at first, four francs per month, which, if they live to grow older, is gradually increased to eight; and it has not unfrequently happened that a young mother, who had abandoned her own child, has applied to the foundling hospital into which she had poked it, to job, for the sake of the money, as a public nursling, an infant who, for aught she knows, may possibly be her own!

With these extraordinary data rumbling about in my mind I followed my attendant, who was evidently in a great hurry, into a very large, long apartment, called the "Crèche."

Before me, but rather to the left, I saw, as might be expected, the head of a baby noddling in the arms of a woman, and, walking up to her, I found seated with her, on sixteen chairs which touched each other, sixteen country-looking wo

men, each in a peasant's dress, every one of them with a baby's head resting or noddling on her left arm; and the reason of its noddling was, that the whole of the rest of its person was swaddled as tight as if it had been a portion of the limb of a

tree.

As several of these women appeared to me to be old enough to be grandmothers, I was not at all astonished at hearing several of the infants, as I walked in front of them, cry; the noise, however, was altogether greater-the chorus infinitely louderthan I could account for, and I was alike stunned and astonished by it, when, on reaching the end of the line, I saw, to my utter astonishment, lying in one tray, jammed closer to each other than the notes of a piano-forte, in little black-edged caps, twelve babies, apparently born at the same minute, rather less than a week ago.

Such a series of brown, red, yellow, pimpled, ugly, little faces I never beheld. Every one of them were not only squalling, but with every conceivable, as well as inconceivable, grimace, were twisting their little lips from one ear towards the other, as if all their mouths had been filled with rhubarb, jalap, aloes, mustard, in short, with anything out of the pharmacopoeia of this world but what they wanted. There appeared to be no chance of their ever becoming quiet; for one squalled because its tiny neighbour on each side squalled, and that set them all squalling; and indeed, when the chorus, like a gale of wind, for the reasons explained in Colonel Reid's history of hurricanes, to a slight degree occasionally subsided, their little countenances evinced such real discomfort, that if they had had no voices, and for want of them had made no noise at all, it would have been impossible to have helped pitying them. Nobody, however, but myself took the slightest notice of them. The nurses walked about the room; the sixteen women, leaning their bodies sometimes a little backwards, and sometimes a little forwards, seemed to be thinking only of lulling to rest their own new charge.

For some time my attendant had been trying to hurry me away to what she considered more important scenes, but, without attending to her repeated solicitations, I stood for some minutes riveted to the ground; and afterwards, in turning round to take a last, lingering, farewell view of the tray-full of babies, I observed, pinned at the back of each of their caps, a piece of

paper, which my attendant told me was the infant's number, which, in the register, records the day or night and hour at which it was received,—but too often that is all that is known on earth of its unfortunate history.

As I was walking through this lofty and well-lighted room, the floor of which I was astonished to find so polished and so slippery that, even without an infant in my arms, I could scarcely keep on my legs, I perceived, on looking around me, that I was in a little world of babies; in fact, there were no less than 120 iron cradles full of them. In different places I observed several women feeding them with flat glass bottles, intended to represent their mothers. At the end of the room stood a statue of our Saviour.

My attendant now led me into a hall full of babies' cradles on one side, and beds for matrons on the other. Then to another room, containing thirty-eight cradles; but as soon as, on the threshold of the door, she informed me they were full of infants with all sorts of diseases in their eyes, I whisked round, and, without giving her my reasons, told her I had rather not enter it. I, however, followed her through a long room full of cradles, surrounded by blue curtains, within every one of which was a sick infant, many afflicted with the measles; and such a variety of little coughings, sneezings, cryings, and here and there violent squallings, as loud as if the child had some cutaneous disorder, and they were skinning it, it would be very difficult to describe.

There were two rows of buildings, which I had observed from the windows, and which my attendant told me were full of great children, whom the public are not allowed to see. She, however, with evident pride, showed me a large laundry, two stories high, and a drying ground; a farm-yard for cows and pigs; some large gardens; and an establishment of thirty yellow 'buses, with a cabriolet on the top, for transporting sixteen country nurses at a time (the very number I had seen sitting in a row waiting for their 'bus), with their sixteen babies, to the various termini of the railways on which they were to be injected into the country.

My attendant told me that the number of babies and children the establishment received last year amounted to about 5000; besides which, they have, in what she called "en depôt," 1500, belonging to women who are ill and in hospital, in which case the establishment relieves them of all their children. Of

the 5000, all will be supported by the "Hospice" until they are twenty-one years of age, or are apprenticed, or otherwise provided for. Besides the necessary amount of servants and nurses, there are thirty-four Sœurs de la Charité, three Priests (frères), and one "Instituteur." The total expense of the institution amounted, in 1848, to 1,378,213 francs.

My attendant now led me to what, instead of the last, ought to have been the first letter of her alphabet, namely, the "tour," or turn-about, in which babies, as soon as the lamps are lighted, are received. At first I saw nothing but a small piece of dismal-looking dark wood, but on turning it round, there gradually opened to view a little cushion of straw, covered with faded green stuff; and yet, simple as it was, I felt it impossible to look at it without being deeply impressed with the political fallacy that, with good intentions, offers to the women of France in general, and of Paris in particular, a description of relief and assistance which, strange and dreadful to say, of all the animals in creation, no other living mother but a woman would accept !

On inserting an infant into this tiny receptacle, which not only severs it for ever from maternal care, but which I have no doubt has produced, on the hard pavement of the dark street in which the act has been so repeatedly committed, unutterable feelings and raving attitudes of misery, altogether beyond the power of the poet or the painter to describe,-a bell is either rung by the depositor, or, on the child squalling, it is turned round by the guardian in waiting, lifted out, numbered, and on the following day baptised with a name.

I was now at the door at which I had entered; but as I had been thinking of a few statistics I wished to obtain, after remunerating my attendant, I walked by myself across the interior hollow square into the department headed "Bureaux."

The superintendent was out, and, seated in the office, I was awaiting his return, when, looking into an interior room, I saw several of the clerks engaged in kindly trying to pacify a gentleman who, for some reason or other, appeared considerably excited, and who, after various gesticulations, such as placing his two elbows almost together in front of his chest, opening and clenching the fingers of both hands, and lifting up one foot after another, as if the floor was unpleasantly hot, at last, in a very squeaking tone, and with tearful eyes and cheeks, expressive of the most bitter grief, cried exactly like a child. The picture under any circumstances would have attracted a

moment's attention; but what rendered it to my mind more than ordinarily amusing was, that the fellow had a very long, well-combed, black beard, which, as he shook it in crying, kept tapping the buttons of his waistcoat!

LEFAYE ET LAFITTE.

My purse, when I left London, had contained but little money, and as that little, for a variety of very small reasons, no one of which could I recollect, had every day grown rather less, unlocking my writing box, I opened my letter of credit, which, I felt quite proud to read, was adressed to what appeared to me to be the California of Paris-namely, "Lafitte and Co. Maison Dorée,* Rue Lafitte." Carefully putting it into my pocket, I descended my staircase into my street; and while everything, influenced probably by my letter, was appearing to me "en couleur de rose," I saw approaching me a 'bus, driven by a coachman in a beautiful glazed, bright yellow hat, a crimson waistcoat, a nice chocolate coat with crimson facings, and fine blue trousers, perched high above two white very little punchy horses, carrying their heads low, and at perfect

ease.

The picture exactly corresponded with my mind, and accordingly, holding up my stick, I soon found myself in the interior rumbling sideways along the Rue de la Paix. Unfortunately, however, alike unknown to myself and to her, I had sat on the cowl of a young Soeur de la Charité. I had never seen her face, and probably never should, had it not been that, as I sat in silence by her side, I felt a very little twitch, and, looking round, to my deep regret found that, in turning her head, her cowl had twisted itself,- -or rather I had twisted it, so that what ought to have been exactly under her chin was on her cheek. I looked very sorry; she looked very kind; as quickly as I could I jumped-up; she gently shook her feathers, and then everything appeared as delightful as before.

After proceeding a short way along the Boulevart des Ita*The gilt house.