to the necessity of taking such steps as to prevent that mischief to which such experiments as these were likely to lead. (Hear, hear.) He believed that the certain result of such a government would be this--that they would be stricken down with imbecility, and would become too weak to perform the ordinary functions of a government. They might struggle on for a time, until some military commander would rise and destroy the Republic, and perhaps plant in its place a military despotism. At this moment he was of opinion that any one general, with 10,000 men, marching into Paris, would have the effect of at once putting an end to the Republic. No man could doubt it. The Belgian ambassador the other day had applied to M. Lamartine for protection; the latter said in reply, he admitted the full right of the ambassador to such protection, but he had not really three men at his disposal. The people in Paris were as uneasy as any persons could be at this state of things, but they have made up their minds to the fact that this experiment of a Republic must be tried; so that France must remain a Republic for some time, whether it be for her advantage or not."--_Morning Chronicle_, April 13, 1848. Wretched as this account of the present state of France is, its prospects are if possible still more deplorable. The misery brought on the working-classes by the ruin of commerce, destruction of credit, and flight of the opulent foreigners, is such that it is absolutely sickening to contemplate it. _Seventy-five thousand persons_ are out of employment in Paris alone, which, with the usual number of dependents, must imply two hundred thousand human beings in a state of destitution. The only way of supporting this enormous mass of indigence is by maintaining it as an armed force; and it is said that 200,000 idlers are in this way paid thirty sous a-day to keep them from plundering the capital! But the resources of no country, far less one shipwrecked in capital, trade, and industry, can withstand such a strain. The following is one of the latest accounts of the financial and social condition of France, by an able observer on the spot:--