It will thus be observed, that the subdivision of real estate has brought France pretty much back to the point where it started--a small wealthy class, and a very numerous poor class. The computation is, that in a population of 36,000,000, only 800,000 are in easy circumstances. A considerable proportion of this moneyed class are usurers, living in Paris and other large towns. They are the lenders of cash on bonds, which squeeze out the very vitals of the nation--the gay flutterers and loungers of the streets, theatres, and cafes, drawing the means of luxurious indulgence from the myriads who toil out their lives in the fields. Obtaining a glimpse of these facts, we can no longer wonder at the submission of the French peasantry to a thinning of their families by military conscription; at the eager thirst for office which afflicts the whole nation; or at the morbid desire to overturn society, and strike out a better organisation. As matters grow worse, this passion for wholesale change becomes more fervidly manifested. The _jacqueries_ of the middle ages are renewed. Various districts of country, in which poverty has reached its climax, break into universal insurrection. It is a war levied by those who have nothing against those who have something. To have coin in the pocket, is to be the enemy. The cry is: Down with the rich; take all they have got, and divide the plunder amongst us. Such are the avowed principles of the Socialists. According to them, all property is theft, and taking by violence is only recovering stolen goods! When a nation has come to this deplorable pass, what, it may be asked, can cure it? The malady is not political; it is social. Perhaps, under a right development of industry, France has not too great a population; but, subject to the present misdirection of its energies, the position of the country is assuming a gravity of aspect which may well engage the most earnest consideration. The least that could be recommended is an immediate change in the law which so unscrupulously subdivides and ruins landed property.