In France at this time there are neither parochial rates nor workhouses such as we have in England. For idle, disorderly or viciously disposed persons no midway exists between the high road and the prison, and no kind of provision exists which affords employment to persons who, from sickness, misfortune, or lack of employment, have been thrown out of work. Hence the poverty of a French pauper is the consummation of wretchedness; rags, filth and disease waste his constitution and destroy his body, while despair for ever settles on his soul. If he have strength enough to carry a musket he is instantly transported into a soldier; and if this means of subsistence fail, his only alternative is to steal or to become a beast of burden, performing labour that in other countries is only executed by horses and asses. But miserable as he is, the lot of the female beggar is infinitely worse. Objects of loathsome corruption and horrible aspect, they seem planted in the streets of this capital, only to laugh to scorn the Revolution, and to rebuke the greedy and the sumptuous magnificence of the upstart. As you traverse the streets they follow you, conjuring you in the name of God, and, with entreaties which would melt a heart of flint, implore you to give them a little charity. The charitable are deprived of the power of discriminating; they must attend to the cries of beggary or submit to be pursued for half a mile by the same forlorn wretch, imploring for mercy and pity. This is indeed a wretched state of society, yet we are told the Revolution was the work of philosophers, made for the benefit of the people to dispel the darkness of their prejudices, and to remove all the moral and physical evils under which they groaned before the advent of freedom. XXXIV HUMANE INSTITUTIONS--_continued_ LA SALPÊTRIÈRE. HÔTEL DIEU. HÔPITAL DE JESUS, DE LA CHARITÉ, DE LA PITIÉ. THE FOUNDLING SOCIETY [Sidenote: HOSPITALS] La Salpêtrière, before the Revolution, was a prison for females; since that event it has been converted into an ordinary prison, an infirmary, and at length a hospital. It is an immense building, extremely well situated near the river, and is now appropriated as a receptacle for girls, above 1500 of whom are maintained in it. I am sorry to say I can say little in favour of its comfort or cleanliness. The Hôtel Dieu, changed into Hôtel de l’Humanité by the Revolutionists, is an infirmary for the sick and diseased. It will contain 4000 people.