one of them decided to come to Paris to earn his bread, and even at the station the mother was not allowed to claim him, it being a notorious fact that boys fresh from the country often fall into evil hands at the big railway stations. Scrupulous in the acquittal of its duties, the _Assistance Publique_ will only deliver its charge into the mother’s hand in official circumstances that render all fraud impossible. The boy wore a fine new suit of clothes and new boots, and his great fear was that, leaving the care of the _Assistance Publique_ these peacock feathers would be taken from him. But they were not, and when he came to see me, I found, instead of a cowed charity lad, a pink-cheeked, open-eyed youth, well dressed and strong, with an independent air and an excellent fashion of speech. I sent him with a card of recommendation to the _Figaro_, and he was engaged on the spot. It speaks well for the people who brought him up, that he already regrets them and their quiet shepherd-life, and says he was much happier in the country than ever he expects to be in Paris. In the case of children leaving the correctional schools, the State has organised several schools of apprenticeship for the young prisoners of both sexes. There are, as well, a considerable number of these establishments under the direction of private persons and charitable societies. The boys are taught a trade and are classed according to their antecedents, if brought up in town or country. They work seven hours a day, and the money they earn is placed to their account in the Savings Bank. The colony at Belle-Ile-en-Mer receives the pick of this corrupt young world, and trains them for marine service. They are taught reading, writing, history, geography, and arithmetic, while Sunday is given up to gymnastics and long walks with their professors. The rewards for good behaviour are—praise, additional food, good-conduct stripes with pecuniary remuneration, gifts, a grant of three francs a month, confidential employment, and weekly leave of absence, provisional freedom, and military service. The Maison Darnetal for girls, near Rouen, has excited such admiration that the Italian Government has ordered its nuns to imitate it. Young girls here, when they leave the correctional school, are trained as farm wives, to grow fruit and vegetables, to make butter and cheese, to rear fowl; and they themselves carry to market the produce of their labour and learn to make excellent bargains. When they have earned their freedom, they are independent young women, capable of directing a farm, with all the thrift, the natural, keen intelligence and unsleeping industry of that most admirable portion of the French race, the hard-working, good-humoured women of the people.