Almsgiving takes the place of the work-house system, in the economy of a large part of Europe. The giving of alms to the helpless is, moreover, in Catholic countries, a religious office. The voluntary surrender of gifts, each according to his ability, as a means of grace, is more prominently insisted upon than among Protestants; consequently systematic taxation for the poor is not resorted to. Nor is there so great a necessity for it as in England; for few nations have so many paupers to provide for as the English are accustomed to regard as a natural element in society; and thus it happens, that when, about ten years ago, there was in France no asylum but the hospital, for aged and ailing poor, the want of institutions for the infirm but healthy was not so severe as to attract the public eye. But there was at that time a poor servant-woman, a native of the village of La Croix, in Brittany--Jeanne Sugon was her name--who was moved by the gentleness of her heart, and the fervor of her religion, to pity a certain infirm and destitute neighbor, to take her to her side as a companion, and to devote herself to her support. Other infirm people earned, by their helplessness, a claim on her attention. She went about begging, when she could not work, that she might preserve life as long as Nature would grant it to her infirm charges. Her example spread a desire for the performance of similar good offices. Two pious women, her neighbors, united with Jeanne in her pious office. These women cherished, as they were able, aged and infirm paupers; nursed them in a little house, and begged for them in the vicinity. The three women, who had so devoted themselves, attracted notice, and were presently received into the order of Sisters of Charity, in which they took for themselves the name of "Little Sisters of the Poor"--PETITES S[OE]RS DES PAUVRES. The first house of the Little Sisters of the Poor was opened at St. Servan, in Brittany. A healthy flower scatters seed around. We saw that forcibly illustrated, in the progress, from an origin equally humble, of the Rauhe Haus, near Hamburgh: we see it now again, in the efforts of the Little Sisters, which flourished and fructified with prompt usefulness. On the tenth anniversary of the establishment at St. Servan, ten similar houses had been founded in ten different French towns. The _Petites S[oe]urs_ live with their charges in the most frugal way, upon the scraps and waste meat which they can collect from the surrounding houses. The voluntary contributions by which they support their institution, are truly the crumbs falling from the rich man's table. The nurse fares no better than the objects of her care. She lives upon equal terms with Lazarus, and acts toward him in the spirit of a younger sister.