Saint Lazare was long the principal prison for females in Paris. Within its vast _enceinte_, which includes gardens, fountains and trees, and which is now doomed to early abolition, were collected women of all categories,--those awaiting trial; those sentenced for short terms, and those doomed to go beyond the seas; young girls, some of them quite children, committed to prison at the instance of their parents, “for correction;” and last of all, the unhappy, “_filles publiques_,” who whether “_soumises_” or “_insoumises_,” whether officially inscribed on the police rolls or independently practising their profession, have offended against one or other of the stringent enactments by which the fallen sisterhood are controlled in Paris. The various classes, it is true, are kept as far as possible, even scrupulously apart; but all are practically under one and the same roof and really do intermingle rather freely. The system cannot but be demoralising in the extreme. It is strongly condemned by all earnest, thoughtful Frenchmen, who characterise Saint Lazare as a detestable place, which should forthwith cease to be a prison. “Every young girl,” says Du Camp, “who enters Saint Lazare for correction, leaves it corrupt and rotten to the core.... She is lost unless a miracle intervenes, and the day of miracles is past.” While such association continues, all efforts, and they are many, to protect the still pure or win back the fallen to virtuous ways, cannot but be made in vain. [Illustration: _Hospice de la Salpêtriere, Paris_ Hospital or almshouse for helpless and insane women. Formerly it was a house of detention as well as a hospital, and the treatment was extremely brutal. As many as ten thousand persons have lived within the walls at one time.]