Saint Lazare was originally a convent, and with its spacious interior, great dormitories and wide refectories was well suited for a religious house, but it was quite unfit to serve as a prison. The hideous herding together of so many classes, of innocent and guilty, of the absolutely bad and vicious with the young and still unspoilt, is a disgrace to civilisation. Yet great attention is paid to discipline, and ghostly ministrations abound at Lazare. Priests and chaplains there are many to preach and confess; philanthropic ladies come from outside to exhort and expound, and the whole establishment is under the watchful control of a religious sisterhood, that of Marie Joseph, an order which has continuously charged itself with prison labors, and whose devotion and self-sacrifice are beyond all praise. A religious atmosphere prevails. These poor women exhibit often a remarkable piety, very touching in such a place. When a party of prisoners is on the point of starting for the Palace of Justice, every woman expecting sentence kneels before a sacred image and prays for mercy from her earthly judge. This sentiment is further exhibited by the writings on the walls, which are not strictly forbidden as in most gaols. One familiar with them has collected some of the most striking, such as: “God is good, He will have pity on the unfortunate.” “Holy Virgin, I give you my heart; deign to take me under your protection and do not visit my early sins too hardly upon me.” It has well been remarked that the moral effect of Saint Lazare and its surroundings works wonderfully in aid of conversion and reformation. The spectacle of the sisterhood, brought there by a high sense of duty and not merely to earn a living, has an excellent influence upon the fallen and misguided creatures who are under their charge, to whom they devote their unstinting efforts. Another note, that of hungry, unsatisfied affection, can also be read in these inscriptions: “Whoever comes into this cell, your sufferings will never be so acute as when you are separated from the person you love;” again, “My love languishes in this cell, and far from thee whom I adore I constantly groan and grieve.” Sometimes the very opposite feeling finds voice: “Henriette loved her man more than any one, but to-day she hates him.” “I am dying to see him, and if I find he is unfaithful when I come out I will have his neck broken. It is through him that I am here, but I love him all the same with all my heart.” “I cannot forget my dead love which has lodged me here; when I am released my lover may expect to meet me armed with a revolver.” Some are buoyed up by inexhaustible hope: “This is the first day of my instruction (interrogation); the judgment of God is everything, that of man nothing.” “Let us endure our tribulations without murmuring; if they are undeserved our sins will expiate.”