Juvenile depravity has unhappily long been prevalent in France, and is strongly marked. This is largely due to a faulty system, mistaken methods of treatment in the various prisons and especially in La Petite Roquette. Intercommunication between its inmates, despite strict discipline, is easy and frequent, and the most depraved exert a baneful influence over the whole. Most youthful crimes have originated in La Roquette. “My parents ought not to have sent me here” (under the law which permits a parent to try imprisonment to mend incorrigible children), said one lad. “They thought to reform me; it has been altogether the reverse.” “My first offence,” said another, “was stealing fruit, and it brought me to La Roquette. When one comes once, one returns often.” “The cell does not keep us apart, and we go out far worse than when we enter,” said still another. Hence the prevalence of serious juvenile crime. “A French child,” writes an experienced magistrate, “organises a murder as he would a pleasure party.” One was so light-hearted on his way to commit a great crime that an accomplice rebuked him saying, “If you laugh too much our coup will fail.” Another, who had already committed murder, wrote on his cell wall: “When one’s pockets are empty it is easy to understand why there are criminals.” This prison as it now stands covers much ground and has considerable architectural pretensions. It consists of six wings grouped round a central building, with which they are connected by light iron bridges. This central building is circular and three storied. The lowest, or basement, contains the kitchen. The _parloir_, or place where the prisoners see their friends, occupies the second. The chapel is on the top floor. The wings have also three stories, and the cells on each story open from a central passage, lighted at the end, while the whole interior is warmed very indifferently by stoves. The régime of the prison is based upon the principle of isolation; a system which might, if carried to any extreme of severity, prove cruelly harsh to prisoners of tender years. The solitude enforced is not unbroken, however. Each boy, whatever his age (and this varies from eight or nine to sixteen or seventeen), works in his cell, sorting flowers for immortelles, the staple product of the neighborhood; polishing brass work, manufacturing and gilding chairs; but he is visited constantly by the _contremaître_ or contractor’s foreman, who teaches and superintends; by the brigadier and wardens of the wing, or by the Director--the governor and chief of the establishment, who is continually going his rounds. The present head of the boys’ prison is a kindly and sympathetic person, who tempers the rigors of discipline by the warm and lively interest he takes in his flock. It is almost touching to see how the eyes of the little waifs brighten as he enters their cells; how one greets him with a cheery “_bon jour_,” and another catches his hand and kisses it.