In times of political commotion, of unforeseen events, of rigorous seasons, when the usual courses of labour are stopped, the civil administrations create temporary workshops, furnish tools, &c., to the labourers, and enter into contracts for repairs to the streets, quays, bridges, roads, &c., from which a large city, as well as the country parishes, can always draw some advantages for the money so distributed, to employ those persons who would otherwise be supported without work by the same funds. The money required on those occasions is furnished by the treasury of the city or commune, assisted by private subscriptions from nearly all persons in easy circumstances. The want of regular or parish workhouses for labourers, unemployed, is in some measure supplied by private charities, for a great number of wealthy families, and others of the middling class, give employment to old men, women, and children, in spinning, and in weaving of coarse linen, at prices far beyond those that the articles can be purchased at in the shops; but this plan is adopted to prevent a disposition to idleness, although at a greater sacrifice, perhaps, than would be made by most of the promoters of it, in a public subscription. The bureau de bienfaisance distributes annually about 80,000 fr.; the chief part, or very nearly the whole, to poor families at their homes, in clothes, food, fuel, and sometimes money; but of the latter as little as possible. Les dames de charité (ladies of the first families, who are appointed annually to visit and give relief to the poor, each having a fixed district) distribute about three-fourths of that sum, which would be insufficient for the indigent if it were not assisted by distributions made by the priests of the different parishes and other persons employed to do so by private families, who give their alms in that manner, and not at their own residences. It is generally supposed that, in the whole, not less than 250,000 fr. are so distributed annually in the city of Nantes. In making this distribution care is always taken to prefer invalids to those in health. _Impotent through Age._