We have, in short, an average of 10,000 deaths every year; and the result shown by the above furthermore is that the proportion of deaths to invalids is about that of 1 to 8½. I will not dwell on this latter conclusion, which, however, proves the danger of accumulating a large number of cases under the same roof, and also the necessity of a reform in our establishments. I will pass on to the 10,000 deaths resulting from the report. In this average number, there are from 1,000 to 1,500 claimed by relatives, who purchase a right of separate burial for _fifty_ francs; and there are from 3,500 to 4,000 who are conveyed to the common grave. The remaining 5,000, not claimed by any relative or friend, are dissected, either at the Ecole de Médecine or at the Rue Fer-à-Moulin. These corpses are used after dissection for the manufacture of skeletons, for anatomical institutions, for museums, etc., etc. The _detritus_ collected when these purposes have been accomplished are carried promiscuously in biers to the Hospital Cemetery, which is situated near the Fort of Bicètre, not far from Turg. No spectacle can be more distressing than that of this cemetery, to which access is gained by a side door in the wooden palings that fence it round. It is a dreary plain, and has no sign to show it is consecrated to the departed. The ridges look more like trenches than graves. No living being has been led here by love to mark the mounds with a cross, neither is this sign of redemption erected over the door, as it is in the smallest hamlet; no holy-water is sprinkled over these graves. Why should no difference be made here between a churchyard and a public field? I again repeat that these 5,000 corpses are those of the deceased not claimed by relatives; and this it is which constitutes a striking inequality between the indigent who die in their own homes, and those who die in the care of public charity. When a poor man dies on his own bed, and has not left any provision for his burial, the _mairie_ of his _arrondissement_ has to provide a coffin gratis, and the municipal tax is suppressed; whereas no such generosity as a coffin is granted in the hospitals. A man dying here without the fourteen francs mentioned is carried to one or other of the amphitheatres. There is no favor shown, even were the departed your own mother. Fourteen francs for a ransom, or the heart of the parent that beat for you is the prey of medical students. A priest is sent for when the corpses have been dissected. It is then his duty to stand up, facing the mutilated remains, and to read the prayers for the dead. When this ceremony is over, they are conveyed to the hospital cemetery. Need I insist that the religious rite performed as I have described is of little consolation to those who are left behind? It is not a separate service for each of the deceased; several bodies lie together, or rather, the members of their bodies--a galling sight, which surviving relatives avoid.