Most of the artists to be referred to in this little volume are intimately connected with this same breezy, turbulent suburb, and also with the before-mentioned “Chat Noir”. This _cabaret_, founded and carried on by Salis, himself an artist, for years attracted _le tout Paris_ by means of its _réunions_ of the most up-to-date artists, authors, and actors, and its unique theatre. Along with its sprightly, risky weekly paper it would form matter for a weighty volume of itself. The students from the _Quartier Latin_, moreover, came to share their joyous, reckless hours of leisure between their own beloved neighbourhood of the _Boul’ Mich’_, and the far-away Mount of the Windmills--Montmartre. Peasants, workgirls, the starving, the insane, the destitute, those who are fighting misery and those who are making it, garrotters, thieves, murderers, and a large assortment of parasitical ruffians as well, have all found a sympathetic student and recorder in Steinlen. He understands them, he has a big heart, and he pities them all, and what is more he makes us, willy-nilly, pity them also. He delights in showing us that one little touch of remaining nature that makes the whole world akin, and will out in his most abandoned wretch. He makes us feel that his criminals are what nature and cruel circumstances have led them to be. Never does he descend to the narrow-minded, short-sighted, spiteful views of current events, discernible in the work of so many of his talented _confrères_. The firm tenderness of his nature reveals itself in the very lines of his drawings, which, as if to counterbalance the brilliant vivacity of the work of so many French illustrators, display a sturdy thoroughness and sanity. A notable feature about his work is that--although he depicts the most depraved and immoral, as well as the most poverty-stricken of his fellow citizens--it cannot be said to be low or vulgar. His drawings of simple peasant life have all the air of having been undertaken as a relaxation from the contemplation of more lurid subjects. He sallies forth among his chance models, sketch-book in hand, ready to put down notes of salient features and expressive poses, later to be incorporated in the wonderfully complete drawings which are shown to the public.