in whose power they feel themselves to be. These demands for money are again and again repeated; and the unhappy couple may consider themselves fortunate if the scoundrel, after he has 'carried on his exactions for months, does not hand them over to some other of his tribe, to be subjected to a new series of threats and extortions. The prevalence in Paris of an offence of a hideous nature gives scope to a still darker species of conspiracy, unknown in England. We cannot stain our pages by explaining the machinations of these infamous gangs, who, with an audacity scarcely to be believed, frequently assume the garb and functions of the police.

In Paris, as elsewhere, each separate class of villains has within itself a certain number, generally very limited, of ferocious spirits, who, with a reckless indifference, are willing, for any cause, or none, to dye their hands in blood. The Parisian robbers affect to consider that these sanguinary and brutal propensities are to be found only among the rustics who join their ranks; but this is not the case. Many of the most merciless ruffians are townbred, and have reached the pinnacle through a long gradation of crime. Even among their companions these men are feared and shunned, and they in return affect to despise and domineer over all those who are less bloodthirsty than themselves.

In enumerating the different species of crime, M. Frégier abstains entirely from any mention of those offences which are connected with political movements: he does so on the ground that, as the causes which lead to them are transitory and of rare occurrence, they form no part of the general elements of society. His view in this may be correct-but we are surprised that he should also have omitted in his catalogue of crime the frequent and murderous duels which disgrace the French capital, as well as those vastly moving and romantic police-historiettes which perpetually adorn the journals, half murder and half suicide, and in which young ladies and gentlemen, to prove the ardour of their love, blow out each other's brains, or poison themselves in pairs. With regard to suicide, in fact, we see reason to our author looks upon it with favourable

suspect that

eyes.*

Looking at the general mass of crime in the two cities, we are inclined to doubt whether in intensity of guilt London may not claim a bad pre-eminence over Paris. The gay, goodhumoured, and buoyant disposition of the French, so amiable and pleasing among the good, may, though faintly, be still traced among the depraved; and renders their pickpockets, their

*Vide vol. i. page 207.

swindlers,

swindlers, and their thieves some shades less revoltingly wicked than our own. The chief difference is in style and manner of procedure, not in the extent of talent and genius. In elegance of person and dress, easy self-possession, agility of limb, abundance of expedient, and cheerful submission to reverses of fortune, we believe that a Parisian scoundrel beats a Londoner hollow; but for steady, calculating villany, for deep-settled and wellcombined plans of fraud and violence, we doubt whether the superiority be not with us: and, despite all the vapouring of M. Vidocq, and all the miracles of skill which he records, let us take an individual from some of our northern counties, let us give him the advantage of a couple of London seasons, and we are afraid that he might brag the world.

The preservatives from vice form the third division of the work. They are discussed with sense and feeling, and many important subjects are brought forward forcibly and well. There is, however, a good deal of amplification, and needless labour of demonstration; and many points of political economy which have long ago been fixed, are analysed and argued as if they were new ground. He well says :—

'Let public institutions or private philanthropy exert themselves as they may, the fate of the child and of the future man mainly depends on the example of his parents. Our home is, after all, the most powerful school to teach what is good or what is evil. In the large majority of families of every rank the anxious desire of the parents is to lead their children into the paths of virtue; and it is this holy feeling which keeps down and limits crime. Labour is natural to man; his moral happiness, however little he may be disposed to think so, depends upon it as much as his bodily sustenance. This is one of the most important lessons that can be taught; and it is best taught by the example of industrious parents. But to render a life of unremitted labour endurable, to control and neutralise the evil propensities of our nature, to check idleness and discontent, demands wisdom and benevolence on the part of the masters.'

We with sorrow confess our belief that there is in France more paternal watchfulness, more kindly feeling on the part of the manufacturer and master-workman towards those whom they employ than there is in England. M. Frégier gives noble examples of liberality and goodness exhibited by provincial manufacturers; but it is not to these that we advert: they might be met, we well know, by instances of equal wisdom and virtue in our own country. We found our opinion upon the numberless circumstances which prove that there is, on the whole, more unison of feeling, more sympathy, more mutual dependence and support between the different ranks of industry, between the employers and the employed, in France than with us. The national advantages resulting

VOL. LXX. NO. CXXXIX.

D

resulting from this are most important; and it is to this cause, we conceive, in a great degree, that the combinations among workmen to enforce an increase of wages, which have at different times been carried to such a fearful extent in England, are in France, comparatively speaking, unknown. We are well aware that there are other operating causes; but we believe that the one we have adverted to is the most effective of all.

M. Frégier is energetic in his appeal to the newspaper press to devote a portion of the vast power which it wields to the enlightening, controlling, and rendering contented and tranquil, the national industry-taking that term in its most extensive sense, as embracing agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. He asks indignantly, Why they have not done this?' The answer is obvious. Disquisitions on political economy, however elementary and familiar treatises on agriculture and commerce - moral essays, however well meant and well written, will not make any newspaper in France sell; and were the editors of all the journals in Paris, moved by a simultaneous fervour of benevolence, to devote a portion of their columns to such matters, we are quite convinced that little or no good would result from it: the classes for whom they were intended would never deign to look at them whilst one paragraph on the more exciting subjects of politics, police, and playhouses remained unread.*

In many parts of France, as in Germany and Switzerland, the labouring population change their vocation from the field to the city according to the demand for their service; and this with a facility, and to an extent, quite unknown among us The frequent periods of inactivity, both in agriculture and manufactures-époques de chômage-are by this means rendered much less injurious to the operative class than they would otherwise be. It is this facility of turning their hands to different occupations, from the plough to the loom or the carpenter's bench, that brings into Paris at certain seasons a large body of operatives, who, during the rest of the year, live with their families in the country. These form, M. Frégier says, the élite of the labouring population of Paris. In London we have no periodical movement

*It is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, that the English newspaper supposed to be patronized most largely, and almost exclusively, by the highest classes of our society, is the only one that ventures to place before its readers, in regular or nearly regular succession, a series of Essays treating on high and important questions of morality, social arrangement, and the merits of established works of literature. We can hardly believe that such a writer as the amiable and pure-hearted Table-Talker of the Morning Post would find extensive favour with the mass of those who take in any other morning paper in London. What a vast interval between the scope and tone of his elegant essays (two volumes of which are now collected) and the literary feuilletons of the fashionable journals of the French capital!

of

of this sort: the great mass of country people who flock to London do so for the purpose of making it their fixed residence, and of these a large proportion are the lowest class of Irish, who, if they do not form the most vicious element of our inetropolitan population, undoubtedly are the most turbulent and the least submissive to the laws. Paris has evidently the advantage over us in this respect. At the same time we doubt whether the rural population in either kingdom possesses so great a superiority of virtue above the inhabitants of towns as our author claims for it. The criminal tables of both prove, indeed, that the numerical proportion of crime is much higher in towns than in the country. A peasant has fewer opportunities to commit crime, fewer temptations, and less chance of escaping detection, than the townsman. But transfer the same individual to the city, place him on the same footing of opportunity and safety as the townsman, and it will too often be found that he is to the full as apt and ready to fall into evil courses as those around him.

M. Frégier prefaces his remarks on the effects of religion as a preservative from vice, by a long exposition of the present state of Christianity in France. This account goes to the startling length of asserting that religious faith has in effect ceased to exist throughout the nation, and that Christianity has no longer any hold on the public mind, as a revelation from Heaven. France was the well-spring from which nearly a century ago bold infidelity, nay, avowed atheism, flowed far and wide over many of the continental nations. Our own happy country, strong in its pure and firm Protestantism, was one of the few which, after a brief period of agitation, withstood the shock unharmed. We had believed that of late years this pernicious tide had been flowing back upon France in waves of fearful and still augmenting violence; but if M. Frégier be correct, she has no cause to fear the contagious impiety of any other country:

The religious crisis,' he says, ' which is now in progress in Germany, was brought to a conclusion in France half a century ago.'

We most firmly believe that our author speaks too broadlyeven if, as we suppose, he speaks of Paris rather than of France; but if we were to take him literally, we could not be surprised when he goes on to tell us that in France, even among the highest orders of the church, what we in England should call gross infidelity is countenanced; or to find that, in treating of religion as one of the pillars of order, he looks at it only as a system of moral discipline, and gravely places singing classes' in the very foremost rank of the means which the Roman Catholic Church possesses for recovering its hold on the minds

resulting from this are most important; and it is to this cause, we conceive, in a great degree, that the combinations among workmen to enforce an increase of wages, which have at different times been carried to such a fearful extent in England, are in France, comparatively speaking, unknown. We are well aware that there are other operating causes; but we believe that the one we have adverted to is the most effective of all.

6

M. Frégier is energetic in his appeal to the newspaper press to devote a portion of the vast power which it wields to the enlightening, controlling, and rendering contented and tranquil, the national industry-taking that term in its most extensive sense, as embracing agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. He asks indignantly, Why they have not done this?' The answer is obvious. Disquisitions on political economy, however elementary and familiar moral treatises on agriculture and commerce essays, however well meant and well written, will not make any newspaper in France sell; and were the editors of all the journals in Paris, moved by a simultaneous fervour of benevolence, to devote a portion of their columns to such matters, we are quite convinced that little or no good would result from it: the classes for whom they were intended would never deign to look at them whilst one paragraph on the more exciting subjects of politics, police, and playhouses remained unread.*

In many parts of France, as in Germany and Switzerland, the labouring population change their vocation from the field to the city according to the demand for their service; and this with a facility, and to an extent, quite unknown among us The frequent periods of inactivity, both in agriculture and manufactures-époques de chômage-are by this means rendered much less injurious to the operative class than they would otherwise be. It is this facility of turning their hands to different occupations, from the plough to the loom or the carpenter's bench, that brings into Paris at certain seasons a large body of operatives, who, during the rest of the year, live with their families in the country. These form, M. Frégier says, the élite of the labouring population of Paris. In London we have no periodical movement

*It is a circumstance not unworthy of notice, that the English newspaper supposed to be patronized most largely, and almost exclusively, by the highest classes of our society, is the only one that ventures to place before its readers, in regular or nearly regular succession, a series of Essays treating on high and important questions of morality, social arrangement, and the merits of established works of literature. We can hardly believe that such a writer as the amiable and pure-hearted Table-Talker of the Morning Post would find extensive favour with the mass of those who take in any other morning paper in London. What a vast interval between the scope and tone of his elegant essays (two volumes of which are now collected) and the literary feuilletons of the fashionable journals of the French capital!

of