Assistance authorities have done their utmost to confound the authors of these little plots. A careful inquiry is made into the position of the relatives of the infirm patient who has been or is about to be discharged from the hospital. When the relatives are able to support their infirm member, they are requested to do so. Should they refuse, the poor creature is still dismissed from the hospital. The hospital administrator is ordered to have the discharged patient conveyed home, accompanied by a hospital servant or nurse chosen for the purpose on account of his or her conciliatory manners and tact. Should the relatives peremptorily refuse to receive the patient, and be deaf to the remonstrance of the hospital attendant, the patient is carried back ; for the new instructions include this sentence:"Under no circumstances whatever, the ingratitude of children, nor the indifference of kindred, may an infirm person be abandoned at his closed door, or even that of his own children, who owe him protection. Impress this fundamental rule on your agents." The police as well as the hospital authorities insist on the reception of the infirm patient at his home, and at the same time the Assistance authorities make the minutest inquiries into the circumstances of the family, and hasten the infirm member's admission to an asylum, where the burden of his maintenance at home appears to be intolerable.

The hospital administrator is requested to pay special attention to consumptive patients. They are not to be got rid of hastily to make room for other patients; and when they are approaching their end, or their weakness is so great that it can be best assuaged at the hospital, they may on no account be moved. These general regulations are addressed by the director of the Assistance Publique to the heads of the Paris hospitals in a circular, which these heads are instructed to submit to the entire hospital personnel, so that the servants of all degrees may act harmoniously in the spirit of them ; and the director adds that he will be always at hand and watchful to see that they are thoroughly carried out.

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CHAPTER VII.

THE CENTRAL HOSPITAL, ASYLUM, AND OUT-DOOR RELIEF STORES.

COUNT RUMFORD, writing in 1796 of "Fundamental Principles of Establishments for the Poor," observed: "However large a city may be, in which an establishment for the Poor is to be formed, I am clearly of opinion that there should be but one establishment-with one committee for the general management of all its affairs, and one treasurer. This unity appears essentially necessary, not only because, when all the parts tend to one common centre, and act in union to the same end, under one direction, they are less liable to be impeded in their operations, or disordered by collisions, but also on account of the very unequal distribution of wealth, as well as of misery and poverty, in the different districts of the same town." The Count divides his city into sections and sub-sections; subordinating the minor bodies gradually to the

common centre of authority, exactly on the plan of the Assistance Publique of France. The fidelity with which the French have followed the principles laid down by our adventurous and energetic countryman is marked especially in the organization of the various central establishments, whence the hospitals, asylums, and arrondissement bureaux are supplied with the necessaries which are distributed among the sick and poor. There is a Central Bakery, a Central Wine Depôt, a Central Butchery, a Central Pharmacy, and then there is the great Central Magazine-a vast establishment which has been lately constructed near the old Salpétrière, and remains to be perfected by a central Buanderie, or laundry.

Let us glance at the uses and manner of government of these institutions, which have been established for the sake of order and economy. The Central Bakery of the Assistance Publique of Paris is housed in the old Hôtel Scipion. In this establishment all the bread for consumption in the hospitals and asylums, and for distribution to the poor by the Bureaux de Bienfaisance, is made and baked. It is interesting to note how the Assistance authorities have watchfully taken advantage of every improvement by machinery in the manufacture of bread. So far back as 1853 the bread was made by steam machinery; in 1856, in order to discover whether it was not possible to produce bread at a

less price than that of Parisian bakers, the Prefect of the Seine installed a commission, the result of which was that the boulangerie bought corn instead of flour. With their own mill as well as their own bakery, all conducted on a vast and economical scale, the municipal bread-makers found that they could produce the first necessary of the poor cheaper than even the scale established by the Government to meet times of dearness. In presence of this fact it was decided that the Boulangerie Centrale should, in the first place, supply all the clients of the Assistance Publique; and, in the second place, that its surplus bread-that is, the quantity the establishment could make in excess of the Assistance demand-should be offered at the cost price in the public markets for the benefit of the poorest of the working population. The example of the Boulangerie Centrale showed, at any rate, that, in a time of excessive dearness, a bakery powerful enough to produce from 20,000 to 25,000 kilogrammes of bread daily (about 45,000 lb.), could undersell even the town bakers, whose tariff was supplemented by the Government bakers' bank. The Hôtel Scipion became the centre of many experiments towards the perfection of breadmaking.

The scientific investigations and ingenious processes, first of M. Mège-Mouriès, and afterwards of M. Salome, late director of the bakery, have ended