of brotherly kindness, to the Poor-law authorities? Is there the least community of feeling or of opinion between Poor-law officers and, say, the Society for the Relief of Destitution in the Metropolis? The vast and splendid hospitals with which London is provided show many empty beds, while the workhouse infirmaries are over-crowded. Each parish works in its own way; each hospital is a separate kingdom; each asylum is a fortress. The poor are neglected in one street, and kindly used in another. Even decent mortuaries are not uniformly provided in every part of London. All is hap-hazard, sloth or activity, with self-sufficiency agog in every vestry and board-room. The money spent is enormous, and the result is, a daily increasing rate of pauperism, because the sick are neglected until they become permanent paupers; because the children are left in the streets; because none of the relief is remedialexcept that which the Jewish guardians afford to their people. In Whitechapel, the poor Jew is the only man who is helped intelligently out of his poverty. The reason is, because the Jewish guardians are modelled, in their ways of proceeding, on the harmonious machinery of the French Assistance Publique. They have a searching system of out-door relief for the sick, conducted by voluntary visitors of their own persuasion, accompanied by efficient relief that keeps the home together;

and they have hospital beds to w send those patients who cannot home. All their charities are in u and react upon each other. The serve the poor are in force; and he inquiry into the condition and de applicant for relief. Among the Chri the inquiry is a mockery; and the bread enough to keep the applicant turn comes round again. Sick, he fi in getting advice, and almost the in procuring the medicine he is ordered cannot give him a bed in a hospital reach the workhouse infirmary, and, nary, break up his home. Or, he 1 begging among the private charities sently into the ranks of the profes hunters.

I have read diligently both sides of in regard to the asylums which are enormous cost, in or near London, an more firmly convinced than ever on the high road to deeper mischi reform the Poor-law root and bra home the law breaks up spreads ne The wise Jews, imitating our prudent fully methodical neighbours, have medical staff for the poor perfect helped the doctor with a kitchen

pharmacy. Their vigour has been in the direction of home; and so has that of M. Husson's department. The striving of the French poor administrators has been to keep the old people in the home as well; not to mass them in the asylums. The workhouse is the mistake in the English Poor-law system; and we will not see it, nor be at the trouble of mastering the details of a better system—cheaper and kindlier,—although it is flourishing within ten hours of Whitechapel, and serves the poor of a vast metropolis without a workhouse, and without oppressing those who are only just removed from a condition of want with poor-rates.

Consider the case of the poor Paris workman who is disabled by disease. The Maison de Secours is at hand. The doctor reaches him, and leaves a record of the hour of each visit and the condition of the patient. He is followed by inspector and visitor, who attend to the poor man's wants and help the family. It is cheapest to get the man to work again as soon as possible, and to keep the home together. When his case requires particular treatment or peculiar skill, he is removed by the Poor-law officers, upon a decent covered litter, to the special hospital which treats his disease. The home relief, the attendance, medicines, the hospital, and the carriage thither-nay, the convalescent hospital at Vincennes for fresh air,-are all harmoniously and cheaply worked together,

through (1) the Maison de Secours, dissement Bureau, and (3) the Gene Bureau.

Consider the case of the poor sic London. His family are invited i house to begin with. If they hold t six or seven in a room-he is sparin his supply of medicines is dubious visitor keeps a rigorous superintend Poor-law doings; his family starve o under his eyes, goaded incessantly w to give up independence and go in and become regular paupers, leaving of workhouse morality to their ch sider the case of the Jewish workma in the midst of the atrocious and barism to which the poor Christian of is subjected, is well nourished and sickness, and sees his wife and child until he can be the bread-winner Rothschilds, who have graced their w both in London and Paris, with a m and open-handed service of the poo thought and time, as well as of been workers in this direction. But administrators are suffering, I fear, fi the brain.

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CHAPTER IX.

THE CENTRAL STORE OF THE POOR.

THE immense range of buildings on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital, close to the Salpétrière, is the central store-house of the Assistance Publique of Paris; the completion of which has enabled the order-loving authorities of the Seine to get the supplies for hospital, asylum, Bureau de Beinfaisance, and House of Help, under one authority, and in that methodical trim which makes the production of the smallest tisane vessel the affair of a moment. Not a baby's cup can stray hence, and not be missed. A handful of lentils-almost a haricot, white or red-would form the subject of an inquiry. We smile as we pace through these apple-pie regions, turned over, at the entrance to the broken bed-chair department, or the babylinen gallery, to a fresh functionary of sharp, military appearance; but the care and precision mean economy. It is affecting to pause, for instance, in