regularly-appointed receivers, who deduct no commission, and never ask until the money is urgently wanted.

At the House of Relief of the second arrondissement, in the Rue Jussienne; and at that of the third arrondissement, in the picturesquely squalid Rue Vert-Bois, by the Faubourg Montmartre; and in the neighbourhood of the Conservatory of Arts and Sciences, there was evidence of the same timely activity on the part of the local bureau of benevolence, posted by the Primary School, under the tricolour flag. I was on my way to see how the fourneaux of the Philanthropic Society were progressing. The Rue Vert-Bois might be sketched as an excellent example of one of the average Paris streets of thirty years ago Its narrow pavement, and horrible roadway of tumbled stones; its dark little shops, where cheap boots and blouses are sold; the noise of the packing-case makers; the glimpses up one or two courts; the tenth-rate little dirty hotels, with black cut-throat staircases; the inevitable traiteurs, with pans of sliced potatoes floating and hissing in boiling lakes of grease, are suggestive points in the perspective, and prepare the mind to accept the presence of a House of Help as very reasonable and appropriate.

The Philanthropic Society appear to act with the authorities of the Assistance Publique in the most friendly and rational spirit. In London, rival

philanthropists ride their respective hobbies, and decline to run them tandem-wise, or in any other way in association. There was a peaceful, amiable appearance about the large House of Relief for the third arrondissement; and as I stood counting the various offices of charity that were performed within its walls, I thought it would do good to many of the rival philanthropists of London, and notably to those great folk who will save only Church of England sufferers-and even those only when their parish clergyman speaks for them—if they could be brought into this little street, opposite this House of Relief, and behold its manifold operations. At the door are notices of the public free lectures and classes that are open gratuitously to the young and to the adult; and above is a notification that soups and haricots (most nutritious food, utterly unknown to the London poor), are distributed within. The penny dish of haricots, albeit not a luxurious meal, serve admirably to stave the cravings of the poor man's stomach, and gives him wholesome sustenance. The dish of haricots is, happily, a popular dish, and is widely patronised. Figaro made merry, at one time, at the expense of the poor who get their penny dish of haricots for dinner, on the recommendation of a member of the Philanthropic Society. A little urchin, bearing a ticket for a penny dish, presents a penny also, asking for a double supply, as "mother has got a dinner-party!"

The room to the right of the entrance was like the waiting-room of a hospital. An old lady was cleaning it after the day's business. The guichets, or wickets, where medicines, &c. are distributed, were closed for the day; but it was obvious that they were turned to good account, and that many poor stood under the crucifix fixed (above) against the wall, so that where the sisters distributed the prescriptions of the Assistance doctor, and where he held his gratuitous consultations, the Philanthropic Society carried on its useful work. The same cheap and harmonious arrangement existed in the House of Relief of the Rue Jussienne. The good done by the action of the fourneaux is particularly shown in some quarters. In the sixth arrondissement, for instance, the committee of the Office of Benevolence appeal to the charity of the inhabitants, on the ground that the price of food is very high, and that there are many families of workmen out of employment in the Luxembourg quarter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SICK POOR SYSTEM.

SINCE Messrs. Blondel and L. Ser reported to the Assistance Publique authorities of Paris on the hospitals and workhouse infirmaries of London in 1862, many important changes and modifications have been brought about in the treatment of the Paris poor, sick and infirm, and in the management of the hospitals of the City of Boulevards. The improvements are many in Paris. The outdoor sick-relief has been extended and remodelled; the study of our "excessive" ventilation (to use the words of the French authorities) has not been fruitless; the number of hospital beds has been greatly increased*; and a system of medical statistics has been so successfully established that it has been imitated in Belgium, and will extend to all the medical centres of the Continent.

* Increase from 1852 to 1859, 404 beds; from 1859 to 1867, 673 beds; increase in fifteen years, 1,077 beds.

The idea with which M. Armand Husson sent his two commissioners to London fifteen years ago, would have given admirable results before this had it been followed up and applied to the philanthropic and scientific activities of other centres, and been ripened to the establishment of a permanent international medical commission. But the report which MM. Blondel and Ser presented remains an isolated document, little known beyond the regions which the Paris Assistance Publique governs.

Before reviewing the improvements in the Paris hospitals and in the home-treatment of the sick poor, let me note the salient points of difference, to our advantage or disadvantage, which the two French scientific travellers discovered between the hospitals and infirmaries of Paris and London. The present moment is opportune. There is a stir among the Parisians in regard to the means of providing labour, and of raising the funds by which the hospitals and refuges-the bureaux de bienfaisance and maisons de secours are supported, that may profoundly modify M. Husson's work, and test it to the utmost. The violent debates which Baron Haussmann's administration of the affairs of Paris towards the end of his reign provoked, tended clearly to a régime other than that which gave an individual the power of raising and spending a sum not much under twenty millions sterling, in his own way. By the Haussmann expenditure, which