plied to clothes, &c., adheres to them very tenaciously for a long time, and so adhering to them, may be carried to a very great distance in a condition to communicate the disease; that this infection is not only carried in the clothes, and other matters first infected by the effluvia of the diseased beast, but it is also probable that it may pass from the matters first infected to others which come in contact with them, as from the clothes of one person to those of another; and thus it is that the disease is often spread in an indiscernible and seemingly unaccountable manner.

"All these facts are very well known to physicians from the history of the plague and other contagious diseases among men ; and there can be no doubt of the same taking place also in the contagions among brutes. But from the last-mentioned fact it will appear that it is not only necessary that persons who have attended the infected should not, in the same clothes, go near the sound cattle; but also that those persons should not in the same clothes go near to other persons who may soon after have occasion to go near to sound cattle.

"When it is considered that as soon as the disease has prevailed to any degree, a great number of persons must be concerned in attending the infected cattle; and these, though they do not go near to the sound cattle, must have a communication with

many persons who may soon have occasion to go near the same, it will appear that the disease may soon be widely spread, and that it must be a difficult matter to prevent it spreading in this way. It will, indeed, require a very scrupulous attention; but it is hoped it may be done by the following measures:

"When any town, village, or district in which there are a considerable number of

horned cattle happens to be visited by this disease, the first care ought to be that as few persons as possible be concerned in attending the infected cattle; and for this purpose a sufficient number of men should be set apart for performing the whole business necessary with regard to the diseased cattle, as the killing them, the slashing their hides, the burying them, the burning the infected hay, straw, litter, or other in

fected matters, the burying the dung and purifying the infected cow-houses, &c.

"It will be convenient to choose for this purpose bachelors or men without families, and by every means to take care that they have as little communication as possible with any other persons.

"It will be particularly proper that these men have a complete set of apparel in which they may perform every part of the business above mentioned; and they are to be strictly charged that, while they are clothed in any part of this apparel, they avoid all near communication, and more especially contact, with any persons, or with anything that may afterwards be carried near to sound cattle, or to which these may come

near.

"If it shall be found that the persons employed as above must unavoidably have some communication with other persons, it will be necessary that they be provided with other apparel to be employed in such communication, and in that case they are to take care that no contact be admitted between the two sets of apparel thus designed for different purposes.

"When these men are thus established, care must be taken that no other persons, upon any pretence whatever, be allowed to go near to the infected cattle."

The nation is now thoroughly aroused, and the enemy is being more or less effectively_contended with in every district. It remains but to continue these measures, and to trust to Providence for success in their use. It is a great thing done to have brought the community to see that trifling with many remedies is not the part of wisdom. The only safety lies in Isolation and Slaughter. As the classic poet wrote of the same pest, so may it be written now,— "The learned leeches in despair depart, And shake their heads, desponding of their art;

Till, warned by frequent ills, the way they found

To lodge their loathsome carrion underground."

No. CCCC.

VOL. LXVII.

SINCE Horace Walpole undertook to set Richard III. before the world as a much maligned man, the system of rehabilitation has made considerable progress. Some author maintained that poor Nero was merely a victim of ennui, and that life was insupportable to him without excitement. An extreme tedium vitae and a deficiency in the sympathetic portion of his structure rendered it morally impossible for him to feel for the pangs of his human victims. The tenderhearted Isaac Walton was never heard to express sympathy with the sufferings of the thousands of worms done to death by his fingers, thus unconsciously affording an excuse for the unpopular Roman. If Dr. Maginn was not in error all players and play-goers, for two centuries and a half, have grievously wronged Lady Macbeth. Whatever severities she may have committed, were prompted merely by a deep-rooted attachment to her husband, and an earnest zeal in the task of promoting his worldly interests. Later in the day that great social reformer, Eugene Sue, began to consider that the "restoration" of wicked characters was mere child's play. He went to the root of the matter, and painted and patched the seven deadly sins; showed the good effects of pride, covetousness, luxury, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth on the character and fortunes of their subjects, and after his seven egregious tales were completed, looked round

VOL. LXVII.-NO. CCCC.

on the furniture of his luxurious dwelling, and rubbed his hands with as sublime a self-complacency as was ever cherished by his great predecessor, Jack Horner.

CAUSES OF CRIME, ASSUMED AND REAL.

A much more estimable man than the father of the "Wandering Jew," namely, Victor Hugo, is favourable to the same system. His hero by predilection must be distinguished by some deformity of soul or body. In common with nearly the whole body of the French school he finds it impossible to make an interesting character out of an honourable man or chaste woman. His amiable characters push their virtues beyond the bounds which separate them from vices, and so completely is this idea worked out that in one of the scenes of "Les Miserables," where a forçat is making his confession to a good bishop, and at last seems disposed to request absolution, the dignitary, filled with pity and admiration for the victim of the world's cruelty, goes down on his knees before the worn-out, much-sinned-against sinner, and acknowledges that it would be more consonant to the fitness of things to reverse the roles of absolver and absolved.

According to Victor Hugo the great mass of crime existing in the world is maintained by the persecution inflicted by the world and the world's

25*

Thus the romance of "Claude Gueux" (Claude the Beggar), 1831 66 Le dernier Jour d'un Condamné' (The last Day of a Criminal), 1832; "Les Miserables," 1862, have each for main spring the theft of a loaf.

That Victor Hugo, a man poetic and imaginative in a high degree, should have his logical faculties only imperfectly developed is but natural, but he is inexcusable on the score of observation. He refers to official papers issued by British authorities, in support of his theory, but M. Moreau-Christophe sets his assertion at nought in his quotation from the very same authorities.

"The complete scheme of robbery in London comprehends forty-three categories of thefts of all descriptions. In this schedule the eatables commence only at the

13th rank, and these are comestibles of a superior quality, such as butcher's meat, fowl, game, hams, sausages, cheese, &c. Very far below this, even at the 30th rank, are placed tea, sugar, coffee, beer, wine, and spirits. As to bread it is only at the last, the 43rd stage, the least frequent of all that we find mention made of mere loaves."*

In the French chronicles of crime stealing of bread constitutes only one per cent. of all the classified offences. The robbery of every kind of food and drink, including the most delicate viands and wines, amounts to only from four to five per cent. of all indictable crimes in France and England.

Our matter of fact authority, actuated by a natural desire of showing how wide of the fact is the assertion that the earliest and most prevalent thefts are those of mere necessaries,

puts forth the following statements on irrefragable authority.

1ST. The richest departments are those where occur the greatest number of thefts and robberies.

2ND. Of 22,000 accused of various crimes 21,000 possess means of living honestly by their intelligence or their industry, while the lowest class, including mendicants, prostitutes, and outcasts, scarcely number 1,200.

3RD. Those liberated prisoners who soonest relapse into crime, or are soonest recaptured, are those who at their release have amassed the largest property, and who during their detention have been the best workmen.

4TH. The maximum of crimes of every description, especially attempts on property, occur among criminals at an age when by their strength of body and development of mental powers, they are the best qualified to provide for their existence by honest and reputable means.

Who except a veteran inspector of prisons would not subscribe the following glowing sentences, uttered by the author of "Les Miserables?"

"The true human division is that which

rant.

separates the Enlightened from the IgnoDiminish the number of ignorant, enlarge the number of the enlightened, that is the great desideratum. We, therefore, cry, Tuition, knowledge!' To learn to read is to enkindle the flame. Sparkles flash from every syllable that is spelled."

Our retired prison inspector is anxious that his readers should not arrive at wrong conclusions through numeral fallacies. Among the general rascaldom of France the country offenders far exceed their town and city associates in number. But why should they not? Of the thirty-two millions of living French people less than seven millions dwell in cities and towns of more than 1,500 inhabitants.

The number of offenders belonging to the lower ranks far exceeds that of the civilized and accomplished knaves, but so in a still greater proportion does the amount of the honest folk of low degree exceed the sum of the middle and upper classes.

M. Moreau-Christophe strengthens his proposition by the following extract from the last report of the keeper of the seals to the Emperor.

"The poorest, and consequently the worst instructed departments, such as those of La Creuse, L'Indre, Cher, Upper Vienne, L'Allier, &c., are at the same time the most

moral, in other words, the localities where

the fewest thefts are committed, while the

contrary takes place in the departments more favoured by wealth and instruction."

After stating that out of every hundred brought to trial, sixty are altogether destitute of instruction, and twenty-seven merely know how to read, he adds

"But what can be deduced from this fact? No other thing than that in France the number of the ignorant much exceeds that of the instructed; the amount of crimes of which the ignorant are guilty is greater, because the ignorant themselves much exceed the instructed in number, and that is all."

Here is the Gallic result of imparting instruction to confirmed rogues.

"The most brazen rascals in the departmental prisons are those who have sharpened their wits in the prison schools. It is the same in the central houses. Those directors who have most carefully remarked the effect of instruction on the morality of the prisoners, are unanimous in testifying to its demoralizing effects."

M. Christophe is not so silly as to allege that to impart knowledge is to stimulate crime; he censures the mode of imparting the instruction not the instruction itself.

"In effect everything in our schools is sacrificed to bodily accomplishments, to the cultivation of the memory and the intelligence; nothing or next to nothing, is reserved for the development of the faculties of the soul, the qualities and virtues of the heart. Leaving school, the pupil may be more clever, more learned, but he is certainly not more modest, nor more sober, nor more moral, nor more Christian, nor more virtuous, nor better instructed in his duties to society.

Without moral education instruction is only an instrument of ruin. Everywhere is taught the mode of speaking well, nowhere that of acting well. The knowledge of words is all in all, the knowledge of things not thought of. And by things I mean those which leave at the bottom of the heart an ever-living impression of principles needful in action.

"In the practice of doing well consists true knowledge. All other science is but dangerous gnorance; no other knowledge

"So the people of the great world, the little world, the half world, the commercial world, the literary world, and all other fractional worlds, preserve in their entrance into the world of crime, the same individuality they enjoyed in the sphere from which they had descended. Thus they

jostle without mixing, and fraternise without losing any of that inferiority or superiority which was erewhile their own by right. There the libertine of quality, the debauchée of low degree, the noble swindler and the vulgar thief, the intelligent forger and the mindless delinquent, mix without familiarity or connexion of any kindly sympathies. They are merely united in a common league against the possessors of property."

The different grades are distinguished by slang names, some of which are here particularised.

The Surineurs and Escarpés are assassins by profession. The mere thieves are the Grinches, of whom Victor Hugo gave this choice char

acter.

"For them gold and silver really possess an odour. They smell the purses in the pockets, they scent the watches in the waistcoats, and at the passing by of a country person they experience such a tingling in their nerves as a spider may be supposed to feel at the approach of a fly."

A generic name for all classes is Pègre or Pegrèot. High Pegre and Low Pègre express needful distinctions. In their argot, Patron Minette means the dawn; Entre Chien et Loup (between dog and wolf) passes for the evening.

Formerly their great assemblies were held in the Cour des Miracles, in the Cours Ragot, or the forest of

Bourget. After great and wearisome reunions of this kind, the next day would be spent in sleep in lime-kilns, in the abandoned quarries of Montmartre or Montrouge, and sometimes in the sewers. Now, when the narrow, dirty streets, are no more, and the low, wide, smoky tap-rooms are closely watched, or become scarce, the fraternity of rogues must take to live more cleanly, and to consult disguise with more care; and for that purpose pay more frequent visits to the Changeur.

Here is a picture of the residence and hopeful occupation of a worthy of this class.

"When I had the inspection of the prisons of Paris, there lived in a dark old house, Rue Beautreillis, near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew, whose profession was to change a ragged rogue into a respectable man, not for long however, the change

would be too irksome to the thief.

"The transformation was effected for 30 sous (say 14d.) per day. With this object in view, he kept up a wardrobe embracing every category and speciality. At every nail in his magazin hung,-used and damaged more or less, a whole social condition. Here was the costume of a magistrate, of a priest, of a banker; in a corner the uniform of an officer on half pay, near it the dress of a man of letters; farther off that of a member of the government.

"There was one inconvenience about his costumes; they did not fit. Not being made to order, they were too tight for this, too loose for that customer. He had taken measure by some beggar who was neither very stout nor very thin, neither too short

nor too tall. Hence some troublesome alterations, effected by the patrons of the shop as well as circumstances permitted.

The ragged rascal arrived, deposited his 30 sous, selected the costume needed for the day, and descended the stairs a respectable Next day he returned and resumed his rags. Never was the Changeur's con

man.

fidence in the honour of his thievish customers abused."

One speciality of the Monde des Coquins, is that no one betrays a brother to justice. To give information would be called manger le morceau, "to eat the bit," implying that the informer rent away a piece of the well-being of every one in the community. Nothing can exceed the devotedness they show to the High Pègres who suffer and die game.

STATISTICS OF CRIME IN FRANCE.

A circumstance is mentioned by M. Moreau-Christophe, which, however strange it may appear, must be taken as established. In France the courts of justice take cognizance, one year with another, of 207,500 crimes of every kind, and there is but an exceedingly slight variation in the numbers presented by any two years, either with reference to the gross total, or to that of either of the great divisions-crimes against property, and crimes against the person, or the sub-divisions: 175,600 attempts on property, and 31,900 against the steadily at these figures, from year to person, are yearly made, and continue year, with very slight deviations. Each class embraces 16 divisions, and the proportion of the accused to the entire population, is between 1 to every 4,000, and 1 to every 5,000.

To raise our wonder higher still, the returns of the annual murders remain at nearly the same figure every year, even of the instruments by which they are respectively achieved. other categories of crime, even in There is a wonderful similarity in the their predisposing causes and other circumstances, and the amount of money secured for the "Rogues' Budget" during every twelve months.

Together with the fright and annoyance given to the honest and virtuous portion of the French people by knaves and villains, and the amount of property they extract from them, they cost the state twenty millions of francs per annum (say £800,000) for supporting them in confinement, and bringing them to justice. The long and multitudinous array of state gamekeepers, custom-house officers, police commissaries, prefects of departments, mayors of communes, justices of the peace, magistrates, attorneys general and particular, gaolers, sheriffs, &c., &c., is so awful to contemplate that we turn our eyes from the bead-roll, wondering where Jacques Bonhomme can find a franc to buy bread, and wine, and garlic, for his family and himself, after providing for the maintenance of all these guardians of the lives and properties of the honest portion of the community, and being pillaged by beggars and thieves to the tune of 200 millions and upwards.