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CHAP. VII.

Salpetrière.-THE number of epileptic, de

ranged, and superannuated women on the books of this gigantic establishment at one time, averages five thousand! Those who are admitted on account of age, have usually reached their 70th year; and there is really no comfort or accommodation necessary to render the last rugged remains of their earthly journey smooth, that is not supplied to them with a liberal hand. The saloons are spacious, airy, and clean; and the furniture and beds excellent. Nothing in the whole economy of this immense concern surprised me more than the exact arrangement with which all its operations, as of cooking, baking, washing, &c. were carried on. The enormous establishment,

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down to its minutest details, moves with the punctuality of machinery; and the whole is crowned with a bountiful allowance of priests, doctors, and matrons, all lodged within the walls, and ready for business at the shortest summons. The old folks appeared really happy, and to be treated with a studied kindness and consideration. As many as are fit and able are put to work at some branch of industry, such as spinning, knitting, and sewing, and the produce of their labour is applied to the charity. Independent of the benefit thus accruing to the Institution, it must be a source of great comfort to the old people to have it in their power to contribute something, however little, towards their maintenance, instead of being wholly a burthen on the public. I observed a great deal of admirable management in the care of the deranged. They, too, are employed in some sort of industry, which amuses, while it occupies and keeps them out of mischief, or from the irregular workings of a diseased imagination. I should strongly recommend the Salpetrière to the notice of any commission which may be

formed for obtaining information as to the mode of managing the insane. The system of coercion, as far as I could learn, is wholly supplanted by one of conciliation, i. e. so far as any general plan can possibly be made applicable to the ever-varying peculiarities of the disease.

The Prison of St. Pelagie.-This place is chiefly appropriated to debtors, or to such as are guilty of misdemeanours or libel. Like the prisons of La Grande and Petite Force, it is dark and dirty, the cells confined, and the air foul. At my visit, a Colonel in the army was completing some months of durance, for wearing the Cross of the Legion of Honour, to which he had no right; and I regretted to learn there were eight of our own countrymen in for debt, or fraud, an accident, I was rather mortified to learn from the keeper, not very uncommon among us in this part of the world. Before leaving Calais, we were told of two gentlemen, one Scotch, the other Irish, who, with a view to the benefit of leg bail, excavated a passage through the foundation of the prison into the open street. The Scotchman stuck fast in

transitu, just as he had got half through,-certainly not a very common accident to Scotchmen on other occasions of their passage through life; nor could Sawney at this juncture plead that he was "just ganging bock again;" for when caught he could neither move back nor forward one inch.

It seems that after five years' sojourn in St. Pelagie for debt, under certain circumstances, it is the law to enlarge a Frenchman; while foreigners are often obliged to linger out an insolvent existence without one ray of hope. The usual amount of prisoners within the walls is from 350 to 400. Their provisions are of good quality, and well cooked. The pauper fare is soup maigre and vegetables, with beef and bouillon twice a week; but those who can afford to pay, may be well supplied from a very abundant market attached to the prison, where the prices are kept moderate, for the express accommodation of its needy customers. The class of less necessitous prisoners have a reading-room and newspapers, to unbend from their cares, and learn something of what is going on

in a world which many may be doomed never to see but through the grating of their case

ment.

15th. I had the honour to-day of receiving from the Chancellor of France a statistical report of the administration of justice for the year 1825, the object of which is to set forth the state of crime and punishment throughout the kingdom. I was anxious to have obtained one for the year preceding the restoration, to enable me to judge of the relative progress of morals at these two periods; but the document was not in the Chancellor's possession; neither was the report of last year published before I left the country. Several important facts are brought to light by these details. The author marks two grand classes of criminal offences,crimes contre les personnes, et crimes contre les propriétés. It appears the whole number of persons prosecuted for the first class of offences is to the gross amount of criminal prosecutions in both kinds, as 29 to 100. And “en général,” says the Chancellor, "la répression est moins forte pour les crimes contre les personnes que

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