was not possible that any thing could be more
neatly arranged than the white-curtained
cots which held the little sufferers, nor was
there a token of pain or restlessness that
escaped the nursing sisters who remained in
the rooms to watch over them.

"And do many of these die?" we asked.

"Alas, yes!" answered our guide sorrowfully;
"you see, they are principally the
children of people who are the victims of
poverty and sickness; and a great number
bring with them the seeds of the disease of
which they afterwards die. The doctors study
the cases closely, and give to them all their
attention; but the hereditary malady is too
often stronger than their skill."

"Do you know the proportion between the
numbers lost and saved?"

"It varies of course: for there are maladies
belonging to children which are more severe
at some times than at others; but the general
average throughout the Hospital is very nearly
one death in four."

"And how many are admitted in the
course of the year?"

This varied also, our informant said;
during the time she had been attached to the
Hospital she had witnessed a great change in
that respect. The first year of her service
there were upwards of five thousand taken
in, and, gradually declining, they fell in the
course of ten years to a little more than
three thousand. Since that time there had
been an increase; and in the last year, for
example, she remembered that the
newcomers were exactly four thousand and
ninety-five. They were received, she said,
in different ways; the lying-in hospital for
the poor in the adjoining street, the Rue de
la Bourbe, ("Mud Street" and it well
deserved the name when it was christened)
sent in a great number; some were brought
from the Prefecture of Police, the children of
parents in the hands of justice; some came
from the hospitals of Paris; but by far the
greater part were abandoned by their mothers.

"But," said Sister Petronille, anxious to
soften the meaning of the word, " these poor
things are not entirely abandoned, that is to
say, exposed without any further thought
being given to them. Such might have been
the case formerly, when no certificate of birth
was necessary; but whoever is desirous now,
from want of means, of sending an infant to
this hospital, must apply to the Commissary
of the quarter for a certificate of abandonment,
so that it is known to the authorities
who they are that send; and the mothers
aiso, acting openly, are more at ease with
respect to their children. We find, too, that
besides the certificate of the infant's birth
which accompanies every deposit, mothers
are careful now to add some particulars—
either of name or personal description—by
which, if circumstances should permit them,
they may hereafter more certainly recognise
their offspring."

"And are there any exceptions to this
latter practice?"

"Seldom or ever, in Paris itself; but of
the number born outside the walls, perhaps a
hundred in the year, and these—we judge
from various circumstances, but chiefly from
the linen in which they are enveloped—
belong to a better class than the rest. It is
not for the want of the means to support
them that such children are abandoned. It is
the dread of their existence being known that
causes it."

"Have you any means of knowing how
many out of the whole amount are born in
wedlock?"

The answer—given with some natural
hesitation—was to the effect, that amongst
four thousand foundlings, it was presumed
only two hundred had "civil rights."
During this conversation, Sister Petronille
had led us through the wards, and
conducted us by another staircase to the ground
floor.

"Now," she said, opening another door,
"you will see the most interesting part of
the establishment."

This was the " Crêche,'' or general reception
room. It was filled, or seemed to be full of
infants of the tenderest age; there were
between seventy and eighty altogether. They
wore a kind of uniform—that is to say, there
was a sort of uniformity in their costume—
all being clothed in pink check nightgowns,
and swathed with linen bands, like mummies
on a very small scale; unlike mummies,
however, their little tongues were not tied.
To soothe their pains and calm their heavy
troubles, the nurses were assiduously
engaged, some in rocking them to sleep in
their cradles; others in administering to such
as were strong enough to sit upright that
beverage which is, in France, the universal
remedy, whether in old age or infancy. It
was neither the wine nor the garlic which
helped to make a man of Henry Quatre, nor
the symbolical "tyrelarigot" which was
given to the great Gargantua immediately
after his birth—as Rabelais relates—but
simply eau sucrée, poured out of the long
spout of a china tea-pot. We know that "as
the twig is bent the tree is inclined;" so, in
all probability, it is on account of their early
introduction to sugar and water, that Frenchmen
manifest, throughout their lives, so
marked a propensity for the drink that neither
cheers nor inebriates.

But the most attractive feature of the
Crêche was in the centre of the room, where,
directly in front of a blazing fire, on an
inclined plane, covered with a mattrass about
the size of the stage of Mr. Simpson's Marionette
Theatre, lay seven or eight little objects
all in a row, who might have passed for the
Marionettes themselves only they were much
smaller, were any thing but gaily attired, and
were a great deal too tightly swathed to stir
a single peg, whereas the amusing puppets of