unlucky creatures living together without the
curé's permission, they are either obliged to
marry, if they can make up the sum required,
or they are separated and sent home, or
placed under a species of arrest. Yet illegitimate
children abound in Vienna. The
marriage fees mount up to sixteen francs
eighty centimes; of which the church absorbs
a third part, the rest goes to the police.
The cabinet-making guild disposes of a
certain number of beds in the Viennese hospital;
and, when any of its poorer members are
sick, they are either sent there, or visited at
home by the doctor of the quarter, who
gives his time, as the chemist delivers his
drugs, gratis, on the receipt of orders signed
respectively for the doctor by the corpora-
tion; for the chemist by the curé and the
doctor.

The workers in the quicksilver mines of
Carniole in Austria are also not allowed to
marry until they have reached a certain
grade, which they cannot attain before they
are thirty-two years old. The same
consequence follows here as in Vienna. But here
no harm comes of it. The children are taken
by the woman's family; and in process of
time the father marries her, and lives with
them in her father's house; no one thinking
them any the worse for a half-dozen pre-
sacramentals which enliven the household.
The right of being a member of the commune
is religiously guarded; and this is one reason
of the matrimonial restriction to a certain
age and grade, as only a certain number
are allowed in the commune.

But to come out of eastern and central
Europe into France, more especially that
Lower Brittany which George Sand loves so
well. The Pen-ty is a day-labourer living in
a house of his own in Lower Brittany. He is
ignorant, faithful, industrious, frugal; he
sings and he dances when his work is done; his
children play at toupic and bouchon, but do
not go to school; for the pen-ty fears the
corruption of knowledge. He begins life as
a farm-servant, continues it as a pen-ty, and
often ends it as a proprietor with eight or
more thousand francs, saved out of his wages
and profits. Very often the law respecting
the division of property is set aside in Lower
Brittany, and the eldest child, whether male
or female, takes the land, paying a certain
sum in compensation to each of the other
members of the family. Or, another way of
evading this law is, by delaying the marriage
of the daughters until they have reached their
majority, then making, by their forced
consent, their marriage portion a portion of their
inheritance. This is done in Auvergue and
Morvan, as well as in Bretagne.

There are the Saunier Lettriers of Saintonge.
A saunier is a salt-manufacturer, and the
lettered or patented salt-makers of Saintonge
are men who have an hereditary right, dating
from time immemorial, to make salt along a
certain extent of marsh land; even if this be
divided and subdivided among a hundred
proprietors. The lettered salt-maker may
give away his patent duiing his lifetime, to one
of his sons, or to his daughter as a marriage
portion, or to whom he will; and even when
the written document is lost, his right is
considered established by " public cognisance."
He receives a third part of the value of the
salt sold by the patron, and enjoys, besides,
all the advantages and productions of the
marsh where his right lies. The simple salt-
maker pays for his right of making salt; and
even then can form an engagement only for a
single year.

Of all the workmen mentioned by Le Play,
the watchmakers of Geneva, the washermen
of Paris, the maraîcher, or market-gardener,
and the cow-keepers (nourisseurs), also of the
banlieue de Paris, are quoted as the highest
in the moral scale. M. le Play's maître
blauchisseur is a miracle of industry and
forethought, and generally ends by amassing
an independence. From 'Wednesday to
Wednesday— the clean-linen day of Paris
—the blanchisseur's house is a scene of
uninterrupted labour. The only pleasure
is fine clothes, with—what certainly looks
somewhat suspicious—an enormous quantity
of exquisite linen. Le Play does not say, that
many of the young ladies who dance at
Mabille and the Chateau des Fleurs are
the washerman's assistants; but certainly
the general belief in Paris is, that the
grisette section is largely recruited from this
class. In Paris, certain trades are never
undertaken by Parisians; being followed
by emigrant workmen. Masons: these come
during the spring and summer, and retire in
winter. Water-carriers, porters, chimney-
sweepers, small dealers in fuel, second-hand
dealers, are all from the provinces. The
chimney-sweepers are exclusively from Domo
d'Ossola, on the Lago Maggiore; the porters
and water-carriers from the mountains of
Ronergue and Auvergne; the rest from
Savoy, La Marche, Limousin, and even
Piedmont. Many of the chiffonniers are strangers
to Paris; and many of them are instructed
and elevated people.

The stationary workmen are the reverse of
the emigrant. They are, according to M. le
Play—but we doubt him—idle, luxurious,
profligate, and expensive. They rarely marry,
and generally do worse: they spend their
earnings at the cabarets and guinguettes
outside the barrières, and keep Monday sacred
for pleasure. They work about two hundred
and eighty days in the year, and drink and
play the rest. The tailors are the most
republican, and are generally strong in the
passing political history. Indeed, all the
stationary and Parisian workmen are well
educated, and even intellectual, but our
ingénieur en chef denies their morality.
Again we doubt. The ouvrier population of
Paris bears such traces of refinement, good
breeding, and propriety of conduct, as cannot