s occupied by them one dress
was all that remained to all the lodgers. They wore it in turn, one
going out in it to seek for work while all the rest remained at home in
bed. The poor fellows thanked the want of exercise for helping them to
want of appetite--the only kind of want that poverty desires.

These men, however, working in the great yards, eating their meals near
them in an irregular and restless way, form clubs and associations which
lead not seldom to strikes--blunders which we call placing ourselves _en
Greve_. They take the name _en Greve_ from the place in which one class
of builders' workmen assemble when waiting to be hired. Various places
are chosen by sundry workmen and workwomen for this practice of waiting
to be hired. Laundresses, for example, are to be found near the church
of our Lady of Lorette, where they endure, and too often enjoy, coarse
words from passers-by.

Except in the case of the masons and labourers from the departments, it
is to be regarded as no good sign when a workman makes a residence of
furnished lodgings. The orderly workman marries, and acquires the
property of furniture. The mason from the departments lives cheaply, and
saves, to go home with money to his family, and acquire in his own
village the property of land. The workman bound to Paris, who dwells
only in furnished lodgings, and has bought no furniture, has rarely
saved, and has rarely made an honest marriage. In most cases he is a
lover of pleasure, frequents the theatre and the wine shop. From wine he
runs on to the stronger stimulus of brandy; but these leave to him some
gleams of his national vivacity. The most degraded does not get so
lumpish as the English workman, whose brains have become sodden in the
public-houses by long trains of pots of beer. By far the largest portion
of the Paris workmen possess furniture: only twenty-one in a hundred--and
that includes, of course, the mobile population, the masons, etc.--live
in furnished lodgings.

For clothing we spend, according to our means, from four to fourteen
pounds a year. Half of us have no coat in addition to the blouse.
Before the crisis of eighteen hundred and forty-eight, one sixth of us
had money in savings' banks, and one man in every two was a member of
some benefit society. The benefit societies were numerous, each
generally containing some two or three hundred members; but even our
singing clubs are now suppressed, and we must not meet e