nvestigate the minute anatomy of vice, and how little they will do to
apply this knowledge to its remedy? Like the surgeon, enamored of
his operating skill, he would rather exhibit his dexterity in the
amputation, than his science in the saving, of the limb. Such is the
bureau of the police in the poorer quarters. In the more fashionable
ones it takes a higher flight; amusing the world with its scenes,
alternately humorous and pathetic, it forms a kind of feature in the
literature of the period, and is the only reading of thousands. In these
places the _commissaire_ is usually a _bon vivant_ and a wit; despising
the miserable function of administering the law, he takes his seat upon
the bench to cap jokes with the witnesses, puzzle the complainant,
and embarrass the prisoner. To the reporters alone is he civil; and in
return, his poor witticisms appear in the morning papers, with the usual
'loud laughter' that never existed save in type."

As we thus chatted, we entered a quarter of dirty and narrow streets,
inhabited by a poor-looking, squalid population. The women, with little
to mark their sex in their coarse, heavy countenances, wore colored
kerchiefs on their heads in lieu of a cap, and were for the most part
without shoes or stockings. The men, a brutalized, stupid race, sat
smoking in the doorways, scarcely lifting their eyes as we passed; or
some were eating a coarse morsel of black rye bread, which, by their
eagerness in devouring it, seemed an unusual delicacy.

"You scarcely believed there was such poverty in Paris," said he; "but
this is by no means the worst of the quarter. Though M. de Champagny, in
his late report, makes no mention of these 'signs of prosperity,' we are
now entering the region where, even in noonday, the passage is deemed
perilous; but the number of police agents on duty to-day will make the
journey a safe one."

The street we entered at the moment consisted of a mass of tall houses,
almost falling from decay and neglect,--scarcely a window remained in
many of them; while in front, a row of miserable booths, formed of rude
planks, narrowed the passage to a mere path, scarce wide enough for
three people abreast. There, vice of every description, and drunkenness,
waited not for the dark hours to shroud them, but came forth in the
sunlight,--the ruffian shouts of intoxication mingling with the almost
maniacal laugh of misery or the reckless chorus of some degrading song.
Half-naked wretche