door; and nearly 2,000,000
with only one window. And to this the 'pattern nation' has brought
itself by its headlong haste to upset, not simply improve, a bad
institution. The living in these windowless and single-windowed abodes
is not living, in the proper sense of the word: it is existence
without comfort, without hope. The next step is to burrow in holes
like rabbits.

It will thus be observed, that the subdivision of real estate has
brought France pretty much back to the point where it started--a small
wealthy class, and a very numerous poor class. The computation is,
that in a population of 36,000,000, only 800,000 are in easy
circumstances. A considerable proportion of this moneyed class are
usurers, living in Paris and other large towns. They are the lenders
of cash on bonds, which squeeze out the very vitals of the nation--the
gay flutterers and loungers of the streets, theatres, and cafes,
drawing the means of luxurious indulgence from the myriads who toil
out their lives in the fields.

Obtaining a glimpse of these facts, we can no longer wonder at the
submission of the French peasantry to a thinning of their families by
military conscription; at the eager thirst for office which afflicts
the whole nation; or at the morbid desire to overturn society, and
strike out a better organisation. As matters grow worse, this passion
for wholesale change becomes more fervidly manifested. The
_jacqueries_ of the middle ages are renewed. Various districts of
country, in which poverty has reached its climax, break into universal
insurrection. It is a war levied by those who have nothing against
those who have something. To have coin in the pocket, is to be the
enemy. The cry is: Down with the rich; take all they have got, and
divide the plunder amongst us. Such are the avowed principles of the
Socialists. According to them, all property is theft, and taking by
violence is only recovering stolen goods! When a nation has come to
this deplorable pass, what, it may be asked, can cure it? The malady
is not political; it is social. Perhaps, under a right development of
industry, France has not too great a population; but, subject to the
present misdirection of its energies, the position of the country is
assuming a gravity of aspect which may well engage the most earnest
consideration. The least that could be recommended is an immediate
change in the law which so unscrupulously subdivides and ruins landed
property.

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