the State--or
of Parliament--leads to many disasters and to much corruption.

At the present moment the laboring classes are the fashionable object
of compassion; they are being murdered--it is said--by the
manufacturing capitalist; but the Government is a hundred times harder
than the meanest tradesman, it carries its economy in the article of
salaries to absolute folly. If you work harder, the merchant will pay
you more in proportion; but what does the State do for its crowd of
obscure and devoted toilers?

In a married woman it is an inexcusable crime when she wanders from
the path of honor; still, there are degrees even in such a case. Some
women, far from being depraved, conceal their fall and remain to all
appearances quite respectable, like those two just referred to, while
others add to their fault the disgrace of speculation. Thus Madame
Marneffe is, as it were, the type of those ambitious married
courtesans who from the first accept depravity with all its
consequences, and determine to make a fortune while taking their
pleasure, perfectly unscrupulous as to the means. But almost always a
woman like Madame Marneffe has a husband who is her confederate and
accomplice. These Machiavellis in petticoats are the most dangerous of
the sisterhood; of every evil class of Parisian woman, they are the
worst.

A mere courtesan--a Josepha, a Malaga, a Madame Schontz, a Jenny
Cadine--carries in her frank dishonor a warning signal as conspicuous
as the red lamp of a house of ill-fame or the flaring lights of a
gambling hell. A man knows that they light him to his ruin.

But mealy-mouthed propriety, the semblance of virtue, the hypocritical
ways of a married woman who never allows anything to be seen but the
vulgar needs of the household, and affects to refuse every kind of
extravagance, leads to silent ruin, dumb disaster, which is all the
more startling because, though condoned, it remains unaccounted for.
It is the ignoble bill of daily expenses and not gay dissipation that
devours the largest fortune. The father of a family ruins himself
ingloriously, and the great consolation of gratified vanity is wanting
in his misery.

This little sermon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home.
Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even
at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in
the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of
the folly of lov