ly six thousand. Yet the
French are a very gay people!

The police regulations of Paris are very good, but not so good as those
of London, though New York might learn from her many useful lessons.
Rogues thrive better in Paris than in London. The Paris policeman wears
no distinctive dress, and there are streets in which if you are attacked
by night, your cries will call no officer to the rescue. The police have
been proved often to be in league with bad men and bad women, and these
cases are occurring from day to day. I should not like to walk alone on
a winter's night, after midnight, anywhere for half a mile on the
southern side of the Seine. Some of the streets are exceedingly narrow,
and are tenanted by strange people. Still, one might have many curious
adventures in them, and escape safely--but _La Morgue_ tells a
mysterious tale every day of some dark deed--a suicide or a murder,
perhaps.

Getting lost after midnight in one of the narrow streets of Paris, is
not particularly pleasant, especially if every person you meet looks
like a thief. The police system of Paris is in one respect far more
strict than that of London--in political matters. Every stranger, or
native, suspected in the least of tendencies to republicanism, is
continually watched and dogged wherever he moves. While in Paris, my
whereabouts was constantly known to the police, and though I made
several changes in my abode, I was followed each time, and my address
taken; yet I was but an in offensive republican from America. A man must
be careful to whom he talks of French despots, or despotism. For
speaking against Louis Napoleon in an omnibus, a Frenchman was sentenced
to two years imprisonment, and men have been exiled for a less offense.
The police are everywhere to detect conspiracy or radicalism, but are
more slack in reference to the safety of people in the streets.

One pleasant feature of Paris is its great number of baths, public and
private. The artisan who has little money to spare can go to the Seine
any day, and for six cents take a bath under a large net roofing. A
gentleman, to be sure, would hardly like to try such a place, but the
working people are not particular. It is cheap, and in the hot weather
it is a great luxury to bathe, to say nothing of the necessity of the
thing. To take a bath in a first-rate French hotel is quite another
matter. Every luxury will be afforded, and the price will be quite as
high as the bath is luxurio