es, and even in the towns and villages. Hanging out the
clothes is a great exposure for women, even when they have a good
place for it; but when, as is so common in cities, they must dry them
in the house, how much they suffer! In New York, I know, those poor
women who take in washing endure a great deal of trouble and toil from
this cause; I have suffered myself from being obliged to send
back what had cost them so much toil, because it had been, perhaps
inevitably, soiled in the drying or ironing, or filled with the smell
of their miscellaneous cooking. In London it is much worse. An eminent
physician told me he knew of two children whom he considered to have
died because their mother, having but one room to live in, was obliged
to wash and dry clothes close to their bed when they were ill. The
poor people in London naturally do without washing all they can, and
beneath that perpetual fall of soot the result may be guessed. All but
the very poor in England put out their washing, and this custom ought
to be universal in civilized countries, as it can be done much better
and quicker by a few regular laundresses than by many families,
and "the washing day" is so malignant a foe to the peace and joy of
households that it ought to be effaced from the calendar. But as long
as we are so miserable as to have any very poor people in this world,
_they_ cannot put out their washing, because they cannot earn enough
money to pay for it, and, preliminary to something better, washing
establishments like this of London are desirable.

One arrangement that they have here in Paris will be a good one, even
when we cease to have any very poor people, and, please Heaven, also
to have any very rich. These are the _Creches_,--houses where poor
women leave their children to be nursed during the day while they are
at work.

I must mention that the superintendent of the washing establishment
observed, with a legitimate triumph, that it had been built without
giving a single dinner or printing a single puff,--an extraordinary
thing, indeed, for England!

To turn to something a little gayer,--the embroidery on this tattered
coat of civilized life,--I went into only two theatres; one the Old
Drury, once the scene of great glories, now of execrable music and
more execrable acting. If anything can be invented more excruciating
than an English opera, such as was the fashion at the time I was in
London, I am sure no sin of mine deserves the punish