bout zero, Centigrade, freezing point, Fahrenheit; and in
the cells in which the bodies are first placed, at fifteen degrees below
zero, Centigrade. The bodies of criminals are not submitted to the
public inspection. The garments are returned to the families, when the
body has been recognized or burned; their sale has been forbidden since
1883.

All persons are formally invited to furnish any indications they possess
that may lead to the recognition of the bodies, and are informed that
they will be put to no expense. A photographic plant was installed here
in 1877, and all bodies are photographed,--those which are not
recognized before burial have these, their last portraits, affixed at
the entrance. The number of corpses received annually is about nine
hundred, including new-born babies, foetuses, and the remnants from the
dissecting-tables, and this number increases year by year. In it are
included also those bodies which it is desired to submit to a
medico-legal examination. About six-sevenths of the total number exposed
are those of men, and about one-seventh are never recognized. The
sanitary surveillance is under the charge of three medical inspectors;
not only are the autopsies here frequent, but there are also held many
conferences in legal medicine, and there is a laboratory of toxicology.
All departments of the establishment are cramped for want of space, and
it is proposed to establish a distinct medico-legal institution on a new
site, at the angle of the Quai aux Fleurs and the Rue du
Cloitre-Notre-Dame.

On the crest of the hill in Pere-Lachaise, in a fine open space from
which the tombs recede on all sides,--as if appalled at the presence of
this horrible new-comer,--rises the tall Crematory furnace, with its
quasi-classic columbarium behind it. Great improvements have been made
in the material details of this method of disposing of the dead since
its first revival in modern times, and even since the erection of this
edifice,--but the overturning of immemorial prejudices proceeds but
slowly. France claims the credit of introducing this excellent sanitary
measure, and as far back as the end of the last century, in the year V
of the Republic, a law was proposed by a commission of the Cinq-Cents
granting to each family the privilege of choosing between inhumation and
cremation for their dead. Later, "the administration centrale of the
department of the Seine adopted a regulation prescribing the cremation
of