works of Mme. de
Stael, was proposed:

"Poverty increases ignorance, and ignorance poverty."

Three objections were immediately raised:

1. Antithesis.

2. Contemporary writer.

3. Dangerous thing to say.

The Academy rejected the example.

LOVE IN PRISON.

I.

BESIDES misdeeds, robberies, the division of spoils after an ambuscade,
and the twilight exploitation of the barriers of Paris, footpads,
burglars, and gaol-birds generally have another industry: they have
ideal loves.

This requires explanation.

The trade in negro slaves moves us, and with good reason; we examine
this social sore, and we do well. But let us also learn to lay bare
another ulcer, which is more painful, perhaps: the traffic in white
women.

Here is one of the singular things connected with and characteristic of
this poignant disorder of our civilization:

Every gaol contains a prisoner who is known as the "artist."

All kinds of trades and professions peculiar to prisons develop behind
the bars. There is the vendor of liquorice-water, the vendor of scarfs,
the writer, the advocate, the usurer, the hut-maker, and the barker. The
artist takes rank among these local and peculiar professions between the
writer and the advocate.

To be an artist is it necessary to know how to draw? By no means. A bit
of a bench to sit upon, a wall to lean against, a lead pencil, a bit of
pasteboard, a needle stuck in a handle made out of a piece of wood,
a little Indian ink or sepia, a little Prussian blue, and a little
vermilion in three cracked beechwood spoons,--this is all that is
requisite; a knowledge of drawing is superfluous. Thieves are as fond of
colouring as children are, and as fond of tattooing as are savages. The
artist by means of his three spoons satisfies the first of these needs,
and by means of his needle the second. His remuneration is a "nip" of
wine.

The result is this:

Some prisoners, say, lack everything, or are simply desirous of living
more comfortably. They combine, wait upon the artist, offer him their
glasses of wine or their bowls of soup, hand him a sheet of paper and
order of him a bouquet. In the bouquet there must be as many flowers
as there are prisoners in the group. If there be three prisoners, there
must be three flowers. Each flower bears a figure, or, if preferred, a
number, which number is that of the prisoner.

The bouquet when painted is sent, through the mysterious means of
commu