the State Penitentiary in that young and active and opulent American
commonwealth. In California the plan of giving instruction in morality,
independently of religion, has been tried much longer than in France,
and certainly in circumstances much more favourable to its success. The
result, as set forth in an Official Report of the resident director,
cited by Mr. Montgomery, ex-assistant Attorney-General of the United
States, in his treatise on 'The School Question,' is that, while the
illiterate convicts in the California penitentiary, at the date of the
report, numbered 112, against 985 who could read and write, '_among the
younger convicts they could all read and write_'.

I have already spoken of many of the advantages offered by the Anzin
Company to its workmen and miners, as amounting really to a kind of
participation in the profits of the company. This, I think, must be
admitted to be clearly the case with regard to certain regulations
affecting workmen's pensions, established here by the governing council
of the company in December 1886.

These regulations are to affect workmen who contribute to what is known
as the 'National Retiring Fund for Old Age.' This fund was established
originally in 1850 under the presidency of Louis Napoleon. It was
re-organised by a law passed in July 1886, and by a decree issued in
December 1886. It is under the guarantee of the State, and is
administered by a committee co-operating with the Ministry of Commerce.
Its object is to enable working-men and others to secure annuities up
to the amount of 1,200 francs a year, at or after the age of fifty, by
the payment of small regular assessments on their wages. The smallest
sums are received by the fund, which of course is managed on principles
not unlike those of the great life insurance companies. A running
account is kept with the treasury to meet the current expenses of the
fund, but all the rest of the money received by it is invested in the
French public funds, or in securities guaranteed by the State. No part
of the compound interest received by the fund is deducted to meet the
expenses of administration. It all goes to the account of the
depositors, the current expenses being met by the Deposit Fund, which
manages the Retiring Fund. If at any time before that fixed for his
enjoyment of the retiring pension, the depositor should be made
incapable of work by some illness or accident, he is at once put into
possession, without awai