lebrated
phrase of Proudhon. It is very doubtful whether the latter had uttered
it in the sense with which the playwright invested it; but fear is
proverbially illogical, and every one in Paris ran to see the piece,
trusting probably that it might produce a salutary effect on those who
intended to take the philosopher's axiom literally.

"La Propriete c'est le Vol" was described on the bills as "a socialistic
extravaganza in three acts and seven tableaux." The scene of the first
tableau represents the garden of Eden. The Serpent, who is the Evil
Spirit, declares war at once upon Adam, who embodies the principle of
Property. The Serpent was a deliberate caricature of Proudhon with his
large spectacles.

In the subsequent tableaux, Adam, by a kind of metempsychosis, had been
changed into Bonichon, an owner of house property in the Paris of the
nineteenth century. The Serpent, though still wearing his spectacles,
had been equally transformed into a modern opponent of all property. We
are in February, '48. Bonichon and some of his fellow-bourgeois are
feasting in honor of the proposed measures of reform, when they are
scared out of their wits by the appearance of the Serpent, who informs
them that the Republic has sidled up to Reform, managed to hide itself
beneath its cloak, and been proclaimed. The next scene brings us to the
year 1852 (four years in advance of the period), when the right of every
one to live by the toil of his hands has become law. Bonichon is being
harassed and persecuted by a crowd of handicraftsmen and others, who
insist on working for him whether he likes it or not. The glazier
smashes his windows, in order to compel him to have new panes put in.
The paper-hanger tears the paper off his walls on the same principle.
The hackney coachman flings Bonichon into his cab, takes him for a four
hours' drive, and charges accordingly. A dentist imitates the tactics of
Peter the Great with his courtiers, forces him into a chair and operates
upon his grinders, though, unlike Peter, he claims the full fee. A dozen
or so of modistes and dressmakers invade his apartments with double the
number of gowns for Madame Eve Bonichon, who, the reverse of her
husband, does not object to this violent appeal for her custom. Perhaps
Madame Octave, a charming woman who played the part, did well to submit,
because during the first tableau, the audience, though by no means
squeamish, had come to the conclusion that Madame Eve wou