The Express.
London, England, 1846-10-07 00:00:00

of thrusting aside people will submit to, without
min iing it very much, when there is plenty of room
for everybody. It is a different thing altogether
when some huxdreds of thousands of human beings
are as close located upon some little spot as flies upon
a sore, every one with, we may say. only ut the most
his sufficient ground to stand upright upon, and his
needful quantity of air to gulp. Any toleration of
thrus'im; aside, is here altogether out of the ques-
tion; it would brisig back primeval chaos at once;
the government would be hurled heels over head as
by an earthquake, or blown into the air as if a mine
had exploded beneath it. The law must here be more
than a saiOsin et reneratnie nomen. It must be really
a power ; making itself, at least to a certain
extent, feared and felt by everyone.
The government of men in a great city compared
to their government in the country, is like a force
moving through the water compared to one moving
through the air. The resistance in the one awe is
immensely greater than in the ether. On the
other hand, however, as the water affords a support
which is not to be obtained from the air, lo too, as
we have already hinted, there are sonic advantages
and facilities fur good government in a city which are
not to be found in the country. In so fir ns the law
can secure the atta hment and co-operation of the
people, it is stronger in the city than is the
country; it is only where the popular feeling is hos-
tile to it, that it is weaker. Every advaire in civilisa-
tion, therefore; every improvement either in the him,
or in the state of public feeling; will make the govern-
ment of large masses of people a safer and less diffi-
cult thing, in reducing it to be less a business of coer-
cion, and more a matter of general agreement and
co-operation. It requires only that the laws and their
administration should be equitable. and that every
man should see his own interest. For the mainte-
nance of a really good law is the first political interest
of every 'norther of the community. Iven those who
live by breaking such laws, would find it more for
their interest in the long run to obey them.
Every such work as the present, embodying the
results of inquiry and experience in the practice of
administration, helps on the world towards the point
at which a perfectly good understanding between the
governors and the governed would almost make
government and laws unnecessary. The more clearly
the law and its mechanism of action, and the social
facts to which it ought to be accommodated, are
understood by all parties ; the greater will be their
disposition and their fitness to work together, both
for the maintenance and for the improvement of the
law.
M. Horace Say's philosophical views cannot be
affirmed to be characterised by any remarkable pro-
foundness or novelty, nor is he a very lively
or graphic writer; but his book is unquestion-
ably the most complete and also the most
careful and trustworthy account, that has been given
of the administrative statistics of l'aris, perhaps we
might say of any European capital. We have no
work, at any rate, on our own metropolis nearly so
comprehensive or of the same authentic character.
An important difference between London and Paris,
however, is not to be forgotten when we make this
remark. London is without any common municipal
government; some parts of it are almost without any
sort of local government whatever. The jurisdiction
of the lord mayor and the corporation of the
city—the only municipal body properly so called
that exists within the wide bounds of the English
capital—extends only over a comparatively small
section of the space, and a still smaller pro-
portion of the population, constituting what we
denominate London. All l'aris, on the contrary,
forms one jurisdiction, both in a municipal and in a
political sense. Its constitution in this respect is
very clearly explained by M. Horace Say in his com-
mencing chapter.
While each of the other (Vimtrtements into
which the kingdom is divided has one /info',
the iMoarientent of the Seine and of the town
of l'aris has two ; the Prefet de la Seine and the
Prefet de Police. The prefet, everywhere, is what we
may call the universal representative of the King, or
of what is constitutionally the same thing, his
ministers; but in the case of Paris there is this
peculiarity, that each minister may act, and often
does act, in his own department without the
intervention of either prefet: " or, at least," says M.
Say, " the personal responsibility of these officers is
concealed, in most cases, by the absence of all initia-
tive action on their part. But," he proceeds, "if the
two prefets of the (Vpartement of the Seine have less
of prefectoral action than those of the other delparte-
ments, their functions acquire a high importance, from
the municipal duties which devolve upon them. They
are the real mayors of Paris, and it is solely with them
that the municipal council is called upon to debate the
interests of the enmmune. There is yet another dis-
tinction to be made, the municipal (lake themselves
not being all included in the division which is made
of them between the two pr,lfets. The latter are not
charged with the keeping of the registers of the civil
state of the de%portement, nor with the celebration
of marriages, any more than with the details
respecting the National Guard, elections, and what
concerns the administration of charities (les Bureaus
de Bienfaisanee), and the local committees of elemen-
tary- instruction; for all these current matters the
town of l'aris is divided into twelve sections, impro-
perly called arrondissedients, each of which has a mayor
and two assistants (adjoints). These mayors and
assistants are nominated by the king out of a list of
twelve candidates, formed by election. They have no
correspondence with each other, and are without in-
fluence in the direction of the affairs of the commune,
the management of which is thus placed in the hands
of the direct agents of the government, who do not
stand upon any elective basis."
This organisation, which, M. Say remarks, is in
general little known, was established in 1834 ; but
some parts of the system remain insufficiently
settled or developed. It's exceptional character, as
compared with that of the other departements, " has
originated," says our author, "in the instinct of con-
serration of the different governments which have
successively issued from our revolutions: we must not
forget, in truth, the importance which the commune
of Paris usurped during our first revolutionary
storms : so in 1830 it was again from the Hotel de
Ville that there came forth the first orders of the new
authorities, and the central government could not
entrust to the sole direction of the burghers (bourgeois)
of Paris a place where provisory governments were
organised with eo much facility."
Each prefet Is also mayor of Paris ; and in the
latter capacity each has to discuss, in so far as his
particular department is concerned, the budgets and
accounts of the department and of the town, before
the General and Municipal Councils of Paris. " Pre-
viously to 1830," says M. Say, " these two councils
were confounded together into one ; since that date,
and in conformity with the definitive arrangement
made by the law of the 20th of April, 1834, the
municipal council is composed of thirty-six members,
taken from among the members of the general
council, and of which three are elected by each of the
twelve communal arrondissements, with renewal of a
third part of the three every three years ; so that
each councillor is, in fact, elected for nine years.
It was thought that the composition of the
general council ought to be also entirely special
for a department, the integrant parts of
which differed from those of all the other depart-
ments. The departments arc all composed, in fact,
of arrondissements, which are subdivided into cantons,
and these into communes, while the department of
the Seine is composed of two arrondissements and a
commune, which latter also differs from other com-
munes. The town of Paris makes no part of any
arondissement, or of any canton, and is itself, on the
contrary, divided into twelve districts, presided over
by justices of peace. The general council, then, is
composed of thirty-six members, nominated at Paris,
and of eight other members, four of whom arc elected
by the department of Sceaux, and four by that of
St. Denis, making in all forty-four members.
Such is the manner in which, in regard to this
matter, has been realizrXl the promise of the 69th
article of the charter respecting the introduction of the
elective principle into the departmental and commu-
nal institutions. Previously to 1834, the members of
the council were nominated by the king ; es the mem-
bers of the General Council of the Hospitals and
Charitable Institutions (Hospices) still are:
The General Council of the Department of the
Seine meets once a year, lice those of all the other
departments; only a little later than the others ; its
session usually taking place in November, and lasting
,only a fortnight. The conservative spirit of the cen-
t-11J government, or its interest of conservatism, as
nu author.phrues has introduced many precau-
tione' into the law which regulates the proceedings of
these gent:ssi councils. Theycannot meet until they are