The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-26 00:00:00

THE CHARITIES OF FRANCE.

A clever and most interesting article published in the
Moniteur this week, and due to the pen of M. Norbert
Billart, the well-known legist, gives us a curious and most
instructive insight into the development lately given to
charitable institutions in France. It is but justice
to remark that since Louis Napoleon has been
on the throne much has been done by him for
the relief of poverty and the suppression of
mendicity, and much accomplished towards the
amelioration of the system of administering relief. The
solicitude of the Government for the working classes
extends from their cradles to their graves. Thus, a poor
sempstress on the point of becoming a mother is attended
by a doctor paid by Government, and receives clothing'
for her infant from the Empress herself, through the
medium of the Maternal Society established and pre-
sided over by her. Seventy-six branch societies are now
scattered over France. The mother recovered, neces-
sarily must return to her work. What becomes of her
infant ? She takes it to the Cri2che early in the morning,
returns to nurse it when she pleases, and calls for it on her
way home, having to pay 2d. per day for the care bestowed
on it, and the food it requires till it be two years old, at
which time it is sent to the Salle d'Asile, of which
there are three thousand and seventy-two. Supposing
the parents die, the child is then entrusted to the care
of a workman's family, selected for their good conduct and
cleanly habits, who are paid 224 f. (1:9) per annum, as long
as they support it and teach it their trade. Should the
child be a girl, she is admitted at 8 years old to the
Maison Eug6nie Napoleon, built with the £24,000
voted by the city of Paris for a diamond necklace,
to be presented to the Empress on her marriage,
which sum she preferred disposing of to become
the mother of 300 poor little girls. M. Norbert
Billart introduces us to many other such charitable
establishments instituted and watched overby her Majesty
such as the payment of rent in arrear, the releasing of
pawned articles, and the daily distribution of bread, meat,
and wood, all of which acts of true charity are paid from
the private purses of the Emperor and Empress. I must
not omit the Tourneaux Econowiques, supported bY
8,000 a year, paid from the privy purse. Poor fami-
lies find at these economic bakehouses dishes of hot
meat, ready cooked and well seasoned, dressed with vege-
tables, at a nominal price, as well as capital soup and
bread. Of these ovens or bakehouses twenty-one are in
full work within the capital alone. Suppose the poor
artisan to be dying, He will no longer be taken to
the grave and thrown into the earth like a pariah
—he is now, thanks to the Service des Aumoniers—
a society instituted by the Emperor certain of
having the prayers of whatever Church he may have
belonged to read over his coffin, and a decent burial given
to his remains. The Prince I.resident was one day driving
along one of the gaily-peopled boulevards of this city.
coffin on trestles was carried past ; neither priest nor
minister accompanied it. He was excessively touched bY
this appearance of misery and abandonment, and at once
conceived the idea of the Service des AumOniers, of the
prayers for the dying, and issued a decree, on the 21st 01
March 1852, for its organisation.

MURDER AT SHREWSBURY.—We learn by tele"
graph that the body of a girl ten years old was found on
Tuesday in a hovel near Shrewsbury. It had been out-
raged, and the head was nearly severed from the body'.
The deceased was last seen alive on Sunday evening with
a neighbour named :Harp. Mapp has been arrested and
charged with the murder. He has been remanded.

An address recently adopted bythe Town Council
of Halifax has been presented to Sir F. Crossley, Bart/
ALP., expressing their high appreciation of his recent gift
to the corporation of the sum of £6,300, as an endowment
of the People's Park, presented by the worthy baronet to
his native town ten years ago. The Mayor presented the
address, and Sir F. Crossley expressed the gratificatiolli
with which he received it.
The directors of the Midland Railway have acted with
discretion in announcing an early meeting of the share-
holders. In view of the anxiety caused by the enormous
requirement of fresh capital, they have resolved to call a
meeting of proprietors at once, instead of waiting for the
meeting which would have taken place in February. TheY
promise to give "full explanations on the subject."
Mr. Gladstone's references to Ireland in his recent
speeches have elicited a long letter addressed to the right
hon. gentleman from Mr. Joseph Fisher, of the Waterford
Mail. Mr. Fisher impugns Mr. Gladstone's own policy
towards Ireland. By extending the power of voting to
occupiers of land who had no leases, it destroyed the in-
ducement to give that security, and the Irish tenant at
will has become a serf whose chains have been riveted by
the gift of political power unaccompanied with freedom to
exercise it. Mr. Fisher laments the decline of smallholdings'
with perhaps little reason, the occupiers of which, to the nun'
ber of a million and a half, are to be found, he says, in the
back slums of London, Liverpool, and Manchester,
playing the part of filibusters and conspirators. This
writer urges that Ireland is unjustly taxed. When ![r.
Gladstone became Chancellor of the Exchequer she con 7
tributed four-and-a-half millions per annum. In the four-
teen years preceding 1853 the Irish revenue amounted to
£59,500,000, and in the fourteen years following t°
£91,000,000. General Dunne has often brought the saro°
subject before Parliament, and his arguments have 35
often been refuted. Mr. Fisher is an exception in sup-
posing that there is any weight in them. The £31,000,000
additional taxation raised in Ireland has been drawn front
increased resources. Taxes have been remitted in several'
cases, raised in one only—the spirit duty.
The Marquis of Abercorn has been speaking at Dublis
on the subject of art. The keynote of his remarks might
be found in one of the sentences of his speech.
believe," said his Excellency, "that the great deficienei
in our day is that artists have not been workmen, and
workmen have not been artists." For the diffusion and
spread of art he thought it essential that the artisan class
should be art students. The first exhibition—that of
1851— awoke Britain to the want of artistic effort in her
public buildings, and the feeling had been growing el'
since. The facile production of our day has a tendency t°
prevent the age from attaining the highest point of art'e
On the other hand, John of Bologna, Michael Angel
Benvenuto Cellini, and the great artists of old were
skilful at their tools as the most experienced workmen'
and the great painters made their own colours, the
secret of compounding which has died with them.
Mr. Goldwin Smith's plan for redress to Ireland di
not meet with universal approbation even among advauca
thinkers. " Philo-Celt," in the columns of the Daily Arcicsi
has much doubt of that " craving for national institutiono,
of which Mr. Goldwin Smith speaks as characteristic
the Irish. The Protestants, who represent the nre3l'.
proportion of the wealth and intelligence of the king!lota
wish to make the union more thorough ; while the higher.
classes of the Roman Catholics shrink aghast from har°2o
anything to do with Mr. Smith's daring experiment. I",
poorer classes want to be sent clean adrift from Englall
or wish for suds a separation as shall leave remaining lu
the fragile link of the crown. " Philo-Celt" thinks, to;
that there is nothing in the objection that the sea separates
England and Ireland, for so cheap is the journey fete:
Dublin to Liverpool that the latter may be regarded as
agricultural capital of Ireland. Another objection to
Mr. Smith's plan is that it will take too lot!g
ro.
obtain the sanction of Parliament. " Philo-Celt P
poses two measures, the one a redress of t•ii
grievance of landlord and tenant, and hopes that the
„to
of the Government will meet the justice of the case. jo
next suggests that arterial drainage should be taken "Pthe
an Imperial work. Money should be advanced
.by,
Treasury and charged on the land. This would give
Irish labourer remunerative work, and it would revol 4
4111 3' tlAt ItY44_ MAGI@ 111:0411 it.