Morning journal and courier., 1892-04-15
vagrancy and Drink in Paris.

lEEShi bhc AoAuou
 Descending a step in the social scale we come to the tramps. vagrapcy is illegal in France and the police do their best to keep it down. In 1890 13.164 persons were arrested for this offence in Paris alone. NJ. Mace, former chief of crimi- nal police, has taken the arrests for one month during his term of office and ana l4zed them thus: CD necessiteux, 225; @ paresseux, recidivistes, mendiants, 300; (3) voleurs, repris de justice, 426. Of the whole ,5S1. only Al were women. Glass l are those who nave lost employment through infrmity or misfortune. 'Timid and ashamed, they suffer in silence, and rarely take to theft or begging; when be- reft of every resource, they give them selves up to the police" Glass 2 are the mer they sleep out in the open, in winter in unfinished buildings, vehicles and the free doss-houses. They are beggars and thieves, who pretend that they want work, but will not to it when it is given them. Class are hsr ened malefsctors. They are better dressed than the previous class, from which they are recruited, and pre- fer cheap lodgings to the free houses; but they never stay two nights in the same place. This classification, from the hand of a most competent judge, throws an in structive light upon the question of the "submerged" and their reclamation. Out of given number of these people, only 16.1 per cent. are found to have sunk through misfortune, and to be presumably proper and hopeful subjects for assistance; 57 per cent. are incorrigible rogues and thieves; and 26 9 per cent. hsbitusl crimi- nals. The results, discoursging as they are, and calculated to give pause to the most enthusiastic humanitarian, cores pond with similar experience here, with this difference, that no account is taken of drink, the most important factor in the history Of degradation in our own cities, and one which indefinitely increases the difficulty of reclamation.
 And here we may take the opportunity of saying & word about the drink ques- tion in Paris. Drunkenness there is-we shall see something of it presently-and when it exists it produces the same effects as elsewhere; namely, personal violence and social degradation, especially the for mer. But the total amount is SO small as to be disregarded in estimating the causes of poverty and crime; it is hardly men tioned in any books dealing with those subjects. The poorer streets of Paris gre crammed with low drinking d-ns, but you may walk the town for hours at night without seeing single drunken man. Now and then you will see one or two; in the daytime never. In truth, they hardly know what drunkenness is, &C., cording to our notions. The reason is that the common people down to the rag pickers and thieves nearly all drink clsr. ct by preference. and their plentifully watered win ordinsire is not nearly 60 strong as the washiest of public-house beer. Much has been made of the ab. sinthe-drinking. It certainly is a mos, potent spirit, of which twopenny worth will go further towards intoxication than sixpenny worth of common gin; the man who takes seriously to it is lost. Bu, comparatively few do. You may go into the Aux Vrais Buveurs d. Absinthe, O, any of the thousand and one little cabs rets scattered everywhere, and you will see nineteen out of twenty of the cue toners taking syrups or claret. In 1S9t the total number of persons arrested foI drunkenness was thirty eight; it is unne | cessary to say more,