LE PLAY'S STUDIES IN SOCIAL PHENOMENA. 787 



genera are known, nearly half being marine, the rest fresh-water 

 forms. The forms most familiar to us are Cambarus and Astacus. 

 The latter is common on the Pacific slope and in Europe, while the 

 former is the familiar form of our Eastern rivers and streams, finding 

 their way into the Atlantic Ocean. In many localities their burrow- 

 ing habits are productive of great damage ; this is especially so in 

 the levees of the Mississippi. In some parts of the South they are 

 valued as food, and they can generally be found at Fulton Market, 

 New York, a few people evidently knowing their delicacy in salads, 

 etc. In Europe they have long been used as food, and so great is 

 the demand for them in France that large farms are devoted entirely 

 to their cultivation and breeding, the industry affording a profitable 

 income. A study of the habits of these creatures will well repay the 

 student, as many of them are very curious and interesting. They 

 differ from many of the .rest of the ten-footed crustaceans in not pass- 

 ing through the various larval stages that characterize the growth of 

 so many of their allies. 



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LE PLAY'S STUDIES IN SOCIAL PHENOMENA. 



By A. G. WAENEE. 



WHILE George Eliot was still a writer of essays, she complained 

 that the " psychology of the lower classes " was misunderstood 

 by nearly all who had to do with them, from legislators to novelists. 

 She therefore said approvingly, in reviewing the works of W. H. 

 Riehl, that he was " first of all a pedestrian, and only in the second 

 place a political author." In literature, the work of portraying truly 

 the lower classes has since been prosecuted with zeal by herself and 

 others ; but social science still shuns methodic observation. 



The number of social facts is so nearly infinite that many have 

 lacked the courage even to begin the work of collecting them. Fre- 

 deric Le Play was a man who had the courage. 



Not a few of the French economists and students of social science 

 have received their early training in the polytechnic schools of Paris. 

 The lesson which their early education seems usually to have taught 

 them most thoroughly is that of the omnipotence of the human rea- 

 son ; they have too often attempted to reform the world by a dead- 

 lift effort of the intellect. The lesson, however, which Le Play de- 

 rived from his training in the School of Mines and applied to his work 

 in the study of society was that of the vital importance of observation 

 and analysis. His life in theory-breeding Paris only convinced him 

 that social theorizing was the curse of the French people. In 1824 he 

 came to the metropolis, being then in his eighteenth year, and as dur- 

 ing his long life, which lasted till 1882, he watched the kaleidoscopic 



