350 Moral Statistics of France. 



riches and civilization are rapidly increasing, may, for a time at least, 

 completely check and nullify all the ameliorating influences that are simul- 

 taneously in operation. 



M. G. exhibits a coloured chart and tables, illustrating the distribution 

 of illegitimate births throughout France, as calculated by M. V'illerm^ : but 

 into the details we shall not here enter. The facts, however, which he 

 has collected, lead him to express a decided opinion on the evils of such 

 institutions as foundling hospitals, which sacrifice at the shrine of charity 

 some of the strongest safeguards of the severer virtues : a case to which 

 the reporter of the committee finds a parallel in the operation of the Eng- 

 lish Poor Laws, as he remarks, " C'est ainsi qu'cn Angleterre la charity 

 legale accroit indefiniment le nombre des pauvres."* 



Public Charities. 

 The degree in which the benevolent dispositions are manifested among 

 anv people, in the sliape of public charities, constitutes an interesting fea- 

 ture in their moral character and condition : but the documents on this 

 subject are too generally defective to afford any satisfactory conclusions. 

 France however presents the best field for such inquiries, in consequence 

 of the legal regulations under which all appropriations to religious or be- 

 nevolent establishments must be made. For every such appropriation ex- 

 ceeding the sum of 300 francs (^612), a "royal ordinance of authorisation" 

 is necessary : these ordinances are registered and inserted in the " Bulletin 

 des Lolx." 



pauperism is as prevalent as in the worst regulated parts of England ; every sixth 

 inhabitant being dependent wholly or in part on charitable funds. In Creuse, a 

 central department, and which exhibits the smallest proportion of crimes against 

 person and property, but which presents such an aspect of poverty as to have been 

 termed the Connaught of France, only 1-58 of the people are classed as paupers. 

 These facts (says an intelligent journalist) " prove that, though the proportion is 

 not every where exactly preserved, yet j)auperism seems generally to increase with 

 wealth and civilization :" and it is important to bear this tendency in mind, in con- 

 sidering the influence of instruction on the state of crime. — Economie Politique 

 Chretienne, &c. par M. le Vicomte A. de Villeneuve Bargeraont : Paris, 1834. 



• In the face of this obvious truth, what an outcry — disgraceful to the manly 

 reason of the age — has been raised against that excellent measure, the Poor Laws 

 Amendment Act '. Its results however will soon convince the most inveterate gain- 

 sayers, that the system of indiscriminate relief is not that which best consults either 

 the comfort or the morality of the poor. In a letter dated March, 1830, Mr. Cole- 

 ridge has left on record a valuable testimony to this effect, which may fairly be 

 opposed to the dolorous vaticinations of his later days, when declaiming against the 

 new Poor Law arrangements : " It would be most unchristian moroseness not to feel 

 delight in the unwearied zeal with which every mode and direction of charity is sup- 

 ported • and I hope that this is a sun-shiny spot in our national character. . . . But it 

 would on the other hand be wilful blindness not to see that the lower orders become more 

 and more improvident in consequence, and more and more exchange the lentimenti of 

 Englishmen for the feelings qf Lazzaroni."— Letters, &c. i. 27. 



