persuade a despairing creature to live and give life under the best conditions of care and personal kindness. Yes; let us frankly admit that the Revolution has not been in vain, in spite of its horrors, its inexplicable baseness, its acts of inconceivable cowardice. The men who made it were no heroes, and we can bear at this hour to call them remorselessly by their proper names. But the evil they did in the cause of humanity has finally led to the amelioration of their race. Lay France, with all her liberal aspirations, with her generous hatred of injustice, tyranny, and oppression, bids fair to construct a France which shall be the real and not the illusive home of freedom. The land that can produce men and women like M. Pinard and Madame Coralie Cahen need have no fear of the triumph of decadence. There were nearly seven thousand births during the past year at the maternité. When we remember that women are not obliged to give their names, and that their secret is honourably kept in the teeth of all inquiries that may be made, there seems less and less reason to-day for the extremities of despair.
The Assistance Publique is not exclusively concerned with hospitals. The increase of its income and the increase of its expenditure sufficiently testify to the extent of public charity in France. In 1834 its income reached 9,946,874 francs, and in 1894, 43,043,935 francs. The number
