continue to live with their foster parents during the years of apprenticeship. A portion of the boy's earnings is placed in the Caisse d'Épargne to make him a tiny capital, when of age to start upon his own account. My servant's children were well-treated and happy, and when she went down to the farm to spend ten days with them, she found two healthy lads and a hospitable family to receive her, and in their midst enjoyed a delightful holiday. The boys had their pass-books, and could make her a present each of twenty-five francs. The other day one of them decided to come to Paris to earn his bread, and even at the station the mother was not allowed to claim him, it being a notorious fact that boys fresh from the country often fall into evil hands at the big railway stations. Scrupulous in the acquittal of its duties, the Assistance Publique will only deliver its charge into the mother's hand in official circumstances that render all fraud impossible. The boy wore a fine new suit of clothes and new boots, and his great fear was that, leaving the care of the Assistance Publique these peacock feathers would be taken from him. But they were not, and when he came to see me, I found, instead of a cowed charity lad, a pink-cheeked, open-eyed youth, well dressed and strong, with an independent air and an excellent fashion of speech. I sent him with a card of recommen-
