regarding them are numerous. They cannot be established in certain localities, such as the Boulevards. They must not be within 100 yards of a church, or 50 or 60 yards of a school for either boys or girls, of a palace, public building, or large boarding-house. The proprietor of the house must give his consent. Two houses cannot be established side by side. They must contain a room for each girl; each room must have ample supply of soap, etc. No house can have a back or side door, or in any way communicate with the adjoining building. No house can contain dark closets. In none can any trade be carried on. With regard to the houses called maisons de passe (assignation houses), the police require that in every such house two regular prostitutes, inscribed on the police rolls, shall live permanently: the object being to exercise supervision. It is found that they, being naturally hostile to the mistress, will act as police agents. The windows must be roughed, as also rooms where individual ones live. No one can keep a house of this kind in Paris without authorization from the police. Men are never permitted to do so at all. A woman desirous of so doing must apply in writing to the Prefect of Police. On receipt of her application, reference is made to the Commissary of Police of the ward to ascertain her character. If she has been condemned for crime or misdemeanor, her request is rarely granted. If she stands on the police books as a woman requiring supervision, she cannot succeed; nor can she obtain a license under ordinary circumstances, unless she has been one of this class herself. The reason of this regulation is obvious; no one else understands the business thoroughly; and as the position is found to be the most demoralizing in the world, it is the policy to throw impediments in the way of persons not wholly depraved devoting themselves to so dangerous a calling. The applicant must have reached a certain age; she must be of sober habits, and possessed of sufficient force of character to command a house full of women. She must possess enough money to guarantee against immediate failure; and she must own the furniture of the house she wishes to keep. When all these conditions are fulfilled, the applicant receives a pass-book, in which the number of girls she is allowed to keep is specified. In this book she is bound to enter the name of every woman she receives, whether as a boarder or transient lodger; her age, the date of her entry into her house, the date of her inspection by a physician, and the date of her departure from the house. A printed form in the beginning of the pass-book reminds the mistress of the house that she is bound, under heavy penalties, to inscribe on the police rolls every girl she receives within twenty-four hours of her arrival.

In the event of the neglect of these rules, the license is revoked. It is understood that the police enforce this regulation with due rigor. Much has been said and written about the manner in which the keepers of houses obtain recruits. M. Parent-Duchatelet, whose sources of information were the best, gives it as his opinion that most are obtained from the hospitals, especially the Hospital du Midi, where females are treated. It appears that this hospital and others are haunted by old women who have been prostitutes, and who, in their old age, eke out a livelihood by enticing others into the same calling. They soon discover the antecedents and disposition of every young girl they find in hospitals; and if she be pretty or engaging, she must either have much principle or careful friends to rescue her from the clutches of the old hags. While she lies ill on a bed of pain, the latter are constantly about her, and gain her friendship. They know the devices that are needed to impose on her simplicity, and not unfrequently are enabled to strengthen their promises by small donations in money, or a weekly stipend during her convalescence. For a pretty girl, as much as fifty francs will be paid. As the girls in France, with few exceptions, come to Paris to be cured, it seems likely M. Parent-Duchatelet is correct. Other keepers have female agents in country towns who send them girls. One well known woman, who kept for many years one of the largest establishments in France, employed a travelling clerk with a large salary. Some obtain boarders from their own province or native city; others, who have followed a trade, get recruits from the acquaintances they made at their workshop. Lately, it would seem, pimps have carried on their trade with unusual boldness and success. Some time since it was noticed that an uncommon number of girls arrived at Paris from Rheims. They all came provided with the name and address of the houses to which they were destined, and drove there from the stage office. Information was sent to the police authorities of Rheims, and on their arrival the girls were sent back. The design of the authorities was baffled by the cunning of the pimps, who sent their recruits round by other roads, till the police finally refused for a year or two to inscribe any prostitutes from Rheims. It is notorious that the same traffic is carried on at present between London and Paris, London and Brussels, and other large cities in the neighborhood. Several societies have been formed, and the police have made great exertions to suppress the trade.

It is understood that the women in Paris receive nothing for their "labors" but their board, lodging, and dress. The latter is often expensive. In first-class houses it will exceed five hundred francs, which in female attire will go as far in Paris as five hundred dollars will in New York. The whole of the fees exacted from visitors go to the mistress, and the girls are reluctantly permitted to retain the presents they sometimes receive from their lovers. They are usually in debt to the mistress, who having no other means of retaining them under her control, hastens to advance them money for jewelry, carriages, fine eating, and expensive wines. No written contract binds them to remain where they are; they may leave when they please, if they can pay their debts; and the obligation they incur for the latter is one of honor only, and cannot be enforced in the courts. Houses of prostitution, when well conducted, are very profitable in Paris. It is estimated that the net profits from each girl ought to be ten francs or more a day. Many keepers of houses have retired with from ten to twenty-five thousand francs a year, and have married their daughters well. The good-will of a popular house has been sold for sixty thousand francs ($12,000).

We now come to the great feature of the Paris system, the inscription in a department of the Prefecture of Police, called the Bureau des Mœurs. It seems that some sort of inscription was in use before the Revolution, but no law referring to it or records of the rolls can be found. Various systems were employed during the Republic and the Empire. The one now in use was adopted in 1816, and amended by a police regulation in 1828.

Prostitutes were inscribed :

1. On their own request.

2. On the requisition of the mistress of the house.

3. On the report of the Inspector of Prostitutes.

When a girl appears before the bureau under any of these circumstances, she is asked the following questions, the answers being taken down in writing:

1. Her name, age, birthplace, trade, and residence.

2. Whether she is a widow, wife, or spinster.

3. Whether her father and mother are living; what their calling is or was.

4. Whether she lives with them. When and how she left them.

5. Whether she has had children, and where they are.

6. How long she has been at Paris.

7. Whether anyone has a right or claim to her.

8. Whether she has ever been arrested. If yes, how often,

and for what.

9. Whether she has been a prostitute before, and for what period.

10. Whether she has had any disease.

11. Whether she has received any education.

12. What her motive is in inscribing.

The answers to these inquiries suggest others, which are put at the discretion of the officials.

The interrogatory over, the girl is taken by an inspector to the dispensary, and examined, and the physician on duty reports the result, which is added to the inquiry. Meanwhile, the police registers have been consulted, and if the girl is an old offender, or is known to the police, she is now identified. If the girl has her baptismal certificate (extrait de naissance) with her, she is forthwith inscribed and registered among the public women of Paris. As prostitutes rarely possess this document, a provisional inscription is usually effected, and a direct application is made to the mayor of the city or commune where she was born for the certificate. This application varies according to the age of the girl. If she is of age, it is simply a demand for the "extrait du naissance of -, who says she is a native of your city or commune." If, on the contrary, she is a minor, the application states that "a girl who calls herself -, and says she was born at -, has applied for inscription in this office. I desire you to ascertain the position of her family, and means they propose to take, in case they desire to secure the return of this young girl."

It often happens that the family implore the intervention of the police; in that case the girl is sent back to the place whence she came. In many cases the family decline to interfere, and then the girl is duly inscribed in the register. She signs a document in which she states that "being duly acquainted with the sanitary regulations. established by the Prefecture for Public Women, she declares that she will submit to them, will allow herself to be visited periodically by the physicians of the dispensary, and will conform in all respects to the rules in force." Of course, this procedure is occasionally delayed by falsehoods uttered by the women. It often used to happen that the mayors would report that no person of the name given had been born, at the time fixed, in their city or commune. In that case the girl was recalled and made to understand that truth was better policy than falsehood. Girls rarely held out longer than a fortnight or so, and at the present time the number of false declarations is very small; indeed they seem satisfied that the police are an omniscient machine which cannot be deceived.

When the girl is brought to the office, either by a brothelkeeper or an inspector, the proceeding is slightly varied. In the latter case she has been arrested for indulging in clandestine prostitution, but she almost invariably denies the fact, and pleads her innocence. The rule in this case is, to admonish her and let her go. It is not till the third or fourth time that she is inscribed. When the mistress brings a girl to the office interrogatories similar to the above are put to her. If she has relations or friends at Paris, they are sent for and consulted. When the girl appears evidently lost she is duly inscribed; but if she shows any signs of shame or contrition, she is often sent home by the office at the public expense. It need hardly be said that when a girl is found diseased she is sent to the hospital and her inscription held over. It occasionally happens that virgins present themselves at the office in order to be inscribed; in their case the officials use compulsion to rescue them from infamy.

In a word the Paris system, with regard to inscription, is to inscribe no girl with regard to whom it is not manifest that she will carry on the calling of a prostitute whether she be inscribed or not. From the following table, prepared by M. ParentDuchatelet from the records of a series of years, it appears that the mistresses of houses inscribe over one-third of the total.

The age at which girls can be inscribed has varied under different administrators; under one it was seventeen, under his successor eighteen, under the next twenty-one years, but now the general rule is that no girl shall be inscribed under the age of sixteen. Exceptions to this rule are made in the case of younger girls, of thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen, who lead a life of prostitution, and are frequently attacked by disease. From a regard for public health they are inscribed notwithstanding their age. Only second in importance to the subject of inscription is that of "radiation," the obliteration of an inscription. This is the process by which a prostitute takes leave of her calling, throws off the control of the police, and regains her civil rights. At Rome, as has been already shown, no such formality as radiation was known to the law; once a prostitute always a prostitute, was the Roman rule.

The policy of the French Bureau des Mœurs on this head is governed by two very simple maxims.

1st. Amendment ought to be encouraged as much as possible. 2d. None should be released from the supervision of the police and the visits of the dispensary physicians until there is reasonable ground for believing that her repentance and alteration of life are sincere and likely to be permanent.