his flocks, and his family. We cannot, if we would, draw a cordon around the infected district. Young men, too poor to marry, and spurred on by the promptings of nature, married men, wearied of the monotony of the domestic circle, and finding a wild fascination in the society of this class, whose beauty was the fatal dowry wedding them to destruction and death, leave, for them, the society of the virtuous maiden, and of the wife, the necessity for whose support is compensated by no meretricious blandishments. Feeling that one sad step has put a fatal barrier against all hope of return, these women, in whose breasts formerly beat warm and tender hearts, delight in dragging down to their own level the men who trifle with and despise them, and in fixing their impress upon families who would shrink with horror at their approach. "Malheureuses filles sans nom, que la civilisation parque comme des fêtes immodes !"

It is a fixed principle of political economy that the supply follows the demand. If, therefore, we can arrive at the causes which lead to that demand, and prove that they can be removed, we do much to abate the nuisance. The great promoters of vice in our cities are the luxury and rivalry which fashion introduces, and which render our ladies discontented with a small establishment, and our young men unwilling to take upon themselves the cares of a family unless in possession of unbounded means. If a disinterested gentleman remarks—

"I want (who does not want) a wife
Affectionate and fair,

To solace all the woes of life,

And all its joys to share;
Of temper sweet, of yielding will,
Of firm yet placid mind,

With all my faults to love me still
With tenderness refined."

The lady replies

"What first I want is daily bread,
And canvas-backs and wine;
And all the realms of nature spread

Before me when I dine.

What next I want, at heavy cost,

Is elegant attire

Black sable furs, for winter's frost,

And silks for summer's fire,

And Cashmere shawls and Brussels lace

My bosom's front to deck,

And diamond rings my hands to grace,

And rubies for my neck."

Those who have, and those who seek to acquire, are the two

great classes into which society thus becomes divided. Heiresses, taking the alarm, become the victims of perpetual celibacy, and disappointed male aspirants take refuge in clubs, where" young Smith, in the pride of health, commands his dinner of three courses; middle-aged Jones wallows in an easy padded arm-chair over the last delicious novel or brilliant magazine; or old Brown, that selfish old reprobate, for whom mere literature has no charms, stretched on the best sofa, sitting on the second edition of the Times, having the Morning Chronicle between his knees, the Herald pushed in between his coat and waistcoat, the Standard under his left arm, the Globe under the other pinion, and the Daily News in perusal. 'I'll trouble you for Punch, Mr. Wiggins,' says the unconscious old gormandizer, interrupting our friend who is lounging over the periodical in question.

"This kind of selfishness ought not to be. No, no! Young Smith, instead of his dinner and his wine, ought to be, where? at the festive tea-table, to be sure, by the side of Miss Higgs, sipping the bohea or tasting the harmless muffin; while old Mrs. Higgs looks on, pleased at their innocent dalliance; and my friend, Miss Wirt, the governess, is performing Thalberg's last sonata in treble X, totally unheeded at the piano.

"Where should the middle-aged Jones be? At his time of life he ought to be the father of a family. At such an hoursay at nine o'clock at night-the nursery-bell should have just rung the children to bed. He and Mrs. J. ought to be, by rights, seated on each side of the fire by the dining-room table, a bottle of port wine between them, not so full as it was an hour since. Mrs. J. has had two glasses, Mrs. Grumble (Jones's mother-in-law) has had three, Jones himself has finished the rest, and dozes comfortably until bedtime.

"A much more humane being among the youthful clubbists is the lady-killing snob. I saw Wiggle just now in the drawingroom talking to Waggle, his inseparable.

"Waggle. Pon my honor, Wiggle, she did.'

"Wiggle. Well, Waggle, as you say; I own I think she did look at me rather kindly."

"Wiggle and Waggle are both idle; they come of the middle classes. They are a sort of second-chop dandies. They have good points, kind feelings, only in their characters of men of second-rate pleasure about town; they and their like are so utterly mean, self-contented, and absurd, that they must not be omitted in a work treating of snobs. But there are still to be found amongst the youth of our clubs lads who glory in drinking-bouts, and whose faces, quite sickly and yellow for the most part, are decorated with those marks which Rowland's Kalydor

is said to efface. I was so cut last night, old boy! Hopkins,' says Tompkins, 'I tell you what we did! We breakfasted with Jack Herring at twelve, and kept up with brandy and soda water and weeds till four, then we toddled into the Park for an hour; then we dined and drank mulled port till half price, then we looked in for an hour at the Haymarket, then we came back to the club and had grills and whiskey-punch till all was blueHullo, waiter! get me a glass of cherry-brandy." This description, by Thackeray, of an English club would, with some modification, hold good as to a club in our own land, a club whose exciting food and heating wine send forth its members to cultivate the polluted and polluting class treated of by Dr. Sanger. May it not be that the mutual principle, which gives to young men, many of them from homes where the napkin was unknown and the finger-bowl a source of wonder, so fine a building to consider as their home, such delicious wines, and cigars procured at cost or nearly so, and the services of a French artist to prepare their excellent but inexpensive dinner, is likewise carried into their affections producing a fraternity of vice? Could Solomon return to life and traverse by gaslight that Broadway which has been described as leading to destruction, might be not, apropos of them, be heard chaunting his own beautiful words?

For at the window of my house,
I looked through my casement,
And beheld among the youths,
A youth void of understanding

Passing through the streets, near the strange woman's corner,
And he went the way to her house,

In the twilight, in the evening,

In the black and dark night;

With her much fair speech she caused him to yield,

With the flattering of her lips she forced him

He goeth after her straightway,

As an ox goeth to the slaughter,

Or as a fool to the correction of the stocks.

Proverbs.

How different is the conduct of these outrageous youths to the decent behavior of my friend, Mr. Popworthy; who says to Poppins the butler at the club,

Popworthy.-Poppins, I'm thinking of dining early; is there any cold game in the house?

Poppins.-There's a game pie, sir; there's cold grouse, sir; there's cold pheasant, sir; there's cold peacock, sir; cold swan sir; cold ostrich, sir, &c. &c. (as the case may be.)

Popworthy.-Hem! What's your best claret now, Poppins! In pints I mean.

Poppins.-There's Cooper and Magnum's Lafitte, sir; there's Lath and Sawdust's St. Jullien, sir; Bung's Leoville is considered remarkably fine; and I think you'd like Jagger's Chateau Margaux.

Popworthy-Hum! hah! well-give me a crust of bread and a glass of beer, I'll only lunch, Poppins. Though this scene, too, is transatlantic, not a few members of the Conglomerate know Popworthy, and assist often at the little harmless game he daily keeps up. One of our cities contains two clubs, the one, like some of the nobles of Europe, possesses a spacious castle, without the means of maintaining it, and its ranks are composed of men who having for the most part been for a long time in possession of wealth, and who having caught a glimpse of European modes of living, have a certain idea of the decencies and proprieties of life. In the other, made up to a great extent of clerks in banks, and cheap swell dandies, men may at all hours be seen sitting on tables with their arms passed around each other's waists, and as the morning hours succeed the night, not unfrequently some four or five will be met, by early milkmen, unable to descend the steps without the aid of a friendly cabman. One who no longer young still desired to be thought so, and was a member of both clubs, suggested that were they to combine their assets and form one harmonious family, the old man might repose his wearied limbs in the friendly Kiosk, and the young man quit his Dulcinea from the respectable Conglomerate. Though pressed by want the aged Popworthies were true to their gentlemanly instincts, and unanimously rejected the proposal. Yet, like Brutus of old, many a father thus passed sentence of death on his own son. In a community so formed, where the rent of a moderate house is larger than the income of most fashionable young men, save when augmented by the sums won from stray and unsuspecting guests, lured in under specious pretexts to the well filled tables of a confederate gambling-house, can we wonder at the few marriages taking place amongst them when love acts as the incentive; or at the frequent defalcations which clearly prove, how clerks in banks are able to give dinners, and keep horses on their little salaries, or brokers to buy houses in that splendid avenue, whose brown stone is sometimes the petrified bread of widows and orphans, taken from them for ever.

Forgery was made a crime punishable with death in England, not from its being equal in turpitude to murder, but because in a great commercial nation its results were highly injurious to trade, and involved the interests of thousands. Hence, Dr. Dodd was sent to the scaffold, though the amount for which he had used the name of another was insignificant, and his pre

vious life blameless. Hence too, Fauntleroy, though the intimate of a prince, and possessor of thousands, was hung after going to the scaffold in his own carriage. And Huntington, notwithstanding his plea of insanity, now expiates a like crime in the prisons of Sing Sing. To avoid a repetition of the shocking scene lately enacted in Washington, it is proposed to pass laws bringing the seducer to condign punishment. Will no member of our Legislature have the courage to propose, that a system of police regulations be provided, such as is established in all the cities of Europe, whereby the follies of youth, not merely forming the regret of old age, but often entailed on succeeding generations, may hereafter be guarded against, and avoided? To Dr. Sanger we are indebted for the following account of the legislative action taken in France on this subject :

"It was usual, during the last century, to estimate the number of abandoned women in Paris at twenty-five or thirty thousand. Even as late as 1810, the number was said by good authority to be not less than 18,000.

"The police rolls show that these calculations were wide of the mark. According to them the average number inscribed had risen from about 1,900 in 1814, to 3,558, in 1828, the last year of which we have any record; assuming that the number now is 4,500, or thereabouts, which would suppose an increase equal to that noted before 1832, they are one to every two hundred and fifty of the total population. Of these the city of Paris furnishes rather more than one-third: the remainder come from the departments, those bordering on Paris being most fruitful, and the north being largely in excess of propor tion over the south. The vast majority of the inmates of these houses are the children of operatives and mechanics-girls not bred to work rarely find their way into them. Nearly half were between the ages of twenty and twenty-six. One was twelve, thirty-four over fifty, two were over sixty-the following table shows the causes which led them to this mode of life :

There were in Paris, in 1832, 220 tolerated houses. The rules.