more vigour in certain departments of our social policy; but in this, as in many things, we have to make a choice of evils.  Better, we think, allow abuses to be corrected by the comparatively sluggish action of public opinion, than accustom a people to have everything done for them, every action regulated by laws and prefects of police.  The account given by Sir Francis of the manner in which the authority of the police bears on common workmen, is only a version of what every traveller speaks of with execration.  Although we ourselves alluded to the subject on a former occasion, we may recapitulate a few points from the volume before us:  ’Every workman or labouring boy is obliged, all over France, to provide himself with a book termed un livret, indorsed in Paris by a commissaire of police, and in other towns by the mayor or his assistants, containing his description, name, age, birthplace, profession, and the name of the master by whom he is employed.  In fact, no person, under a heavy fine, can employ a workman unless he produce a livret of the above description, bearing an acquittal of his engagements with his last master.  Every workman, after inscribing in his livret the day and terms of his engagement with a new master, is obliged to leave it in the hands of his said master, who is required, under a penalty, to restore it to him on the fulfilment of his engagement.  Any workman, although he may produce a regular passport, found travelling without his book, is considered as “vagabond,” and as such may be arrested and punished with from three to six months’ imprisonment, and after that subjected to the surveillance of the haute-police for at least five and not exceeding ten years.  No new livret can be indorsed until its owner produces the old one filled up.  In case of a workman losing his livret, he may, on the presentation of his passport, obtain provisional permission to work, but without authority to move to any other place until he can satisfy the officer of police that he is free from all engagements to his last master.  Every workman coming to Paris with a passport is required, within three days of his arrival, to appear at the prefecture of police with his livret, in order that it may be indorsed.  In like manner, any labourer leaving Paris with a passport must obtain the vise of the police to his livret, which, in fact, contains an abstract history of his industrial life.  As a description of the political department of the police of Paris would involve details, the ramifications of which would almost be endless, I will only briefly state, that from the masters of every furnished hotel and lodging-house—­who are required to insert in a register, indorsed by a commissaire de police, the name, surname, profession, and usual domicile of every person who sleeps in their house for a single night—­and from innumerable other sources, information is readily obtained concerning every person, and especially every stranger, residing