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 of patients received in hospitals in 1834 was 66,521, and in 1894, 172,500; of children helped in 1834, 21,781, and in 1894, 48,000. It disposes of 11,989 beds in hospitals, 12,370 beds in asylums, and the average of persons helped is 480,600 a year. In outdoor help it spends 11,365,951 francs.

Again to compare the ancien régime with the new order of things. It was not until 1660 that the horrors of forsaken childhood obtained commiseration. Yet St. Louis had lived; more than one king had been called the father of his people, and the good King Henri IV. of legend had asserted his royal wish that each family should have a fowl boiling in the pot. It was the work of St. Vincent of Paul who, after founding the excellent order of Sisters of Charity, bethought himself of unwelcome babes left to suffer the consequences of their parents' fault. Since then the idea has rapidly progressed. In 1881 the Conseil Général de la Seine instituted what is greatly superior to the mere animal succour of new-born infancy, the Service des Moralement Abandonnés. The morally abandoned! How much more needful, how much more clamorous for the good of the race, is the succour of these little creatures, morally depraved, from want of training! In 1888 this society received 2062 boys and 905 girls, the numerical difference being explained by the fact