The Commune
has decreed that "all objects in pawn at the Mont-de-Piete, for a sum
not exceeding twenty francs, shall be given back gratuitously to all
persons who shall prove their legitimate right to the said objects."
Thanks to this benevolent decree, you may now hope that things you have
pawned will be restored to you before three or four hundred days!

Count on your fingers; the number of articles to which the decree
applies is at least 1,200,000. As there are only three offices for the
claimants to apply to, and considering the forms which have to be
observed, I do not think more than three thousand objects can be given
back daily; the Commune says four thousand, but the Commune does not
know what it is talking about. However, even if we calculate four
thousand a-day, the whole would take up ten or twelve months.

During this time men and women, whom poverty had long ere this taught
the road to the Mont-de-Piete, would have to get up early, neglect the
daily work by which they live, and go and stand awaiting their turn at
the office, frozen in winter, baked in summer, thankful to obtain a
moment's rest upon one of the wooden benches in the great bare hall; and
when they have been there a long, weary time, to see their number, drawn
by lot, put off to the next day or the day after, or the week or the
month following perhaps.

Still we must not blame the Commune for the sad disappointment of this
long delay, it would be impossible to shorten it. One thing, which is
less impossible, is to indemnify the administration of the Mont-de-Piete
for this gratuitous restitution. Citizen Jourde, delegate of the
finances, says, "I will give 100,000 francs a-week." Without stopping to
consider where this able political economist means to get his weekly
100,000 francs, I will be content with remarking that this sum would in
no wise cover the loss to the Mont-de-Piete, and that the Commune will
only be giving alms out of other people's purses. If, however, thanks to
this decree, some few poor creatures are enabled to get back those goods
and chattels which they were obliged to dispose of in the hour of need,
there will not be much cause to complain. The Mont-de-Piete usually does
a very good business, and there will always be enough misery in Paris
for it to grow rich upon. Besides, the Commune owes the poor wounded,
mutilated, dying fellows who have been brought from Neuilly and Issy, at
least a mattress to die in some little c