ourself." "I
cannot," says he; "it would take me too much time, and I could not make
five quintals while I can make one clock." "Utopist!" we reply; "for
this very reason we forbid your making the clock, and order you to make
the iron. Do not you see that we create you labor?"

Sire, it will not have escaped your sagacity, that it is just as if we
said to the country, _Labor with the left hand, and not with the right_.

The creation of obstacles to furnish labor an opportunity to develop
itself, is the principle of the _restriction_ which is dying. It is also
the principle of the _restriction_ which is about to be created. Sire,
to make such regulations is not to innovate, but to preserve.

The efficacy of the measure is incontestable. It is difficult--much more
difficult than one thinks--to do with the left hand what one was
accustomed to do with the right. You will convince yourself of it, Sire,
if you will condescend to try our system on something which is familiar
to you,--like shuffling cards, for instance. We can then flatter
ourselves that we have opened an illimitable career to labor.

When workmen of all kinds are reduced to their left hands, consider,
Sire, the immense number that will be required to meet the present
consumption, supposing it to be invariable, which we always do when we
compare differing systems of production. So prodigious a demand for
manual labor cannot fail to bring about a considerable increase in
wages; and pauperism will disappear from the country as if by
enchantment.

Sire, your paternal heart will rejoice at the thought that the benefits
of this regulation will extend over that interesting portion of the
great family whose fate excites your liveliest solicitude.

What is the destiny of women in France? That sex which is the boldest
and most hardened to fatigue, is, insensibly, driving them from all
fields of labor.

Formerly they found a refuge in the lottery offices. These have been
closed by a pitiless philanthropy; and under what pretext? "To save,"
said they, "the money of the poor." Alas! has a poor man ever obtained
from a piece of money enjoyments as sweet and innocent as those which
the mysterious urn of fortune contained for him? Cut off from all the
sweets of life, how many delicious hours did he introduce into the bosom
of his family when, every two weeks, he put the value of a day's labor
on a _quatern_. Hope had always her place at the domestic hearth. The
garret