f
presentiment, when just now I felt so sad, without knowing why, in the
midst of all our gayety--and drank to the Cholera, so that we might die
together."

"Well! perhaps the Cholera will come," resumed Jacques, with a gloomy
air; "that would save us the charcoal, which we may not even be able to
buy."

"I can only tell you one thing, Jacques, that to live and die together,
you will always find me ready."

"Come, dry your eyes," said he, with profound emotion. "Do not let us
play the children before these men."

Some minutes after, the coach took the direction to Jacques's lodging,
where he was to change his clothes, before proceeding to the debtors'
prison.

Let us repeat, with regard to the hunchback's sister--for there are
things which cannot be too often repeated--that one of the most fatal
consequences of the Inorganization of Labor is the Insufficiency of
Wages.

The insufficiency of wages forces inevitably the greater number of young
girls, thus badly paid, to seek their means of subsistence in connections
which deprave them.

Sometimes they receive a small allowance from their lovers, which, joined
to the produce of their labor, enables them to live. Sometimes like the
sempstress's sister, they throw aside their work altogether, and take up
their abode with the man of their choice, should he be able to support
the expense. It is during this season of pleasure and idleness that the
incurable leprosy of sloth takes lasting possession of these unfortunate
creatures.

This is the first phase of degradation that the guilty carelessness of
Society imposes on an immense number of workwomen, born with instincts of
modesty, and honesty, and uprightness.

After a certain time they are deserted by their seducers--perhaps when
they are mothers. Or, it may be, that foolish extravagance consigns the
imprudent lover to prison, and the young girl finds herself alone,
abandoned, without the means of subsistence.

Those who have still preserved courage and energy go back to their
work--but the examples are very rare. The others, impelled by misery, and
by habits of indolence, fall into the lowest depths.

And yet we must pity, rather than blame them, for the first and virtual
cause of their fall has been the insufficient remuneration of labor and
sudden reduction of pay.

Another deplorable consequence of this inorganization is the disgust
which workmen feel for their employment, in addition to the insufficiency