letter penny-post in Paris.

The salary of the executioner was eighteen thousand livres _per annum_;
[21] his office was to break criminals on the wheel, and to inflict
every punishment on them which they were sentenced to undergo.

[Note 21: L750 sterling; I know not the present salary.]

There are no longer any _Espions de Police_, or spies, employed by
government. "That army of thieves, of cut-throats, and rascals, kept in
pay by the ancient police, was perhaps a necessary evil in the midst of
the general evil of our old administration. A body of rogues and
traitors could be protected by no other administration than such a one
as could only subsist by crimes and perfidy. Those were the odious
resources of despotism. Liberty ought to make use of simple and open
means, which justice and morality will never disavow."

There is a school at the point of the isle of St. Louis, in the river
_Seine_, to teach swimming; persons who chuse to learn in private pay
four _louis_, those who swim among others, half that sum, or half-crown
a lesson; if they are not perfect in that art in a season, (five summer
months) they may attend the following season _gratis_.

DRESS. INNS.

THE common people are in general much better clothed than they were
before the Revolution, which may be ascribed to their not being so
grievously taxed as they were. An English Gentleman who has gone for
many years annually from Calais to Paris, remarks, that they are almost
as well dressed on working days at present, as they were on Sundays and
holidays formerly.

All those ornaments which three years ago were worn of silver, are now
of gold. All the women of the lower class, even those who sit behind
green-stalls, &c. wear gold ear-rings, with large drops, some of which
cost two or three _louis_, and necklaces of the same. Many of the men
wear plain gold ear-rings; those worn by officers and other gentlemen
are usually as large as a half-crown piece. Even children of two years
old have small gold drops in their ears. The general dress of the women
is white linen or muslin gowns, large caps which cover all their hair,
excepting just a small triangular piece over the forehead, pomatumed, or
rather plaistered and powdered, without any hats: neither do they wear
any stays, but only _corsets_ (waistcoats or jumps.) Tight lacing is not
known here, nor yet high and narrow heeled shoes. Because many of the
ladies _ci-devant_ of quality have emigrated