of the city, instead of remaining an useless object of
compassion to the few, and of idle wonder to the many.

Another entombment, almost as bad, occurred in the Rue St Denis, only
five or six years ago. The cess-pools of modern Parisian houses are
generally deep chambers, and sometimes wells, cut in the limestone
rock on which the city stands: and in the absence of a good method of
drainage, are cleaned out only once in every two or three years,
according to their size. Meanwhile, they continue to receive all the
filth of the building. One night, a large cess-pool had been emptied,
and the aperture, which was in the common passage of the house on the
ground floor, had been left open till the inspector appointed by the
police should come round and see that the work had been properly
executed. He came early in the morning, enquired carelessly of the
porter if all was right, and ordered the stone covering to be fastened
down. This was done amid the usual noise and talking of the workmen;
and they went their way. That same afternoon, one of the lodgers in
the house, a young man, was missed: days after days elapsed, and
nothing was heard of him: his friends conjectured that he had drowned
himself, but the tables of the Morgue never bore his body: and their
despair was only equalled by their astonishment at the absence of
every clue to his fate. On a particular evening, however, about three
weeks after his disappearance, the porter was sitting at the door of
his lodge, and the house as well as the street was unusually quiet,
when he heard a faint groan somewhere beneath his feet. After a short
interval he heard another; and being superstitious, got up, put his
chair within the lodge, shut the door, and set about his work. At
night he mentioned the circumstance to his wife, and going out with
her into the passage, they had not stood there long before again a
groan was heard. The good woman crossed herself and fell on her knees;
but her husband, suspecting now that all was not right, and thinking
that an attempt at infanticide had been made, by throwing a child's
body down one of the passages leading to the cess-pool, (no uncommon
occurrence in Paris,) resolved to call in the police. He did so
without loss of time, the heavy stone covering was removed, and one of
the attendants stooping down and lowering a lantern, as long as the
stench would permit him, saw at the bottom, and at a considerable
depth, something like a human fo