volunteers would soon have
their statistics complete. False statistics can be manufactured in board
rooms and offices, but true and exact statistics must begin with the
individual and mount up from the simple to the complex.

Then, without waiting for anyone's leave, those citizens will probably
go and find their comrades who were living in miserable garrets and
hovels and will say to them simply: "It is a real Revolution this time,
comrades, and no mistake about it. Come to such a place this evening;
all the neighbourhood will be there; we are going to redistribute the
dwelling-houses. If you are tired of your slum-garret, come and choose
one of the flats of five rooms that are to be disposed of, and when you
have once moved in you shall stay, never fear. The people are up in
arms, and he who would venture to evict you will have to answer to
them."

"But every one will want a fine house or a spacious flat!" we are
told.--No, you are quite mistaken. It is not the people's way to clamour
for the moon. On the contrary, every time we have seen them set about
repairing a wrong we have been struck by the good sense and instinct for
justice which animates the masses. Have we ever known them demand the
impossible? Have we ever seen the people of Paris fighting among
themselves while waiting for their rations of bread or firewood during
the two sieges or during the terrible years of 1792-1794? The patience
and resignation which prevailed among them in 1871 was constantly
presented for admiration by the foreign Press correspondents; and yet
these patient waiters knew full well that the last comers would have to
pass the day without food or fire.

We do not deny that there are plenty of egotistic instincts in isolated
individuals. We are quite aware of it. But we contend that the very way
to revive and nourish these instincts would be to confine such questions
as the housing of the people to any board or committee, in fact, to the
tender mercies of officialism in any shape or form. Then indeed all the
evil passions spring up, and it becomes a case of who is the most
influential person on the board. The least inequality causes wranglings
and recriminations. If the smallest advantage is given to any one, a
tremendous hue and cry is raised--and not without reason.

But if the people themselves, organized by streets, districts, and
parishes, undertake to move the inhabitants of the slums into the
half-empty dwellings of the middl