de; a journey that would be as interesting to a
traveller in quest of statistical information, as it would be the
contrary to you or to me.

Poverty, the inseparable companion of a manufacturing population, shews
itself in the number of beggars that infest this road as well as that
from Calais to Paris. They station themselves by the side of every hill,
as regularly as the mendicants of Rome were wont to do upon the bridges.
Sometimes a small nosegay thrown into your carriage announces the
petition in language, which, though mute, is more likely to prove
efficacious than the loudest prayer. Most commonly, however, there is no
lack of words; and, after a plaintive voice has repeatedly assailed you
with "une petite charite, s'il vous plait, Messieurs et Dames," an
appeal is generally made to your devotion, by their gabbling over the
Lord's Prayer and the Creed with the greatest possible velocity. At the
conclusion, I have often been told that they have repeated them once,
and will do so a second time if I desire it! Should all this prove
ineffectual, you will not fail to hear "allons, Messieurs et Dames, pour
l'amour de Dieu, qu'il vous donne un bon voyage," or probably a
song or two; the whole interlarded with scraps of prayers, and
ave-marias, and promises to secure you "sante et salut." They go through
it with an earnestness and pertinacity almost inconceivable, whatever
rebuffs they may receive. Their good temper, too, is undisturbed, and
their face is generally as piteous as their language and tone; though
every now and then a laugh will out, and probably at the very moment
when they are telling you they are "pauvres petits miserables," or
"petits malheureux, qui n'ont ni pere ni mere." With all this they are
excellent flatterers. An Englishman is sure to be "milord," and a lady
to be "ma belle duchesse," or "ma belle princesse." They will try too to
please you by "vivent les Anglais, vive Louis dix-huit." In 1814 and
1815, I remember the cry used commonly to be "vive Napoleon," but they
have now learned better; and, in truth, they had no reason to bear
attachment to the ex-emperor, an early maxim of whose policy it was to
rid the face of the country of this description of persons, for which
purpose he established workhouses, or _depots de mendicite_, in each
department, and his gendarmes were directed to proceed in the most
summary manner, by conveying every mendicant and vagrant to these
receptacles, without listen