crown of solid
gold, and has he not set up a little shed or bench where there is a
register, an incorruptible guardian of public morality? And does he not
know all the comings and goings of these Parisian gondolas?

One of the vital principles of our police will consist in always
following your wife to the furnishers of your house, if she is
accustomed to visit them. You will carefully find out whether there is
any intimacy between her and her draper, her dressmaker or her milliner,
etc. In this case you will apply the rules of the conjugal Custom House,
and draw your own conclusions.

If in your absence your wife, having gone out against your will, tells
you that she had been to such a place, to such a shop, go there yourself
the next day and try to find out whether she has spoken the truth.

But passion will dictate to you, even better than the Meditation, the
various resources of conjugal tyranny, and we will here cut short these
tiresome instructions.

5. OF THE BUDGET.

In outlining the portrait of a sane and sound husband (See _Meditation
on the Predestined_), we urgently advise that he should conceal from his
wife the real amount of his income.

In relying upon this as the foundation stone of our financial system we
hope to do something towards discounting the opinion, so very generally
held, that a man ought not to give the handling of his income to his
wife. This principle is one of the many popular errors and is one of the
chief causes of misunderstanding in the domestic establishment.

But let us, in the first place, deal with the question of heart, before
we proceed to that of money.

To draw up a little civil list for your wife and for the requirements of
the house and to pay her money as if it were a contribution, in twelve
equal portions month by month, has something in it that is a little mean
and close, and cannot be agreeable to any but sordid and mistrustful
souls. By acting in this way you prepare for yourself innumerable
annoyances.

I could wish that during the first year of your mellifluous union,
scenes more or less delightful, pleasantries uttered in good taste,
pretty purses and caresses might accompany and might decorate the
handing over of this monthly gift; but the time will come when the
self-will of your wife or some unforeseen expenditure will compel her to
ask a loan of the Chamber; I presume that you will always grant her the
bill of indemnity, as