Paris, January 30, 1802.

To judge from the records of the Old Bailey, one would conclude that, in proportion to the number of its inhabitants, London must contain a greater number of dishonest persons of both sexes than any metropolis in Europe. But, though more notorious thieves and daring robbers may perhaps, be found in London than in many other great cities, yet I will venture to affirm that Paris contains more

PICKPOCKETS AND SHARPERS.

However superior too our rogues may be in boldness, I apprehend that, in dexterity, they are far inferior to those to be met with among our neighbours. To elude a more vigilant inspection, the latter are compelled to exert more art and cunning. In this dissipated capital, which is a grand theatre where they can display all their talent, and find a greater number of dupes, adventurers and swindlers of every description have long been famous; but it should seem that the females here of that stamp deserve to be no less celebrated.

Not many years ago, I heard of an English lady of quality being detected in the very act of secreting a quantity of valuable lace, to which she had taken a particular fancy at a great haberdasher's in Pall-Mall. It was said that she endeavoured to exculpate herself for this inadvertency on the ground of being in a pregnant state, which had produced an irrisistible longing. However this may be, she might here have got a lesson, as will appear from the following instance of ingenuity very lately practised by one of her own sex.

In the ci-devant Palais Royal, a haberdasher of note keeps a shop where the highest-priced articles of female wear are exhibited, immediately on coming from the hands of the manufacturer or inventor. The other day, a lady somewhat turned of thirty, of genteel appearance and engaging address, entered this shop, and asked to see some white lace veils. Several were shewn to her at the price of from twenty-five to fifty louis each. These not being sufficiently rich to please her taste, others more costly were produced, and she fixed on one of eighty louis in value. Standing before a glass, she immediately put on this veil À la rÉligieuse, that is, in the form of the hood of a nun's dress. Then taking from her bosom her little purse, she found it to contain no more than twenty louis in bankpaper, which she paid to the haberdasher as a deposit for the veil, at the same time desiring him to send one of his men with her to her homme d'affaires or agent, in order that he might bring back the other sixty.

As a Parisian tradesman is always extremely glad to get rid of his goods, she had no difficulty in carrying her point; and, having selected from among the shopmen a shamefaced youth of eighteen, took him with her in the hackney-coach which she had kept in waiting. She gave the coachman her orders, and away he drove to a famous apothecary's, in the Rue St. HonorÉ. "This," said she to the shopman, "is the residence of my homme d'affaires: follow me, and you shall have your money." She accordingly alighted, and, after saying a few words in the ear of the doctor, on whose credulity she had already exercised her genius, desired him to take the young man to his private room, and settle the business, while she remained to chat with his wife.

The unsuspecting youth, seeing the lady on such terms of intimacy in the family, made no hesitation to follow the doctor to a back-parlour, where, to his extreme surprise, he was closely questioned as to his present state of health, and the rise and progress of the disorder which he had caught through his own imprudence. The more he denied the circumstance, the more the doctor persisted in his endeavours to procure ocular demonstration. The latter had previously locked the door, having been apprized by the lady that her son was exceedingly bashful, and that stratagem, and even a certain degree of violence, perhaps, must be employed to obtain evidence of a complaint, which, as it injured her dear boy's constitution, disturbed her own happiness and peace of mind. The doctor was proceeding to act on this information, when the young shopman, finding his retreat cut off, vociferously demanded the sixty louis which he was come to receive in payment for the veil. "Sixty louis in payment for a veil!" re-echoed the doctor. "Your mother begged me to examine you for a complaint which you have inconsiderately contracted in the pursuit of pleasure." The dÉnouement now taking place, the two dupes hastened back to the shop, when they found that the lady had decamped, having previously discharged the coach, in order that she might not be traced by the number.

The art of purloining a watch, a snuff-box, or a purse, unperceived by the owner, may, no doubt, be acquired by constant practice, till the novice becomes expert in his profession: but the admirable presence of mind displayed by Parisian sharpers must, in a great measure, be inherited from nature. What can well surpass an example of this kind mentioned by a celebrated French writer?

A certain person who had been to receive a sum of money at a banker's, was returning home with it in a hired carriage. The coachman, not remembering the name of the street whither he had been ordered to drive, got off his box, and opened the coach-door to ask it. He found the person dead and cold. At his first exclamation, several people collected. A sharper who was passing by, suddenly forced his way through the crowd, and, in a lamentable and pathetic voice, called out: "'Tis my father! What a miserable wretch am I!" Then, exhibiting every mark of the most poignant grief, he got into the coach, and, crying and sobbing, kissed the dead man's face. The bystanders were affected, and dispersed, saying, one to another, "What an affectionate son!" The sharper drove on in the coach, where he found the bags of money, which were an unexpected booty, and, stopping it at a door, told the coachman that he wished to apprize his sister of the melancholy accident that had just happened. He alighted, and shut the coach-door, leaving the corpse as naked as it came into the world. The coachman, having waited a long time, inquired in vain at the house for the young man and his sister; no one had any knowledge of her, him, or the deceased.

I remember when I was last in Paris, at the beginning of the revolution, being shewn a silversmith's shop, whence a few articles having been stolen, the master was induced to examine in what manner the thieves gained admittance. Discovering an aperture where he conjectured that a man's hand might be introduced, he prepared a noose with a proper cord, and remained in waiting the following night to see if they would repeat their visit. At a late hour, when all was quiet, he perceived a man's hand thrust through the aperture; instantly he drew tight the noose, and thought he had effectually secured the culprit; but he was mistaken. The fellow's accomplices, fearing that the apprehension of one of them would lead to the discovery of all, on finding it impossible to extricate him by any other means, cut off his wrist. When the patrole arrived at the spot, on the call of the silversmith, he was not a little astonished to find that his prisoner had escaped, though with the loss of a hand, which remained fast in the noose.

With respect to these more daring classes of rogues, every year almost produces some new race of them. Since the revolution, the criminal code having condemned to death none but those guilty of murder, housebreakers, to avoid the penalty of the law, had recourse to a practice, which put the persons whom they subjected to it to the most severe pain. This was to hold their feet to the fire till they declared where all their moveable property was to be found. Hence these villains obtained the name of chauffeurs. Notwithstanding the vigilance of the Police, they still occasionally exercise their cruelties in some of the departments, as may be seen by the proceedings of the criminal tribunals. I have also heard of another species of assassins, who trained blood-hounds to seize a man by the throat in certain solitary places, and then came afterwards, and plundered him at their ease. When apprehended, they coolly said: "We did not kill the man, but found him dead."

As in former times, all sentences passed on criminals, tried in Paris, whether condemned to die or not, are put into execution on the

PLACE DE GRÈVE.

The first sentence executed here was that passed on Marguerite Porette, a female heretic, who was burnt alive in the year 1310.

Among the punishments which it has been found necessary to re-establish is that of marking with a hot iron. Criminals, condemned to imprisonment in irons, are exposed for two hours on a scaffold in the middle of this square. They are seated and tied to a post, having above them a label with the words of their sentence. They are clad in woollen pantaloons and a waistcoat with sleeves, one half of each of which is white; the other, brown. After being exposed two hours, they are stripped, and to their shoulder is applied a hot iron, which there leaves the impression of the letter V, for voleur, thief. Women, not being condemned to imprisonment in irons; are exempt from the penalty of being marked. This punishment is said to produce considerable effect on the culprits, as well as on the spectators. Previously to its being revived, persons convicted of thieving were insolent beyond all endurance.

The Place de GrÈve is a parallelogram, one of the long sides of which is occupied by the ci-devant HÔtel de Ville, a tasteless edifice, begun in 1533, but not finished till 1605.

Before the revolution, the Place de GrÈve was alternately the theatre of punishments and rejoicings. On the same pavement, where scaffolds were erected for the execution of criminals, rose superb edifices for public festivals.

Here, when any criminal of note was to suffer, the occupiers of the adjoining houses made a rich harvest by letting their apartments. Every window that commanded a view of the horrid scene, was then hired at a most exorbitant price. Women of the first rank and fashion, decked in all the luxury of dress, graced even the uppermost stories. These weak-nerved females, who would have fainted at the sight of a spider mangling a fly, stood crowded together, calmly viewing the agonies of an expiring malefactor, who, after having been racked on the wheel, was, perhaps, denied the coup de grace which would, in an instant, have rid him of his miserable existence.

The death of a regicide was a sort of gala to these belles; while the lead was melting over the furnace, the iron pinchers heating in the fire, and the horses disposed for tearing asunder the four quarters of the victim of the laws, some of them amused themselves with an innocent game at cards, in sight of all these terrible preparations, from which a man of ordinary feeling would avert his looks with horror.

How happens it that, in all countries on the continent, ladies flock to these odious spectacles? Every where, I believe, the populace run to behold them; but that a female of superior birth and breeding can deliberately seek so inhuman a gratification is a mystery which I cannot explain, unless, indeed, on the principle of shewing themselves, as well as that of seeing the show.

"Spectatum veniunt, veniunt spectentur ut ipsÆ."