Street Police.—Cleaning Beds.—Tinning Kettles.—Building Houses.—Loading Carts.—Preparing for the Scavenger.—Want of Drains.—Bad Pavement.—Darkness.

My last letter was of the Tuileries Gardens; a theme which furnished me so many subjects of admiration, that I think, if only for the sake of variety, I will let the smelfungus vein prevail to-day. Such, then, being my humour,—or my ill-humour, if you will,—I shall indulge it by telling you what I think of the street-police of Paris.

I will not tell you that it is bad, for that, I doubt not, many others may have done before me; but I will tell you that I consider it as something wonderful, mysterious, incomprehensible, and perfectly astonishing.

In a city where everything intended to meet the eye is converted into graceful ornament; where the shops and coffee-houses have the air of fairy palaces, and the markets show fountains wherein the daintiest naÏads might delight to bathe;—in such a city as this, where the women look too delicate to belong wholly to earth, and the men too watchful and observant to suffer the winds of heaven to visit them too roughly;—in such a city as this, you are shocked and disgusted at every step you take, or at every gyration that the wheels of your chariot can make, by sights and smells that may not be described.

Every day brings my astonishment on this subject to a higher pitch than the one which preceded it; for every day brings with it fresh conviction that a very considerable portion of the enjoyment of life is altogether destroyed in Paris by the neglect or omission of such a degree of municipal interference as might secure the most elegant people in the world from the loathsome disgust occasioned by the perpetual outrage of common decency in their streets.

On this branch of the subject it is impossible to say more; but there are other points on which the neglect of street-police is as plainly, though less disgustingly, apparent; and some of these I will enumerate for your information, as they may be described without impropriety; but when they are looked at in conjunction with the passion for graceful decoration, so decidedly a characteristic of the French people, they offer to our observation an incongruity so violent, as to puzzle in no ordinary degree whoever may wish to explain it.

You cannot at this season pass through any street in Paris, however pre-eminently fashionable from its situation, or however distinguished by the elegance of those who frequent it, without being frequently obliged to turn aside, that you may not run against two or more women covered with dust, and probably with vermin, who are busily employed in pulling their flock mattresses to pieces in the street. There they stand or sit, caring for nobody, but combing, turning, and shaking the wool upon all comers and goers; and, finally, occupying the space round which many thousand passengers are obliged to make what is always an inconvenient, and sometimes a very dirty dÉtour, by poking the material, cleared from the filth, which has passed into the throats of the gentlemen and ladies of Paris, back again into its checked repository.

I have within this half-hour passed from the Italian Boulevard by the Opera-house, in the front of which this obscene and loathsome operation was being performed by a solitary old crone, who will doubtless occupy the place she has chosen during the whole day, and carry away her bed just in time to permit the Duke of Orleans to step from his carriage into the Opera without tumbling over it, but certainly not in time to prevent his having a great chance of receiving as he passes some portion of the various animate and inanimate superfluities which for so many hours she has been scattering to the air.

A few days ago I saw a well-dressed gentleman receive a severe contusion on the head, and the most overwhelming destruction to the neatness of his attire, in consequence of a fall occasioned by his foot getting entangled in the apparatus of a street-working tinker, who had his charcoal fire, bellows, melting-pot, and all other things necessary for carrying on the tinning trade in a small way, spread forth on the pavement of the Rue de Provence.

When the accident happened, many persons were passing, all of whom seemed to take a very obliging degree of interest in the misfortune of the fallen gentleman; but not a syllable either of remonstrance or remark was uttered concerning the invasion of the highway by the tinker; nor did that wandering individual himself appear to think any apology called for, or any change in the arrangement of his various chattels necessary.

Whenever a house is to be built or repaired in London, the first thing done is to surround the premises with a high paling, that shall prevent any of the operations that are going on within it from annoying in any way the public in the street. The next thing is to arrange a footpath round this paling, carefully protected by posts and rails, so that this unavoidable invasion of the ordinary foot-path may be productive of as little inconvenience as possible.

Were you to pass a spot in Paris under similar circumstances, you would fancy that some tremendous accident—a fire, perhaps, or the falling in of a roof—had occasioned a degree of difficulty and confusion to the passengers which it was impossible to suppose could be suffered to remain an hour unremedied: but it is, on the contrary, permitted to continue, to the torment and danger of daily thousands, for months together, without the slightest notice or objection on the part of the municipal authorities. If a cart be loading or unloading in the street, it is permitted to take and keep a position the most inconvenient, in utter disregard of any danger or delay which it may and must occasion to the carriages and foot-passengers who have to travel round it.

Nuisances and abominations of all sorts are without scruple committed to the street at any hour of the day or night, to await the morning visit of the scavenger to remove them: and happy indeed is it for the humble pedestrian if his eye and nose alone suffer from these ejectments; happy, indeed, if he comes not in contact with them, as they make their unceremonious exit from window or door. "Quel bonheur!" is the exclamation if he escapes; but a look, wholly in sorrow and nowise in anger, is the only helpless resource should he be splashed from head to foot.

On the subject of that monstrous barbarism, a gutter in the middle of the streets expressly formed for the reception of filth, which is still permitted to deform the greater portion of this beautiful city, I can only say, that the patient endurance of it by men and women of the year one thousand eight hundred and thirty-five is a mystery difficult to understand.

It really appears to me, that almost the only thing in the world which other men do, but which Frenchmen cannot, is the making of sewers and drains. After an hour or two of very violent rain last week, that part of the Place Louis-Quinze which is near the entrance to the Champs ElysÉes remained covered with water. The Board of Works having waited for a day or two to see what would happen, and finding that the muddy lake did not disappear, commanded the assistance of twenty-six able-bodied labourers, who set about digging just such a channel as little boys amuse themselves by making beside a pond. By this well-imagined engineering exploit, the stagnant water was at length conducted to the nearest gutter; the pickaxes were shouldered, and an open muddy channel left to adorn this magnificent area, which, were a little finishing bestowed upon it, would probably be the finest point that any city in the world could boast.

Perhaps it will hardly be fair to set it amongst my complaints against the streets of Paris, that they have not yet adopted our last and most luxurious improvement. I cannot but observe, however, that having passed some weeks here, I feel that the Macadamised streets of London ought to become the subject of a metropolitan jubilee among us. The exceeding noise of Paris, proceeding either from the uneven structure of the pavement, or from the defective construction of wheels and springs, is so violent and incessant as to appear like the effect of one great continuous cause,—a sort of demon torment, which it must require great length of use to enable one to endure without suffering. Were a cure for this sought in the Macadamising of the streets, an additional advantage, by the bye, would be obtained, from the difficulties it would throw in the way of the future heroes of a barricade.

There is another defect, however, and one much more easily remedied, which may fairly, I think, come under the head of defective street-police. This is the profound darkness of every part of the city in which there are not shops illuminated by the owners of them with gas. This is done so brilliantly on the Boulevards by the cafÉs and restaurans, that the dim old-fashioned lamp suspended at long intervals across the pavÉ is forgotten. But no sooner is this region of light and gaiety left, than you seem to plunge into outer darkness; and there is not a little country town in England which is not incomparably better lighted than any street in Paris which depends for its illumination upon the public regulations of the city.

As it is evident that gas-pipes must be actually laid in all directions in order to supply the individuals who employ it in their houses, I could in no way understand why these most dismal rÉverbÈres, with their dingy oil, were to be made use of in preference to the beautiful light which almost outblazes that of the sun; but I am told that some unexpired contract between Paris and her lamplighters is the cause of this. Were the convenience of the public as sedulously studied in France as in England, not all the claims of all the lamplighters in the world, let it cost what it might to content them, would keep her citizens groping in darkness when it was so very easy to give them light.

But not to dwell ungratefully upon the grievances which certainly disfigure this city of delight, I will not multiply instances; yet I am sure I may assert, without fear of contradiction or reproach, that such a street-police as that of London would be one of the greatest civic blessings that King Philippe could possibly bestow upon his "belle ville de Paris."