lower orders. What must we then expect, when winter comes on, and when, by the interruption of labour, misery will add to her numbers? For, in spite of the assertions of some persons about the king, who are desirous of remaining in ignorance of all that passes around them, misery will engender crime; and misery in a society which is ill combined, is not a scourge from which we can always shield ourselves, even when indefatigably industrious. The moralists of a time when the population was secure, might have been able to assert, that the idle only are liable to die of hunger; but now all is changed, and if we make observations, we shall soon be convinced, not only that there is not employment sufficient for everybody, but, moreover, that the pay for certain labour is not sufficient to satisfy the first demands of nature. If circumstances occur as severe as many anticipate, when trade is languishing, so that industry is exerted vainly in seeking a market for its productions, and that she is impoverished in proportion as she creates, how can so great an evil be remedied? Certainly, it is better to support the necessitous than to think of repressing their despair; but in the impossibility of doing better, and the crisis so near at hand, is it not adviseable, in the first instance, to strengthen the arms of public order? And what guard is preferable to the continual presence of the civic body, who watch and act perpetually under the auspices of legality and honour? Shall we substitute for an institution so noble, so admirable, a changeable police, whose numbers can be extended or curtailed at pleasure? Or, shall we have a legion of agents, who will be discharged the moment they are thought past service? It is generally known that the police of safety is recruited even at the present time from the prisons and Bagnes, which are a sort of preparatory school for spies on robbers, and the nursery whence they must be drawn. Employ these people in numbers, and seek to send them back again when they have acquired the know-
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