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    260 EKOM PARES.

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    - No. Ii. I Came Here For The Express Pu...

    The Salpetriere is a small town in itself . The porter at tlie gate told me that he had once walked round a fortified provincial town

    in seven minutes , adding with a shrug that he should he very sorry to have to walk round the Salpetriere in anything like that time .

    This asylum was founded in 165 6 , when the civil wars under Le Grand Monarque had drawn an immense number of indigent people

    to Paris : the original building had previously been a saltpetre manufactory , whence its name . In 1662 from nine to ten thousand

    paupers were admitted here . There are now forty-five different buildings and a large church . About half of the establishment is devoted to

    the insane , and this I was not permitted to visit ; but I went over the restor rather I saw a specimen of the wards of each department .

    The , hospital receives firstly the JReposantes , women who have served in this or other public hospitals for thirty yearsand who are over

    sixty years of age . I saw numbers of these old women , truly reposing after a life of honorable laborwith clean and comfortable beds ,

    by in ' well a paid warmed female and official lighted these wards wear , , each black of cap which s to distinguish is superintended them

    from the inmates , and ; have a good and intelligent expression of face .

    Secondly , the hospital receives indigent old women who are upjust wards the of sevent class y and of old afflicted souls with who may incurable be seen maladies any day . collected These are in

    very our miserable workhouses , under the guardianship of pauper nurses as wretched as themselves . Here they are far more kindly and carefar

    full better y watched fed . For , look this cleaner is a charity and better , an asy dressed lum for , and the are aged assuredl only , y and themselves

    not a workhouse , where all ages and both sexes find heaped into one building , under a system , of economical alone repression of

    which should be dealt to the able-bodied pauper . Many the old women in the Salpetriere were spinning ; I was delighted to this quaint and beautiful industrywhose cheerful hum is silenced

    for them see ever a few among sous our a day Eng , lish and poor prevent . The , the wheel awful and dre the ariness distaff of passing procure hav

    hours seen infir and m days paupers and do months in Eng and land year . s In in absolut one war e idleness d I found , as a I most e to

    intelli of Sal an petriere gent English superintendent to learn lady , its Miss systems , Mademoiselle Stuart and , who had had Laumonier actull passed y served , some who thrice spoke time in at each the me

    of its departments in order to , perfect herself more thoroughly . Mademoiselle Laumonier took me to see the " oldest inhabitant" of her Until

    last some ward year , time who she last was had hearty been she and about fell ah in eerful her the business street at the , age , and whatever of broke ninety a that - rib four , was . and , was but year

    morsel broug no longer ht of to walk flesh the . Sal seemed I looked petriere to at , since have the frail when disappeared dried , thoug -up h bod , not but y , bedridden from from which which she every can the with

    vivacious eyes and shrill voice of the French woman still spoke

    260 Ekom Pares.

    260 EKOM PARES .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1860, page 260, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061860/page/44/