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From Holer oft’s travels in France. PARISIAN SUICIDE. % There is a place in Paris lit tle known to foreigners, and, it range to fay, became so fami liar as to be lirrle noticed by the natives, called la Margu; ; its dimensions are final!, its situa tion is in 3 court, tip a gate ; nearly opposite le Pontau Change , and beside where the prison cal led le Grand Chatelct flood ; and it has a door with an iron gra ting through which perlons may look, who are brought there by curioficy, or by the sudden ab sence of their friends, or relati ons, for which they cannot ac count. ‘ Should a Granger accident al) v patting, and feeing, as he probably would, people go and peep through this gate into the park chamber, or rather hole, and be tempted by curiosity to look himfeif, before his eyes could discover the objeft of search, the stench ifluing from the place would l’nftantly drive him back. Should he then im itate others who come and put a handkerchief to his mouth, that he might look more steadi ly, he would fee—what ?—one, two, or it may be more dead bodies. But would he fee such every day ? With very few exceptions h j would. I never looked thro* tics gT‘ r :ng but once : it was m >re 1 jin enough: however, wh n I patted that way I never fin! and to enquire, and never like wife but once found it emp • . The last time but one that 1 was there three dead bodies where exposed: a husband, wife, and child ; and the last time I law this dismal cell there were four. On this visit I purpoftly fell into converfafion with the man who told me the number then in the cell. “ Pray Sir, do you often com? to this place ?” “ Yes, Sir: 1 have lived in .the neighborhood three and twenty years, and except when 1 was ill, have scarcely milled a day.” <f And have you found the cell often empty ?” “ No : very rarely indeed.’* c< Once a week perhaps!” “ Not as I fnould think twice a month, upon an average.— I never remember to have seen it two days lucceflively vacant.” “ Do you imagine dead bo dies were as frequently brought before the revolution as they have been lince ?” “ Much the lame : I cannot fa\ that I perceive any difference.” Desirous of obtaining authen tic information on liich a fubjeft, 1 made many enquiries, and was informed it could only be accu rately procured at the Bureau of the secret police, and to this I had no means of gaining admission. I then appiitd to a man, who told me he could cafuy make an acquaintance with the concierge, or keeper of the cell, at the cheap ex pence of a bottle of wine, lie was accordingly em ploy'd, and allured me the con cierge had let him fee his book ; and that, in the year VIII. a hundred and thirty dead bodies had been brought! twelve of whom had been aflaflinated ; & in the year IX. a hundred and ninety, eleven of them aflfaflina ted. I place but little confidence in this man’s information, know ing him to be wholly void of principles ; but a gentleman on whose honor I can depend, and who was once high in office un der the minister of police, told me that within the last ten months, there had been a hun dred and ninety-three filicides in the department, and about the fame number in the metro polis i that upwa’rds of seven hundred murders had been com mitted within the fame period of time ; that efFcfts to the value of about a million of livers, lit tle short of forty-two thousand pounds sterling, and nearly the lame loss had been sustained by fire, that is in rhe department. Including all France, he estima ted the number of filicides at from two to three per day, or five in two days. I must not here omit to men tion, that it was with difficulty, that is, it was with the trouble of going myfelf or of fending a voucher with the servant, that I obtained aquafortis, of which I was in want from an apotheca ry ttiop. Suicide, and I fear murder, by poison, has been so frequent, that the ftrifteft injunc tions are ifiued not to fell any drugs that can give sudden death. Os the filicides which were thus daily happening in France, who daily read the journals law, during my whole ftav, only two mentioned, and thele I was lur prifed to fee. One was an of ficer of the army, who pistoled himfeif at the public audience of the war minister and the ether of a poor wretch, who, the moment before he threw himfeif from the upper story of one of their high houses, in mer cy to the paflengers called aloud gare /’ eau ! the phrase used by Parisians when they throw wa ter out of a window. I was told of another silicide of the fame kind, and with the fame humane caution while I was in Paris. I likewise law the body of a man borne through the street, where we lived, on abier, who after having breakfafted at a hut in less Champs Elysees put an end to his existence. Before the aft, he told the people he had been a subaltern officer of a re giment then reduced, and that all means of procuring a liveli hood were loft. But the moft customary mode of silicide is that of drowning. A public journal complained that modern improvements had robbed fome of the bridges of the houses which formerly were the guards of public fafety, for they prevented people from drowning thcmfelves ! I heard of fcveral of these deaths at the time that they hap pened. One day as I was pas sing the pout r.euf, the people were ftiii aflembled, who had teen a woman throw herfelf into the river from the bridge. Another woman in company with her hufbind, who reproach ed her for her ill conduft, and enreatened divorce, disposed of herLU in the fame manner.— A third was a young girl for love, probably deferred by her feduccr. . The women of France are warm in their affieftions : &, were they at firft well educated, and afterwards hcneftly dealt with by the men, must become chaste and amiable wives; but thele are conditions that will not suddenly be fulfilled. The perlon, whom I had met and conversed with a la Morgue , told me he had a few days be fore seen an old man take the fame leap : the body was found after no long fe irch ; but either the people were ignorant of the means, or he was past recovery. A much more Angular trage dy still was afted, of which I had account from the gentleman be fore mentioned who was once of the police. Nine conscripts who had for a time concealed themselves, but who were at last difcoveredi being determin ed not to lerve, encouraged each other rather to die, and volun* tarily ended life together by drowning. I was present at two moft painful feenes, produced by the frequency of this practice. I was patting le Pent les Thuil levies after dark, and law a man surrounded by other men : they had deterred him on the bridge from jumping over, but they could not prevail on him to go home, or to tell his name. He appeared to be determined in his purpose : the only resource they had was, at last, to commit him to the guard ; but, unless hts state of mind could be alter ed, fafety like this was merely temporary. Another evening, on the fame bridge, and about the fame hour, a woman Handing near the centre parapet attracted my at tendon by her look, and in the manner in which Ihe seemed to be examining the river. I Hop ped j she desisted, but did not remove. I was uncertain what her intentions might be, and she appeared to shun notice. Two other paflengers, guefling my doubts, halted ; but either their fears are not so strong as mine, or their patience was less, they staid a few minutes and went. — I felt as if I did not dare to go, yet could not decide how to ad, from the fear of doing wrong. At length, the woman moved towards the end of the bridge, and I was obliged to It ave her to her fate. 1 was not certain her intentions were ill: to have charged her with such, might deeply have insulted her.—l walked home, however, in a moft diflatisfied state of mind : at one minute proving to myfelf I could not aft otherwise, and at another making felf accufa tio.ns, for having deferred the duties of humanity. There is a doubt concerning bodies found in the Seine which I cannot forbear to mention, but do not know how to refSlve: it Is, liow many of these victims have been felf-devoted ; and new ma ny have fallen by the crime of murder ? I leldom was cut late in the streets of Paris i and whtm I happened so to be, a few very great thorough fares excepted, I found them enjoying fome thing like the peace of a dtfi rc: often there was neither fuldier nor lidng creatuics m fight, and of watchmen, they have none. The gentleman who informed me of the number of murders that had happened in the depart ments within ten months, which number was inordinately great, aflerted that the streets of Paris are as fafe at midnight as at noon day j But how do these accounts accord ? Beside, streets are not the only places in which men can be afluflinated. I have heard cries in the streets where we lived, several times in the night. In the history of thieves, I doubt if any equal can be found to Cartouch Manderin, and ma ny others who have been the terror of Paris and of France, or the numerous and attrocious murders they have committed. I have also seen too many proofs of the little refpeft here, in which the life of many is held. There are fufficient doubts to excite research j but who fliaii gain a single glance at the regis ters of the secret police ? The knowledge that such a police ex ists is enough to raise Suspicion, -—O’ 11UMANITY TO ANIMAIrf. From Southey j travels )n Spain* I will relate to you a circum stance which occurred at Abo in Finland. You will admire the despotic just ice of the ma gistrates. A dog, who had been run over by a carriage, crawled to rhe door of a tanner in that town ; the man’s son, a boy of fifteen years of age, firft stoned and then poured a vessel of boil ing water upon the miserable animal. This aft of diabolical cruelty was witnefled by one of the magistrates, who thought that such barbarity deserved to be publicly noticed. He there fore informed the other magis trates, who unanimoully agreed in condemning the boy to rhis puni foment; He was imprifen- , ed till the following market day; then in the presence of all the people, he was conducted to the place of execution by an officer of justice, who read to him his sentence. “ Inhuman young man, because you did not afiift an animal who implored your assistance by its cries, and who derive his being from the fame God who gave you life, because you added to the tortures of the agonizing beast, and murdered it, the council of this city have sentenced you to wear on your breast the name you deserve, and to receive fifty stripes.” tie then hung a black board round his neck with this infeription; “ A savage and inhuman young man !” and after infiifting on him twenty-five stripes, lie pro ceeded; “ inhuman young man you have now felt a very fmali degree of the pain with which you tortured a helpless animal in irs hour of death !—As you wifti for mercy from that god who created all that live, learn humanity for the future.” He then executed the remainder of the sentence, ‘'-j'V-” s A Dutchman and his wife fra veiling, fat down by the road, ex ceedingly fatigued. The wifefgh ed, I wish I was in Heaven — To: husband replied I wifti I was in a tavern. Ob, you rc?ue, fays doe* you always want to be in the best place.