Paris under the second empire furnished innumerable curious subjects for study, and one of the most singular of them which early attracted my attention was the numerous odd ways its more indigent inhabitants had of getting a living. I was first led to interest myself in this strange phase of Parisian life by the reports of some eminent statisticians who had made the social condition of the capital their study, and had come to the astonishing conclusion that every day upwards of five per cent. of the population neither knew how to procure a meal nor where they would sleep at night, and yet nearly the whole of them contrived to fare, after a fashion, before the day was over. “How,” it may be asked, “did they manage?” With many this was their own secret, and too frequently a terrible one, divulged only before the police tribunals. Of those who got their living honestly, though none the less precariously, there were many thousands, the mere names of whose pursuits were known to few beside themselves. Even when you heard them you were scarcely the wiser, and had to ask for an explanation, which the chances were you would not comprehend, until more precise details were furnished.