Chapter 153: Chapter 153

VI A Bit of History At the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the action of this book takes place, there was not, as there is today, a policeman at the corner of every street (a benefit which there is no time to discuss here); stray children abounded in Paris. The statistics give an average of two hundred and sixty homeless children picked up annually at that period, by the police patrols, in unenclosed lands, in houses in process of construction, and under the arches of the brid…