Note 365 — Chapter II
Henry P. (Henry Pomeroy) Horton translation
Another part of the vagrant body is made up of children who are either illegitimate or orphans, or deserted by their parents, or forced by bad treatment to run away from home. Tomel and Rollet mention the following typical case. A girl of 16 was charged with vagrancy, and made this heart-rending statement of her case before the tribunal: “I went on Friday to find the police commissioner of the ward; I told him that I had been without a lodging place for 15 days, and that I had not eaten for 48 hours. I was employed at the house of a wine merchant, who, when my mother died three years ago, took me as a servant (at 13 years of age) at two sous a day as wages. But my employer failed, his shop was closed, and I had to go out and wander in search of work without finding anything. My father, sentenced to hard labor for life, died in New Caledonia. I have no longer any mother, and since I did not wish to imitate my grown-up sister, who leads a bad life, I preferred to get myself arrested.”365