Note 8 — I. Infamy as known to the Law and Secret Infamy; Panders and Courtesans.

I shall better still define the respective condition of the Mussulman and French morals and laws by recalling to recollection that Emir who went about Paris displaying, in a triumphal manner, two girls under age purchased under the title of wives. If we take the oneness and the sacred nature of our indissoluble marriage-institution as the measure of this outrage on the dignity of humanity, we see in it a defiance to our civilisation. It is, nevertheless, a fact that Abdel Kader could have been supplied with human flesh on the Parisian market on much easier terms; if he repudiates his Circassians, he must provide for them, while he would have been free, on his departure, to turn Parisians out into the street. In the investigation of our scandalous morals, we shall meet, among our officials, with types of degradation which would make the Grand Chief Mussulman blush. If, therefore, from our lawful monogamy to the Arab polygamy, the distance from heaven to earth be measured, there is between our irresponsible profligacy and that polygamy all the interval from earth to hell. Before our time the children born in the harem belonged to the father; in our time, those born out of it belong to the mother. The economical results of this state of things, in a country where woman has no means of support, can be calculated.