A return has been presented to the French Chamber of
Depu- ties of the numbers of persons under religious vows, which appears to dispose finally of the assertion that the exemption of clerics from military service interferes with the conscription. There are 45,000 ecclesiastics in the pay of the State, and -30,300 "religious," belonging to the Orders, authorised and unauthorised, or engaged in the work of education. The total is 78,000, and as they take vows for life, the clerics require a supply of about 2,600 men per annum to keep up their numbers, less than a single regiment. The large numbers of "religious," so often quoted as reaching a quarter of a million, in- clude 170,000 women, who are not, as yet, liable to military service. The exaggerated popular impression on the subject has been the result partly of declamation, and partly of the well-known illu- sion which induces men to exaggerate the numbers of very visible persons. A very few soldiers in uniform, if scattered, produce an impression of multitude, and the white men in an Asiatic city can never be induced to believe how few they are.
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