It is believed that the internal programme of the Revolt
is con- tained in some pledges exacted from the representatives of the 14th Arrondissement, which is wholly Red. These are to abolish the conscription ; to suppress distraint upon furniture ; to abolish all privileges ; to make all public functionaries responsible for their acts ; to fill all State offices by competitive examination ; to establish gratuitous and compulsory secular education ; to make law proceedings gratuitous ; to abolish the State Church and take its property ; to supersede all taxes whatever by a single progres- sive impost upon property ; and to abolish prostitution in all its forms. Whether that last demand means the abolition of the status of prostitution in Paris, or the abolition of unchastity, we do not know, but the remainder of the proposals have all been made at different times by English Radicals. The financial proposal is, of course, purely unjust, unless supplemented either by a tax on wages or by a heavy excise on tobacco and wine. Note that there is no hint of assignats or of menace to the Debt.
