.

-- Double Treachery.
The state of the country at this period of our narrative was, indeed, singularly gloomy and miserable.

Some improvement, however, had taken place in the statistics of disease; but the destitution was still so sharp and terrible, that there was very little diminution of the tumults which still prevailed.

Indeed the rioting, in some districts, had risen to a frightful extent.

The cry of the people was, for either bread or work; and to still, if possible, this woeful clamor, local committees, by large subscriptions, aided, in some cases, by loans from government, contrived to find them employment on useful public works.