Show ThE fi JacqtlEs BonhoffiffiE SkEtchES By MAC RELL Author of Jonathan and His Continent John Bull and His Island John Bulls Daughters Etc Etc A Delightful Series of Articles by the Famous French Critic on the French Peopletheir Characteristics and Modes of Life and Thought Our dear parents in France are fond of telling their children that there are no days so happy in life as school days After I had tasted what school life really was I can well remember that I formed a very poor idea of what awaited me beyond the school pates My opinion is that when French parents have made up their minds to send a boy 10 years old to a lycee till he is 20 they have sentenced him to something very near in severity to ten years penal servitude Winter and summer the French schoolboy school-boy rises at 5 in the morning or rather he is supposed to do so The first bell rings at 5 a m to tell him he is to getup get-up a second one rings at 523 to inform him that in five minutes he must be down and a third bell at 530 enjoins him to leave the dormitory Of course he rises at 525 puts on his clothes with prodigious rapidity gives himself a dry polish a la Squeers with a towel or more often with his knuckles and is quite ready at 530 to go down to the study room From this you will easily infer that a pint of water goes a long way in a dormitory of sixty French boys In the study room under the supervision of an usher called pion and of whom I shall have more to say by and by he prepares his lessons for the professors till 750 Breakfast is ready at 8 Considering what the menu of this repast consists of I have always wondered won-dered how it could take the cook so long to get it ready During the free ten minutes that precede breakfast time a I few boys go and have a wash These goby go-by the name of aristos aristocrats The three meals of the day bear the grand names of breakfast dinner and supper Breakfast consists of a plate of soup and a large piece of bread Most boys keep chocolate or jam or buy some of the porter to eat with their bread At 830 they have to be in their respective respec-tive class rooms with their masters The class lasts two hours after which they return to the study room to prepare until 12 for the afternoon class From I I 12 to 1 they dine and play Both these words would convey to an English mind a meaning that it has not in French The dinner generally consists of stews and vegetables swimming in mysterious sauces The bread is ad libitum When a boy has finished his piece he holds up his hand as a sign he is ready for anther anther other A man holding a basket full of ut loaves is stationed in such a position as will allow him to fill all those pairs of empty hands as fast as they are put up He flings the boys catch it is quite a Jexterous game I assure you If a boy misses the piece intended for him his neighbor not infrequently catches and pockets it partly as a precaution against possiblo pangs of hunger before the next meal partly for the love of disobeying the rules one of which enacts that no food shall be pocketed The drink is called abondance and is made up of a good tablespoonful of wine in a decanter if water As for play it has to take place in amore a-more or less large yard surrounded by high walls very much like a prison walk Not a tree not a blade of grass to be seen a mere graveled yard nothing noth-ing more There the boys walk two by two or In larger groups tho big ones talking politics and smoking cigarettes inside their coats while the usher is at a distance the little ones indulging in a game of top OT marbles in one of the corners At 1 oclock they are to be in their places in the study room till 2 when it is time to go to tho afternoon class which lasts till 4 oclock On leaving the masters to be immediately handed over to the ushers they each receive re-ceive at 4 a piece of bread which they are allowed to eat in the yard with whatever what-ever relish they may possess or wish to buy of the porter They play till 530 when they return to the study room to Jo their lessons for the following day At 8 oclock supper is ready To this like to all their other meals they go two by two after having previously all formed into ranks in the yard The supper con I sists of boiled beef or a course or two of vegetables sometimes an apple or a few cherries according to the season brighten bright-en tho not very festive board In my time cherries were the most popular dessert des-sert after having refreshed the inner boy it provided him with missiles which were turned to good account on the spot when the usher had his back turned For drink the mixture before After this frugal repast the boys repair two by two to their respective dormitories Those who care to indulge in a little washing may do so before going to bed so as to bo clean the following day I say those who care for never will an usher make a remark to a French boy over 12 when ho is no longer under the supervision of a matron because ho is dirty not even in the refectory Provided Pro-vided he has a cravat on nobody will scold him for having a dirty neck If cleanliness is next to godliness the French schoolboy is most ungodly On Thursday ho gets a holidaythat is to say that no class is held but he has to be in the study room the whole morning and evening In the afternoon he goes for a walk Hero again an Englishman Eng-lishman would not understand without some explanation what is meant by the French schoolboys walk The college is divided into big middle and small boy Each division is formed into ranks and thus two by two accompanied by ushers ush-ers the boys r marched through the streets Sil 3 compulsory while in town and the re ks are not to be broken until the little I ttalion has reached the country There they can play walk or sit on the grass under the eyes of the ushers for an hour or two when the ranks are formed again and they are marched back to what I have no hesitation hesita-tion in calling their barracks not to say their prison On Sundays the boy who has his parents or guardian in town is allowed to go home for the day if he Is not kept in for ono of those thousand and ono petty offenses invented at pleasure pleas-ure by the ushers and their supporters On leaving school on Sunday morning morn-ing ho receives an exeat on which the I hour of his departure is marked and the parents are to write on it at what time I he has reached home He has to be back I at school at 10 p m punctually and again his parents have to write on the exeat at what time he left their house He generally returns on Sunday night in a comatose state and the home fare tells sadly on f the work he does on Mondays He gets fewer holidays than the more fortunate British schoolboy two months in the summer two or three days at the beginning of the year and a week or ten days at Easter Such is the happy life that boys lead in French public schools Fortunately there is a great deal of gay philosophy in the French mind and the close friendship that springs up between the schoolboys and their esprit do corps help them to endure this secluded life of hardship and privation Now let us consider the influence this kind of life has on the French boys character what work he does at school and who are the men that look after him Shut in by the high walls of his prison the poor French schoolboy is only too prone to compare himself to the different I classes of society Inch he considers persecuted i per-secuted that is the inferior classes and I he shows his with them sympathy by I adopting the ideas of an ignorant democracy de-mocracy and by often expressing them in language which would be repugnant to his dignity if he were free Poor little fellows When they can evade the porters por-ters vigilance and run across the road to buy a pennyworth of sweets they feel like perfect heroes of romance On their I return their schoolfellows flock round them to sniff a little of the fresh and free air that is brought inside the walls If the young scamps are punished for their escapade they bear it like champions of liberty who have fought for the good cause and are looked up to by their comrades com-rades as martyrs and heroes Under the circumstances it is not surprising sur-prising that they should now and then show a spirit of rebellion Suppose for instance that some privilege which the pupils have long enjoyed and looked upon as their right has been withdrawn I rightly or wrongly no matter which In such a case as this English schoolboys woulu hold a meeting probably presided I over by one of their masters and they would draw up a petition which they would send to the head master But in French schools meetings are prohibited What will tho boys do then As I have described elsewhere they will probably retire to a dormitory there to sulk and I protest They will erect barricades lock the doors victual the intrenchments for a few hours and prepare for a struggle Rebellion has wonderful charms for them they are insurgents therefore they are heroes Dont ask tlem whether their cause is good or bad This matters little it will be sanctified by the revolution revolu-tion the main thing is to play at the sovereign people These hot headed youths will stand a siege as earnestly as if they were defending their native soil against the Prussians Dictionaries inkstands ink-stands boots bedroom furniture such are the missiles that are pressed into service in the glorious battle of libertv But alas for youthful valor It all fades before the pleadings of an empty stomach stom-ach the struggle has to be abandoned the citadel forsaken the arms laid down The misguided ones are received back into the fold to be submitted to stricter discipline than ever the heroic instigators instigat-ors of the little fete are in the end restored re-stored to the tender care of their mammas mam-mas or in other words expelled from the school Corporal punishment is banished from all schools in France If a master were to strike a boy the odds are ten to one that the boy would defend himself and threaten threat-en the master with the first objectinkpot or bookhe could lay his hand on Boys are punished by means of long and weary impositions If boarders they are kept in on Sundays and thus prevented from going home This is a terrible punishment punish-ment When they seem incorrigible they are expelled And for a boy to bo expelled from a French lyceo is no light matter for the doors of all the others are closed to him and the faculties may even refuse to allow him to stand as a candidate for the university degrees His prospect in lifo may be ruined forever for-ever for in France a man who is neither B A por B Sc cannot study medicine or the law he cannot enter the military schools or be a candidate for any of the government posts at homo or abroad Business is the only opening left to him From the time table that I have given at the beginning it will be easily inferred in-ferred that if the French schoolboy plays less than the British one he works much more But wMi what results The classes in French lycees contain from eighty to a hundred boys They are generally composed of some ten pupils of extraordinary capacities or industry of about twenty who follow the lectures with somo profit of twenty more who follow them anyhow and of thirty forty for-ty and even sometimes fifty poor boys neglected forgotten who do and learn nothing and are mere wall flowers They are all promoted by senioritythat premium still given in France to stupidity stupid-ity as M Leon Say once remarked in the French senate I remember schoolfellows school-fellows of eighteen and nineteen in the highest form who did not know their declensions de-clensions Boys may be attentive or not as they pleasethat is their business busi-ness Provided they do not disturb the peace nothing more is required of them in the upper forms They may even go to sleep and the master will seldom take the trouble to wake them up If the boy is not likely to do honor to his teaching he does not think it worth his while to concern himself about him With such largo classes as I have described de-scribed boys cannot and do not receive Individual attention from tho masters who deliver lectures to them but certainly cer-tainly do not give them lessons With the amount of work that clever and industrious in-dustrious boys go through each class turns out at the end of the year at least ten splendid scholars As for the rest you see twenty good average boys twenty twen-ty poor ones and from thirty to fifty hopeless ignoramuses Each class has to go through a course prescribed by the minister of public instruction and no master has a right to read a book with his pupils not even the passage of a book that is not down on the minis n terial programme A professor whO carried car-ried his interest in his pupils the length of introducing a new book in his class would probably have his zeal rewarded with a mastership in tho college of some little out of the way town in France or perhaps in Algeria By this governmental govern-mental system of fuss and intrusion it is not only the talent of the pupil that is stifled but it is also the talent of the master that is hampered What is to be admired in French schools is that the boys get on very well with one another Friendship sprung up at school often lasts a lifetime The boys stick by each other to such a point that rather than tell on an offender of-fender they will all allow themselves to be punished for his offense even though the punishment should amount to the much dreaded detention on Sunday I Tho hero of the French collegien is the top boy of the classnot the quickest runner or the best athlete Theduwce is I the only comrade he despises A boy who has carried off a prize at the great Sorbonne examination is for him tho object ob-ject of an unlimited admiration and he feels inclined to lift his cap when he passes near him The head of the college is called pro viseur He does no teaching He represents repre-sents high authoritythat is to say the government He is a saluting machine He stands in the middle of the quadrangle quad-rangle as the boys proceed to their respective re-spective class rooms All take off their caps as they pass before the mighty potentate po-tentate The proviseur does not know personally more than ten or twenty of the thousand boys trusted to his care The work and discipline of the college are under the supervision of a censor The masters most of whom are exscholars of tho celebrated Ecolo Normale Superi eure are eminpnt men but they never mix with the boys out of school hours They are much respected by their pupils in whom admiration for talent is innate The ushers or pions are mere watchdogs watch-dogs They see that the boys are silent in the study rooms the refectory and the dormitory They are ignorant ill bred outcasts whom the boys despise from the bottom of their hearts When a French boy leaves school at 19 he is supposed to be prepared fora public part IITHE FRENCH AT WAR Interesting Information About the Army and Its Member from the Highest to the Lowest Hunk Jacques Bonhomme does not love his army as John Bull loves his John gives ovations to his soldiers showers decorations on their heads when they return home from a little expedition expedi-tion that will enable him to publish anew a-new map with one more little corner marked in red but if he goes to a public pub-lic place of entertainment and meets a soldier in uniform there away ho hurries hur-ries exclaiming This place is not respectable re-spectable soldiers are admitted In the singular the warrior loses all his prestige Very different are tho feelings of Jacques towards his army Ho loves it in the singular because his boy belong to it every Frenchman has to servo in the army In the plural however it represents authority and he is well aware that the army is ready for use as a police force in case he should ever be tempted to make his voice heard too loudly in demanding de-manding a reform This is why French soldiers in their different garrison towns live a life apart They do not mix with the people and have to put up with Coventry The French army is viewed through many spectacles The Conservatives see in it the preservers of order the Radicals Radi-cals a danger to the liberties of the nation na-tion the League of the Patriot call it the hope of France To the French Mary Jane it is the repository of tender sentiments senti-ments to tho tradesman of the garrison town a source of income Ball giving ladies like it because it provides them with dancers who are as ornamental as useful though the officers uniform is no longer the gorgeous dress it was in my time when a lieutenants full uniform cost from a half to a whole years pay French girls have a deep conviction that no man can make love like a young lieutenant lieu-tenant but papa was always apt to frown on him knowing that this Romeo had generally more gold on his shoulders than in his waistcoat pocket and that according to the army regulations no officer might marry a lady with less than 30000 francs dot But hero comes the regiment Let us open the window and have a look at the Children of France as Beranger called them In front march tho sapeurs with their long bushy bearJs covering their chests Look at ono and you will see them all Sapeurs arc all alike to be able to tell one from another is a proof of marvelous marvel-ous perspicacity Under the empire the sapeurs used to march with large white leather aprons covering their chest and legs hatchets over their shoulders and huge busbies on their heads and they formed an imposing looking body The aprons are now done away with but the hatchets are retained Most of the officers offi-cers orderlies were taken from this part of the regiment and it vas a pleasant sight to see one of these good fellows who are mostly middle aged fatherly looking men with his apron on leading about the children of some married officer offi-cer who made use of him as a dry nurse not so dry either for we still say in France to drink like a sapeur These big kind bearded nurses have always been favorites with their little charges and pare great at telling stories long stores ending in the heroines marrying a general The office of the sapeurs being to precede the regiment and clear away all obstacles that could impede its march tho hatchet was originally ori-ginally a very important part of their accouterment But in these days virgin forests are not plentiful in Europe the high roads are excellent and the colonel prefers to use them so that now the chief utility of the formidable tool is to chop wood to make the pot boil Next come the drummers and buglers How martial they look with their heads high every head turned to the right and every bugle parallel making the air resound re-sound with their fanfares They are very popular with tho soldiers It is the buglers who with their stirring notes cheer the men when they show signs of flagging on a long weary march I haTe seen them at the foot of steep hill tired perhaps with hours of marching Sound the charge says the colonel and immediately as if by magic the limp legs and backs straighten and the column of men step out bravely singing to the notes of tho bugle n y a la goutte a boire lahaut n y aha goutto a boire The summit of the hill reached the goutte is dispensed by the Cantiniere and generally takes the form of a small glass 1 I or brandy which in time of peace bas tie I be paid for at the rate of a penny the glass The bugler has no need to pullout pull-out his purse every trooper is ready te treat him Those of the men who have seen active service can never forget how y those same notes that have just cheered them up the hill nerved them when they had to charge the enemy and know thai 4 J in many a terrible battle when the ene l mys guns did their deadly work too wtU one or two surviving buglers have bravely brave-ly cheered on the diminished ranks to the last and perhaps turned the fortune of battle Nest to the buglers comes the band The appearance of the bandsmen is not particularly martial the uniform is a little bit neglige We are in the presence pres-ence of artistes now 4 Why the trombone should be the oldest old-est member of the band I have never been able to discover but it is a fact that he is nine times out of ten a gray headed head-ed spectacled man with a grave expression expres-sion and three stripes on his sleeves He feel the weight of his re onsibility It is all very well for the clarionet to take lifo lightly if he plays note a little flat it passes in tho general hum of the music withoutany disastrous consequences but a wrong note from the trombone is awful to think of So ho looks neither to right nor left and never loses sight of his majestic ma-jestic instrument As a man who only plays accompaniments the trombone la modest and seems to apologize for the noise ho makes The cornet plays solos and the applause ap-plause he has won from the public in the place darrnes has made him vain Holding ct Hold-ing his instrument in the air he is not only seen and heard but can see the effect ef-fect he produces He is young and good looking waxes his mustache and is a perfect lady killer Cornet players like tenors aro conceited The flute is reserved The habit of casting down his eyes on his tiny instrument instru-ment has made him bashful The clarionet is a picture of misery With head bent down he looks like a plaintive philosopher giving utterance to his sad views of life The masher of the band is tho hautboL His uniform is unimpeachable and more than once the colonel has frowned on him for showing too much white collar He gives private lessons in town sh The ophicleidc is funereal His general expression is one of solemnity The only time his face lights up at all is when he has to play the Prayer of loses asa as-a solo That is his triumph The bandmaster ranks with the quartermaster quar-termaster In his numerous leisure hours he composes variations on the principal airs of William Tell and Xorman thankless task seeing that these airs of Rossini and Bellini are good enough for most people in their original form But it is his pride to see his name on a pro gramme in company with these great ones and so ho works away at his Aire from William Tell arranged deranged by N bandmaster of the Fortysec ond Light Foot Just as every English chemist has composed a special toothpowder tooth-powder every French bandmaster has composed an arrangement of William Tell TellHere Here comes the colonel on horseback He looks sad and careworn No wonder won-der exclaims Jules Noriac three thousand thou-sand men to manage and the variations on William Tell to hear every day at dinner I pass over the lieutenant colonel and the chief of squadron to have the pleasure plea-sure of introducing to you a few subal terns the noncommissioned officers and the French Tommy Atkins who is called Pitou by his compatriots The married officer keeps to himself and does his best to keep his wife at home French susceptibilities in barracks bar-racks especially are soon wounded and he wants to avoid the possibility of quarrels quar-rels that might arise from the dear ladies tattle He does wool work in hln spare moments and looks forward to the time when he will be able to retire on his pension He is a peace loving man In the army matrimony is the grave of glory The serious officer is the one who looks for promotion He is a soldier by profession pro-fession and by vocation He studies tactics and military history and practices prac-tices fencing shooting at targets swimming swim-ming and all athletic sports He has the campaigns of Napoleon at his fingers ends You will always see him poring over snaps lIe studies geography and the German language lie is of opinion that when the French can all speak German Ger-man the Prussians will have a hard time The officer of fortune is the one who has not got anyand runs into debt Givo him a wide berth ho is the bully of the regiment very quick to take offense of-fense and overticklish on the point of honor The officer who has risen from the ranks is very popular with tho soldiers whose wants he knows much better than do the youn lieutenants fresh from the military school His messmates say he is not a gentleman Ho is however a good soldier and a trusty straightforward straightfor-ward man It is true that his manners are not refined He can speak very fair French but prefers bad language and can swear for a quarter of an hour without with-out using the same oath twice I remember during the FrancoPrus sian war I happened to be quartered for a day in an aristocratic household in Lorraine with a lieutenant of this type fr Trembling at the thought of my worthy r friends unruly member I seated myself at our hosts dinner table All went well until tho conversation unluckily fell upon military marches when the lady of the house wanted to know whether the feet did not suffer very much with such a quantity of walking to do everyday every-day in the hot weather Ill tell you what maam said he you must never wash the feet I never do Grease them well with tallow and theyll be all right The lady wished she had not spoken Later on there was a whist party formed in the drawing room and my comrade was asked if he would make a fourth at a little table where three old whist players were already seated ready to enjoy their favorite game With pleasure Im sure said he comfortably installing himself in the empty chaironly I must tell you I never played before The face of the old gentleman opposite as he looked at him over his spectacles was a study The sergeant major is pretentious He will tell you that if he were a civilian he could occupy a position that very few I officers would be able to fill When ho retires to private life he boasts of having been a sergeant major The corporal to be seen in all his glory must be studied when he baa a written report to make to the coloneL He is a good fellow who rules four men I And defies all rules of grammar His spelling is he loves i phonetic yet long words and his reports bristle with such words as nevertheless notwithstanding Hess regarded by his four men as an authority r au-thority on elegant diction A private may ue able to spell but a corporal never l such is the deep rooted belief of all c French officers I was present one day when a corporal came to the doctor with ono of his men who was unfit for the saddle Tho doctor examined him and found him suffering from rheumatism The corporal proceeded to fill up the requisite form for the mans admission to the nearest military hospital Can you spell rheumatism corporal said the doctor I think I can doctor thank you replied > re-plied he saluting That corporal was Louis Coetloyon ono of the leading journalists of Paris who had volunteered soon after the outbreak out-break of the war We had a good laugh over the incident when I told the doctor of his blunder What business has he to be a corporal If he can spell exclaimed the surgeon who was a little bit sorry for what had happened Pitou serves his country for the modest mod-est sum of two sous a day Ho receives one sou cash and the other is placed to his credit until his term of service is over when ho is presented with a sum representing as many sous plus interest as he has spent days in the army Of course his pay is not often his only source of revenue Many soldiers work at some trade inside the barrack and those who come from the middle classes Are well supplied with pocket money from home even the peasants son is sure to receive a little help every month He rises at 5 in the morning and as thee is no food served before 8 he goes straight to the canteen and has his petit verro a tablespoonful of brandy He tosses it at one draught drains the dregs out in his palms and touches up his hair with it Great fraternity prevails in the barracks bar-racks If there are any empty pockets their owners are not allowed to go short He who received a little post office order yesterday is always ready to pay The poor fellow who has nothing but his sou a day is never left out either and not one of his comrades who treat him would think of alluding to his inability to return re-turn their kindness Ho is drilled eight hours a day At 8 a m and 4 p m he has his gamello containing a piece of beef cooked and served in a good thick soup of vegetables This savory and nourishing repast is eaten with bread And forms his only food in time of peace How often during the war when the officers dinner was but a dream have I relished a dish of this appetizing compound o com-pound brought me by my good orderly I cannot relate here the thousands of i i Jokes that the barracks have furnished and will always furnish to the French comic papers But I cannot refrain from mentioning the curious fact that one finds Hibernianism common among the ranks while not to be found elsewhere In France I remember one bull that Paddy might be proud to have perpetrated perpe-trated Pitou ordered by a corporal to dig a pit and bury a quantity of rubbish from the yard is in trouble He has performed per-formed his task but there is no room in the pit for all the mold which was dugout dug-out to make it so he comes to his corporal cor-poral to ask what he shall do You fool said the corporal magnificently magnifi-cently make the pit larger of course In war time the French soldier is admirable ad-mirable The good humor with which he goes through the greatest hardships is simply wonderful If the provisions Are not at hand he breakfasts off a joke or a song The only thing that puts him out is to get short weight when the rations ra-tions of bread rice coffee sugar and alt are served out He always goes straightway and weighs them to make cure he has his due and if there is a deficiency de-ficiency of the tenth of an ounce he will grumble all day but if his rations are right he is right ready for anything the day may bring merry as a lark His philosophical way of taking the inevitable inevita-ble and putting a good face on personal 7 misfortuue is proverbial At the battle of Worth one of my men had his right band completely shot away by a shell Seeing the poor fellow look at his maimed arm as he was being carried way I went to him and gave him a word of sympathy Ay mon lieutenant ho cried I hall have to learn to make cigarettes with one hand I The whole character of the French soldier sol-dier is there 111 THE WOMEN OF FRANCE A Comprehensive Diverting and Instructive Instruct-ive Description of Her Who Holds Jacques Bonhomino In Leading Strings The national character of the French has greatly altered since the disasters of 1870 and no one need wonder at it They have become more susceptible they are now the most sensitive people on earth The rage for equality is often manifested mani-fested by a ferocious jealousy of those who rise either in literature the fine arts or politics All these are failings that we possessed before the Franco German war but in a much less degree de-gree I greeWhat has not changed fortunately is 1L the character of the French womenI mean especially the women of the people peo-ple Good society is much alike everywhere every-where like hotels it is a question of more or less manners in the former of more or less fleas in the latter Good society so-ciety in France is no exception to the rule No more aro the hotelsfar the contrary But what is there to bo learned learn-ed in what is termed high society except ex-cept gossip from club smoking rooms and from boudoirs which might perhaps per-haps furnish a few pages of Scandalous Chronicle It is the people who preserve the traditions of a country therefore it Is the middle classes the working classes in town and country that the observer must turn to That the French women of the upper r classes are tho leaders of fashion all over 1 tho world everybody knows but I cannot can-not pass them over without dwelling upontho reason why our best men are etill at the feet of our women If I were queen said Mine Recamier one day I would command Mme de etael to talk to mo all day long and a contemporary of this celebrated authoress author-ess relates how ho and some friends of his were driving with her one day and Were suddenly surprised by a violent storm bursting over their heads without their having noticed a sign of its gathering gather-ing so absorbing were the charm and rivacity of her conversation There are plenty of French women of whom similar simi-lar things might be said From tho I A Seventeenth century they have continued 1 to hand down this charming sovereignty of converse Mother bequeathes it to daughter or it is transmitted in the blood and to my mind this is what chiefly distinguishes them from the women wo-men of other countries In spite of telegraph tele-graph and railways in spite of politics which in these days absorb all ranks of French society people still causent in France and this thanks to French women wo-men Excuse me for using the word causer but you have no equivalent for it in English Chat is perhaps the nearest near-est approach to it but even that fails to render its meaning A causerie is marked mark-ed not only by interest of subject but also by a lightness of tourh which the French language eminently lends itself it-self to Can you imagine a drawing room attractive without the presence of ladies la-dies Have you never noticed that left to themselves the most clever men fall into argumentation that their oratory fails to interest or convince you and that there is a general feeling feel-ing of coldness and restraint But let a woman come in a woman of taste and gayety comes with her conversation conversa-tion becomes animated and attractive It runs gracefully from one subject into another like a butterfly from spray to spray It touches each lightly rises to high thoughts comes to earth again passing from lofty to lowly subject from grave to gay with infinite meanders mean-ders Every one is moved to show himself him-self at his best and draws from his vocabulary vo-cabulary his choicest expressions his happiest reflections surpasses himself and is surprised to find himself inspired as by a muse Just now they were killing kill-ing time now every one is enjoying himself All constraint is gone each one gives free expression to his thoughts In a word just now they were talking now they causent And in taking leave of their hostess they might repeat the expression that a certain courtly abbe of the Eighteenth century used in speak i you cannot guess whether she is the wife of a gentleman or of a small tradesman Notice that she often changes the style of her hair That is because she knows that love lives on trifles and that the best dishes become insipid if they are always al-ways served with the same sauce Even if her stock of clothes is scanty her clever brain and fingers help her to cover its deficiencies by constant little changes With two or three dresses in her possession posses-sion the dear little humbug will make you believe that she has a well filled wardrobe I have often in England heard Frenchwomen French-women called frivolous But this is the height of absurdity and in my quality of Frenchman surely I ought to be as good a judge of the point as the English tourist How can French women who are perhaps of all women in the world the most initiated into the affairs of their husbands be frivolous If frivolity consists con-sists in trying to remain young and attractive at-tractive as long as possible without becoming be-coming ridiculous then the French bour geoise is frivolous If again frivolity consists in making a home cheerful and gay and preventing prevent-ing a husband from being absorbed by the cares of business then she is frivolous frivol-ous But this is nonsense Is she frivolous friv-olous this woman who is the friend and confidante of her husbandwho in important im-portant matters as well as in the smallest small-est has both a consultative and deliberative deliber-ative voice in the household It is she who knows with her economy and good management how to face the danger when from one cause or another the family revenue diminishes it is she who knows with her energy how to ward off ruin from her threshold If this woman were frivolous how could you explain the adoration for the mother which even to the lowest of the low I you find in French children How could this be unless she were the exam I ple of all domestic virtues If a Frenchman French-man of 40 would hesitate to take an important im-portant step in life without first cpnsult i v ai1ii p I i = = BQpQp pd 1 t i Zvi N c n w i a ri mI = = = L1iT s t w t g xr Vail I Ira irr III I II I I I I l l 5 e 7atlp l q h 3 S i S = = GOLDSMITH l COMPANY CLOTHING STORE Ing to a grand dame who had communicated communi-cated to him something of her irresist ible spirit Madame I am but an instrument in-strument on which you have played with skill So much for tho French women of the upper classes Now let us pass on to the different working classes of society There too we find womans sovereignty indisputable indisput-able and the men in leading strings In the French household the woman is queen Her empire over her children is perfect and she leads her husband by the nose He does not complain of this on the contrary he enjoys it and he thinks that after all much worse might happen to him The wife knows all her husbands affairs and when he has a few savings to invest ho does not think it beneath him to ask her advice She knows as well as he the current price of stocks at the Bourse and if he should be seized with a pruriency to embark in speculation she brings to bear all her influence fluence over him to induce him to buy consols or any other government secu rides Call on her husband on business and if he is from homo you will not need to make a second visit on that account she has all the affairs of the firm at her fingers end She is the goddess of economy and order or-der Every little bourgeoise keeps a memorandum memo-randum book in which she writes down all her expenses Nothing is forgotten not even the halfpei ny to the blind beggar beg-gar who plays the flute at the street corner cor-ner The French woman has a genius for cookery and is thoroughly awake to the fact that it is good policy in married lie to see that monsieur ames wen i believe there is a saying in England that the way to a mans heart Is through his stomach but I fancy there are many English women who do not use this pathway path-way as much as they might The politics of matrimony is a science Inborn in our women Let a French woman wo-man be rich or poor she has always the charm of feminality She is always smart always alert and has a little fluttering tering bustling way with her that is bound to keep awake your interest in all she does Sho may be sometimes a little affected but she is never vulgar On Sundays and holidays she dresses still a little more elegantly than usual but she over appears to be in Sunday clothes The middle class French woman is ladylike lady-like not only in her dress but in her speech You will never see her loaded with cheap jewelry this great stamp of vulgarity and when she speaks to you rug ins mother surely It must be that he recognizes in her a wise guide would be mere naivete on my part to dwell longer on this absurd charge of frivolity Take now the shop keeping classes There you will see the wife the active partner of her husband Behold them both as the commercial traveler displays his goods on the counter The wife is supreme Her objections are without appeal her opinion final It is she who generally has charge of the books and the cash box and neither books nor cash were ever intrusted to better guardianship guardian-ship She is not a mere housekeeper with or without wages she is the partner part-ner not merely a sleeping partner This not only enables her to be of great help to her husband but it also enables her if she happens to become a widow to carry on the business without her husband hus-band to be independent and to bring up her children She has not to obtain her living on her husbands death to become a working housekeeper or a nurse she is the mistress of her own house as before be-fore and now the head of the firm In her shop she is most polite but never servile and if you wish her to take you for a gentleman dont keep your hat on while you are engaged with her in a commercial transaction I have still present in my memory the following little anecdote A well dressed man once entered a perfumers per-fumers shop where I was purchasing a pair of gloves Keeping his hat on all the time he addressed the perfumers wife in a most offhand manner But what exasperated the dear woman was that after inquiring about the price of some score of articles he prepared to retire saying He didnt think he wanted anything any-thing I think you do replied the woman who was not to be wholly without a revenge re-venge you want a few lessons in politeness po-liteness at all events It is said that Louis XIV the most haughty and magnificent monarch of modern times used to lift his hat even to the female servants of his court If so no man need think that ho derogates from his dignity by keeping his hat off in a respectable shop when he is served by a woman I might say a word or two on the drawbacks of the influence of women on Frenchmen but there is no doubt that this influence has polished our manners man-ners You cannot obtain a perfect notion of French industry unless you pay a visit I to our peasantry I must say that now the woman ceases to be attractive She does not even attempt to look so Sun burnt halo and hearty behold her dear English tourist that is the fortune of Franco She has a coarse serge gown on and simple snowy cap She is clean and tidy and the personification of industry I do not doubt however that thanks to blessings of gratuitous and compulsory compul-sory education the time will soon come when she will want to imitate the ladies of the town in her habits and dress and that her sons will despise the dear land where they pro born and will all want to be clerks and swagger in town with high stand up collars tight trousers and sticks Thank goodness this sickening spectacle is not yet to be seen in France This good hard working thrifty woman wo-man is the backbone of the country The amount of work she can get through is simply prodigious You will always see her busy either working in her field selling the produce of her little farm In the market place of the nearest town or engaged about her little household Whether she takes her cow to the field or is on her way to town whether she is sitting behind her wares waiting for customers cus-tomers or in a railway station waiting for her train look at her fingers busy on a pair of stockings She does not know what it is to be idle for a single moment She has never left her dear village and for her the world is made up of her three acres and a cow But she has got them and thanks to her frugal habits and splendid management her family can live and thrive on them She is not attractive but she is a picture of health and contentment Shares and bonds may go up or down without disturbing her peace she holds none She trusts her savings to nobody Bankers she thinks company directors and stock brokers may be very respectable respecta-ble persons but when the old stocking is swollen with live franc pieces she rounds off her little family domain and buys a new field something she is quite sure to find in its place when she wakes up in the morning Her daughter coes Jto service and makes a capital servant ser-vant Like her mother she thinks but of one thingsaving her wages She does not get a new hat every month to get photographed in it she puts her money in the savings bank Let me give you an example of her frugality and allow me to take it from a personal recollection My mother has a housemaid who has been with her twentyfive years Not long ago while in France I took aside this old servant I know how devoted you have been to my mother I said to her You are not strong and I daro say you will not wish to go into service again but make yourself easy about this If anything should happen to my mother I shall see that you are comfortable for the rest of your life But I said inquiringly I have no doubt you have something of your own by this time Imagine my surprise when I heard her tell me she had saved over 10000 francs all well invested including one share in the Suez Canal company Since I have mentioned the Suez canal why should I not take the opportunity for trying to explain the uneasiness that was some time ago created in France by the British policy in Egypt You must bear in mind that the Suez canal was not made by big capitalists It was made by the savings bank of France by the old stockings that is to say by the small bourgeois the working people and the servants When we reflect that the riches of France arise from the economy econ-omy imposed upon every French household house-hold by the women I might even say that the Suez canal is the work of the French women This canal is essentially a national enterprise and the least French mechanic will tell you we have made the Suez canaL You will find very few French families possessing as many as ten shares They aro spread all over the country Well let a few unscrupulous journalists jour-nalists attempt to prove to the people peo-ple that the English want to annex or protect Egypt in order to seize on the Suez canal and you will easily imagine the effect What a pity it seems that nations can only talk to other nations through their political press 1 What a pity it is that the British people cannot let their French neighbors know in plain words that they admire them for the gigantio work they have made and that they will never dream of being connected with the Suez canal otherwise than as good customers to help them ret good dividends 1 Continued on page 12 JACQUES BONHO I ThIE I Continued from page 11 These same women of France did something grander than this It was they who redeemed their beloved country coun-try and paid off the Prussian eighteen years ago IVLOVE IN FRANCE All Frenchmen Love Because They Cant Help It Restrictions on Unmarried Young FolksFrench Marriage Customs Cus-toms There is probably no being in whom the bump of amativeness is more developed devel-oped than it is in the Frenchman The poor fellow must love he cannot help it At 12 years of age he is deeply in love with a little girl he has met with her mamma in one of the public gardens of the town and to whom he prettily lifts his hat before beginning a game of ball or hide and seek He does not declare his love In the distance he throws rapturous kisses at her when near he casts down his eyes and looks silly He dreams that his little lady love is being carried off by some miscreant that he comes to her rescue saves her throws himself at her feet and declares himself her slave forever At fifteen he loves a portly matron of some forty summers to whom he sends anonymous verses He loves in silence once more From eighteen to twenty he loves public pub-lic characters Actresses have drawers full of poetical effusions addressed to them by the upper forms of our public schools I At twentywell at twentythe less I we speak of what he loves the better The best excuse that can be advanced in his favor is that his education as I have attempted to explain in another chapter chap-ter does not prepare him for manhood Indeed the French boys change from youth to manhood is like a shooting of rapids He has never known what it is to be free how can he be expected as a rule to make good use of liberty the first time he is thrown into the world The break is sudden a plunge that often threatens a capsize From twenty to twentyfive he seldom marries When ho does he often makes a bad match Ho has noticed a pretty little milliner passing every day at the same place He has admired her by and by he follows her proposes matrimony matri-mony and marries her The parents at first grumble will have nothing to do with the young couple for some time and generally relent on the arrival of the first baby As a rule the Frenchman does not marry before he has reached the age of thirty From thirty to thirtyfive is the age at which he takes the greatf step Old bachelors are net impervious to Cupids darts You often see Frenchmen entering the holy estate for the first time at fifty or sixty Their decided love for good cookery and white linen frequently beguiles them into marrying their cook or laundress These are the brides often led to the altar by retired officers and installed in apartments in some suburb of Paris The Frenchman has his characteristic feature in common with men of all coun tries each time that he loves it is forever for-ever When crossed in love he seldom goes the length of committing suicide He does not go in for such extreme measures meas-ures he generally prefers resorting to lomoeopathy he loves another Like cure like similia pimilibus curantur Flirtation is not a French pastime A few married women may indulge in it but girls whatever may be said to the contrary very seldom do A woman who flirted would pass in France for giddy not to say fast she knows her countrymen too well for that She is aware when she coquettes with them what she is exposing herself to If French girls felt inclined for a little flirtation how could they indulge in it Good heavensl I What would her mother and father say if they saw her taking a walk by herself during the dayif it came to their knowledge that a young man had actually dared to whisper words of love into her ear before he had laid bare his heart and made a clear statement state-ment of his finances to them in the first place Even when he has obtained consent con-sent of the parent and his visits to the house where his fiancee resides are permitted per-mitted the young couple are not allowed to see each other even for a moment without the presence of a third party The pleasant operation familiar to English fish lovers by the term of spooning is absolutely unknown to courtship as practiced in France As soon as two young French people are in love they want to die unless their parents immediately consent to their marriage which is very seldom the case Well to wish to die under these circumstances is a trifle irrational but love and reason seldom go together Of course they never do die They live all the while and are almost inclined to think that in love matters plain sailing is not so sweet or so romantic as obstacles obsta-cles to overcome What lovely letters crossed love suggests to them Letters invariably written at midnightFrench lovers never write by daymidnight when all is in repose around them Letters full of All is known we are lost What will become us Ahl forget for-get me as boon as you can we shall never be each others As for me I shall die of it I know I shall Then you will marry another woman I will pray in heaven for your happiness Perhaps Per-haps now and then you will come to the cemetery and lay a bunch of violets on my tomb You know beloved one that violets are my favorite flowers You wont forget that will you I weep I weep and I weep Farewell And this shiver giving letter how to post it the following day The poor child cannot go out alone Tho housemaid is coaxed and bribed She becomes the confidante confi-dante She posts the letter receives the answer and plays the part of loves messenger Cupid may delight in mystery but this is not business However things come right in time as we shall see presently pres-ently When the Frenchman in love has an opportunity of making a viva voce declaration laration to the rl stress of his heart he generally sets about it in theatrical fashion He goes down on his knee Now a man except he be very young with Irreproachable features can scarcely scarce-ly afford to do this he runs a thousand risks of appearing ridiculous and showing show-ing his little defective points While he is on his feet that small bald spot on the top of his head is not noticeable and then the-n tnTI > Q1tl main attire of the Nine teenth century looks well enough But let a man who is no longer a slim Apollo get down on his knees and pour passionate pas-sionate protestations to a woman with the slightest sense of the ridiculous and I maintain he is running a risk of killing what little tender sentiment she may have for him His face isred or perhaps purple with the unwonted exertion ex-ertion and excitement as he warms to his subject Out of this red face gleam two eyes that show all their white All the time the little demon of observation ob-servation may take inventory of all these blemishes No no a man should not allow a woman to contemplate him in such a servile attitude Ho should not abdicate his dignity in going on his knees to implore favors that the dear fellow is probably destined to pay enough forAll All this puts me in mind of a play of Emile Augier in which an aristocratic lady relates hnv she was saved from a foolish entanglement of her affections by her lover going down on his knees and declaring his passion He had on his nose a little wart which at ordinary times was scarcely noticeable but as the poor fellow grew more and more carried away by his fervor redder and redder grew this innocent little excrescence till at last the comicality of the thing struck her and she could not help bursting burst-ing outlaughing That wart saved me she exclaims to the delight of her lady friends on the stage and of the audience Let us now come to matrimony I have already said that young people in France cannot marry without their parents consent and that at no matter what age However when a man is over twentyfive and a girl over twentyone they may compel their parents to give them that consent This extreme measure is very seldom resorted to for it has to take the form of a summons through a notary but relentless re-lentless parents sometimes wish to receive re-ceive such summonses in order to be able one dav to tell their children in case the match should prove an unhappy one that they wash their hands of it As soon as the young lover is accepted by the girls parents he is received in the family not however on terms of intimacy in-timacy as in England He pays frequent but official visits brings presents to the young lady many of which afford him the opportunity of conveying to her a little billet doux The day before the wedding he brings the corbeillc that is to say a casket containing valuable presents pres-ents of lace jewelry etc The contract of marriage settling money matters is signed before a notary and in the presence pres-ence of the relatives and the most intimate inti-mate friends of the bride and bridegroom bride-groom As a rule they are married by lie mayor of the town on that day The real wedding is a religious ceremony tho takes place the following day in the morning People with a little pretension to style have for many years followed the English Eng-lish fashion of going away for the honeymoon honey-moon as soon as the wedding breakfast is over But twelve or fourteen years ago such was not the practice high and I low spent their wedding day much alike that is to say as the lower middle classes I still do This is how the eventful day is passed The morning is like the proverbial April one all smiles and tears The process of the elaborate toilet is interrupted inter-rupted at every moment by tender embraces em-braces Mamma between the pauses of the petticoats must clasp her dear Fifine in her arms and listen to her assurances that she can never never be so happy as she has been with her dear petite mere at any rate not happier But neither tears nor embraces have hindered the little white robed figure from being decked very effectively At last all are quite ready and the bridegroom having arrived the bridal party sets out for church the bride and her father occupying the first carriage and the bridegroom and his future mo lfermlaw the second The friends follow fol-low and in this order the little procession proces-sion marches up to the altar The service ser-vice is followed by a short address to the happy paira sermon on matrimony by one who knows nothing about it This being duly administered the company proceed to the vestry and no sooner are they there than mamma falls again on the neck of her sweet child and again gives way to her feelings Indeed by this time the event is felt to be a great one all round and one that demands much outlet for the feelings feel-ings Everybody kisses everybody else and there is a general chorus of felicita tions The next item in the programme is the wedding breakfast a simple affair given in the family appartement to the members of the family only If the father ther lives in Paris and his purse will admit ad-mit of the carriages being retained all day the bridal party drive to the Bois do Boulogne Vincennes to pass the afternoon after-noon but this time the young couple are not separatea ana mamma has to hand her daughter over for the first tete t atete with Adolphe It is awful to think of but she has to bear it The most festive part of the days proceedings pro-ceedings comes in the shape of a dinner and bail at a great restaurant To this entertainment acquaintances to the number num-ber of a hundred or two are frequently invited Of course in tho case of a bride taken from a home large enough to admit ad-mit of it this takes place in her parents rooms At midnight when all are engaged en-gaged in the whirl of a waltz Fifine is discreetly led away from the ballroom by her mother and an old lady of standing stand-ing of the family but not before the bridegroom has had a whispered intimation intima-tion of departure from the lips of the lady who is now signed and sealed his motherinlaw This last part of the comedy is the most solemn of all Arrived in the home which is to be her daughters abode henceforth of course the dear soul cannot can-not help feeling moved once more and this time terribly The process of the I mornings toilet is reversed to the same accompaniment of tears and embraces The honor of taking off the garter is claimed by the old lady generally an aunt of the bride Adolphe punctual to the whispered rendezvous given him in the ball room arrives and it is mamma who comes to open the door to him This scene may be more easily imagined than described The moment is awful for all concerned The poor mother throws herself into soninlaws a arms and with all the fervor of her heart exhorts ex-horts him to take care of the treasure she has handed over to him and make her life a bed of roses Andshe goes Adolphe and Fifine are happy at last and now we will take leave of them and wish them long happiness and prosperity pros-perity There is something to be said in favor of all this The ceremony of matrimony is the I prologue to instead of courtship the epi I II I I r F v as Y IiE Ei w k r WiiLP1 p r = c r BUILDINGS OF ISS9 BOARD OF TRADE SECOND SOUTH STREET Now in Course of Erection logue as it not unfrequently is in countries coun-tries where society imposes no restrictions restric-tions upon engaged people VTHE FRENCH AT WORK Gallic Laboring Men and Their Peculiarities Peculiari-ties The Patient Peasant He Is fur Peace and Not Shopkerpers of France French Offlcial Things have greatly changed since that exact and most impartial observer La Bruyere drew the following picture of the French peasantry two hundred years ago You see said he certain wild animals males and females about the land dark livid naked and all burnt with the sun bound to the soil which they dig and stir with unflagging patience They seem to articulate words and when they stand up they show a human hu-man face and indeed they are none other than men at night they retire to their dens where they feed on black bread water and roots They save other men the trouble of sowing digging and reaping and deserve not to lack of that bread which they have grown Today the French peasant lives in his own cottage cultivates his own field and demands nothing beyond peace and fine weather No doubt this cottage of his would appear to an American tourist tour-ist to be lacking of many comforts It is carpetless it is true but it belongs to him and that makes up for many drawbacks draw-backs He is contented and rich like the rest of us not in the things which he possesses but in those which he knows how to do without He is peaceful simple sim-ple sober and laborious His ideal of life is the independence which is the fruit of labor and economy he is satisfied satis-fied with very little in the days of his strength because the prospect of eating his own bread near the door of his own cottage when his strength is gone makes him happy So ho works steadily unceasingly un-ceasingly with a wife who isa true helpmate help-mate He is no fire eater no dreamer of new worlds to conquer The surging passions of great towns are horrible to him He wants to be left alone and cries for peace at the top of his voice So eager is he after this blessing that in 1831 his representatives in parliament upset the first Ferry ministry by a majority ma-jority of 855 to 68 on account of the expedition ex-pedition to Tunis although that expedition expedi-tion had been highly successful from a military point of view In 1882 the Freycinet ministry was defeated on the vote of credit which they asked to enable en-able France to join with England in an armed intervention in Egypt In 1885 the second Ferry ministry was upset by a majority of 800 to 149 on account of the Tonkin expedition So much to show how aggressive the French nation isl The permanently aggressive nations aro the nations where the people are oppressed op-pressed and wretched Militarism is not compatible with national prosperity and happiness The prosperity of the common com-mon people and the use they are learn 0 ing to mate or iioerty are the great facts which will tend to make France a nation I more and more peaceful The French peasant might well express a wish that the government should still improve his position but he is quiet and no government govern-ment thinks of him particularly If he were to make as much noise as the Paris workman he might be listened to The real pretender in France is not the Comte de Paris or Prince Victor Napoleon Napo-leon not the Due dAumale or Prince Jerome the real pretender is the Paris workman If you speak to him of the people it is he and he alone whom he supposes you mean The millions of quiet peasants laborers and other rural toilers he totally ignores he is the sovereign sov-ereign people The Parisian workman is not satisfied with the old cry What is the capitalist Everything What ought he to be Nothing His new cry is What is the workman Nothing What ought he to be Everything A member of the commission appointed by the late French parliament to inquire into the Paris workmans life asked one of them to get up the budget of his family fami-ly expenses After describing minutely all the necessaries the workman putdown put-down For music halls theatresdis tractionsthree hundred francs And on the member of parliament suggesting that the last item might perhaps be reduced re-duced tho Paris workman indignantly retorted Do you think that we are going go-ing to live like brutes The present horse of deputies is all occupied with the question of employer and employed granting one by one all the demands of the latter Nobody seems concerned about the rural population popu-lation by far the most interesting of all How is that Simply because the peasants peas-ants do not hold stormy meetings do not speak of erecting barricades and are quiet peaceful industrious sober and law abiding people The peasant has the sun and if his harvest is destroyed by the frost the hail or the drought it is for him to make the best of it while the Paris workman goes to the music halls smokes cigars and talks politics Suppose the country engages in war the Paris workman assumes a uniform and sings war songs but the peasant sees his land laid waste and his cottage burned down and this is why you will understand under-stand that he feels it his duty to hate the Germans in a theoretical way but hopes and trusts that he may not live to see the day when he or his sons may be called upon to avenge the disasters of the terrible ter-rible year 18iO A great prejudice imposed upon English Eng-lish speaking people on the subject of France and one which I should very much like to destroy is the belief in the importance of our Anarchists This belief be-lief is kept alive by a few journalists who love to fill their columns with the sayings and doings of French Anarchists The Anarchists Well we keep the article as the English and Americans do and they are about as important as theirs France honest economical hard working work-ing ignores them They are no party no power in the state They are nol represented in our parliament I believe that the German Anarchists alone of all the parties owning that generic name in Europe have a true representation in the legislature If the French are industrious they are not so in the same way as the English Eng-lish The French never or very seldom allow themselves to be completely absorbed ab-sorbed by business They always set apart a certain portion of time to the amenities of life They are as serious as you like at work but in a moment they will exhibit any amount of good humor at play and again will resume the harness har-ness as quickly as it was thrown off If you go into a shop at dinner timeI speak now of the small provincial towns you may run the risk of receiving very little attention or even none at all I remember onceit was at St halo in the summerI entered a hatters shop at 1 oclock in the afternoon A well dressed lady like girl came out of the back parlor and inquired whatI wanted I want a straw hat mademoiselle I said Oh thats very awkward just now Is it Well you see she said my brother is at dinner and after a pause of a few seconds she added Would you mind calling again in an hours time Not at all I replied I shall be delighted de-lighted to do so I was not only amused but struck with admiration for the indepe Jenco of that worthy hatter After a few years residence resi-dence in England a little cene of that description was a great treat An hour later I called again The young girl made her second appearance My other waited for you for quite ten minutes she said to me be has gone to the cafe with a friend now I am sorry tor that I said when can I see him If you step across to the cafe I am sure he will be happy to come back and attend to you I thanked the young lady went to the cafe and introduced myself to the hatter hat-ter who was enjoying a cup of coffee and having a game of dominoes with a friend He asked me to allow him to finish the game which of course 1 was only too glad to do and we returned to the shop together Another time I happened to be in a little Norman town Having broken the glass of my watch I inquired who was the best watchmaker in the place It was a M Perrin I was told I made for M Perrins shop The shop was closed and the shutters up Outside was stuck a card on which I readM M and Mme Perrin are out of town they will be back on Tuesday It was Saturday M and Mme Per rin were enjoying a holiday I admired their independence and waited till they returned to have my watch repaired Nobody wants to know the time in Normandy and for three days I did as my happy compatriots In business the Frenchman is probity itself as a rule and his punctuality would almost make an Englishman smile He may rather hamper his commerce com-merce by attention to trifles but when he sells you something you may take it for granted it is what he represents it for he is jealous of his good name as a tradesman or manufacturer and likes to hear compliments of his goods He likes the money made out of them of course but that isnot an absorbing point with him He is satisfied when he has I I made a modest fortune and moves onto on-to make room for another man So that ho has enough to give his never very numerous nu-merous children a sound education and a I good start in life and procure the modest comforts of life he is content I n ana THIS 13 now in ranee you see tno good things of this world more equally divided than in England There are few colossal fortunes but in the provincial towns pauperism is not known as an Inr t stitution which makes up for it I do not hesitate to affirm that not only doe the small French bourgeois not covet A wealth but that he is almost afraid of It < He prefers comfort to luxury He considers con-siders 1500 a year a very snug income When his government securities assure him this sum he knocks off work and prepares to make himself happy and comfortable for the rest of his life You may well imagine how amusing It is to hear sometimes that the good fellow has the reputation of being unmanageable unmanage-able and revolutionary He is so easily manageable that every time we have a new ministry he says to his neighbor I see M SoandSo is made prime minister do you know who he is Not I answers the neighbor I had never heard his name before And both seemed to be concerned about the new ministry about as much as I am concerned about the ministerial crisis in the Sandwich Islands He is sa easily manageable that for peace sake he will endure things that would rouse an Englishman to rebellion He has the good fortune to live under a government that looks after him and sees to all hie little wants which makes and sells him fireproof cigars matches that have struckthat is to say which obstinately obsti-nately refuse to strikeand that keep his public accounts and carries them to l the fourth decimal a luxury which cost him a good fourth of his revenue in personnel per-sonnel and red tape but which saves the treasury at least half a crown per annum an-num The centimes column is guaranteed exact by every government clerk in France and thus it is that Frenchmen get consoled for the little errors which occasionally occur in tho column of the millions The Frenchman is kept Irs order by a legion of civilians in uniform from the prefect down to the omnibus conductor who takes him under his protection pro-tection demands his fare with an air oS command and sets him down at his destination des-tination as if he were a parcel Whatever What-ever his government is he is constantly 1 complaining of it but the dear mam ought to know that nations hive the governments gov-ernments they deserve He generally accuses his administration of doing too much for him Well he is quite right but he does not attempt to do anything himself As a clever writer on French manners said He is taken charge of bag and baggage by the government on his travels and carefully looked after in his domicile as if he were a child The man clothed in government uniform as l suuies that arrogant nottobeques p tioned air which would send an Englishman e English-man into fits r When the English appoint a new government gov-ernment official it is another servant that you add to your household When we French appoint a new government official it is a new master that we give > to ourselves to snub us or to bully us I have an interesting illustration of thisTwo Two young chemists one English the > other French were in partnership In Paris and one day made up their minds + to start afresh in Egypt Each wrote to his consul in Cairo Tho Englishmans letter ran thus DEAR SmI am about to open business busi-ness as a chemist in Cairo Will you be good enough to tell me what are my chances of success in Egypt and what formalities if any I should ha i to comply com-ply with before entering upon the undertaking under-taking Yours truly Jon By return post he received a most polite po-lite letter containing all the detailed information in-formation he wanted The young Frenchman wrote MONSIEUR LE CONSUL GE En LIam LI-am desirous of setting up as a chemist in Cairo Dare I hope that you will spare a few minute of your valuable time to give me such information and advice as you may consider likely to be 1 I of use to me With many apologies for intruding upon you I have the honor to be Monsieur le consul general with 4 greatest respect your most obedient and < humble servant JACQUES This letter was written four years ago The dear fellow is still waiting for that consuls reply Of course his English Eng-lish friend is now established in Cairo comfortable and prosperous doing Ir roaring trade in pills with the new pro teges of her Britannic majesty VIAT PLAY AND AT TABLE Cheerfulness the Secret of French Happl neIIUv Epicures EatAt the Seaside t and the Theatre The French are essentially a happy people Their cheerfulnesswhich strikes the foreigner the moment he sets foot on French soil is due to a sound stomach Dyspepsia is not known in France Light bread generous wine dainty dishes productive pro-ductive of good humor never bolted always eaten in cool apartments or ic the open air with leisure and jocularity there lies the foundation of the French mans happiness From the rich bankers bank-ers mansion in the Champs Elysees to the simple mechanics garret at Belleville Belle-ville business cares are never allowed to interfere with the pleasures of the table See the eyes sparkling with joy as the Ir bottle fills the glasses and the good jf humored rebuke of the host when a lady as most French ladies willknocks the bottle in lifting her glass to prevent its being filled to the brim SapristI madame say that you wont have anymore any-more but for goodness sake dont shake the bottlel Or look how he frowns if he catches a guest in the act of adding water to his pet wine Mix this wine with water My dear fellow its a sacrilege I God will never forgive your There is nothing irreverent In this exclamation He is thoroughly convinced con-vinced that good wine was given to man by God to rejoice his heart and to spoil it by adding water to it is in his eyes nothing short of a sin A Frenchman is very poor indeed who has not in the corner of a cellar a few bottles that ho has carefully tended for years and that he brings upstairs to vclcomo an old friend at his table or cheer a poor neighbor on a sick bed Every year the French bourgeois promotes pro-motes some hundred bottles of wine that has improved by keeping You should see him as he gently opens the door of his cellar and almost walks on tiptoe for fear of shaking the ground With I very little inducement he would take off I his hat he is in his sanctuary All his bottles are sealed and labeled He contemplates con-templates them with a paternal eye It I was he who bottled that wine who corked it sealed it labeled it and laid It down In the driest corner he will point I out to you a dozen of bottles covered with dust and cobwebs Not even his most intimate friend has ever tasted their contents He bought this wine on a the day that a daughter was born to him 1 It will be opened on her wedding day He knows he will require some generous wine to keep up his spirits when he has A to part with his beloved daughter who Is to him as the apple of his eye The pleasures of the table are within the reach of all classes in France The working people are better oil in England than in France but they are not so well fed or so happy They spend their money in superfluities instead of spending it in necessities The English women of this class go in for a lot of cheap finery the French ones go in for sound linen > What the English working classes throwaway throw-away in bones scraps and vegetables would suffice to nourish a poor French family I assure you that with a vegetable soup a stew some cheese or fruit and good bread these people dine remarkably well at two or three pence a head I know of an English lady who one day sent by her cook a boiled chicken to a poor woman of the neighborhood who was sick She sent it in a soup tureen full of the broth The following day she went to see how n her poor patient was doing and how she had enjoyed the chicken Then she learned that the broth had been thrown away the ladies of the place having declared that it was only dirty water For tho upper and well to do classes V there are in Paris a few dozen restaurants f perfect temples of Epicurus Now seethe see-the faithful at work They will tell you that animals feed man eats But they will add the man of intellect alone knows how to eat A littlo walk is taken first to get up the appetite Some will have their glass of absinthe or vermouth and will tell you with the most serious air in the world that without it their appetite would sever come Punctual as the clock when their dinner hour arrives behold them turn into Bignons the liaison Doree or some other well know house and take their seat with the solemnity of an academician who is going to take part In the official reception of anew ly elected < Member of the celebrated academy The waiter presents the bill of fare and discreetly dis-creetly retire = He knows that tho study of the menu is a momentous affair and that thee gentlemen are not going to lightly choose their dishes They must have ample time for reflection UP leaves them in sweet meditation savorIng savor-Ing in advance the long list of dainties for the day This preliminary is one of the plfiasantest features of tho performance S perform-ance something akin to the packing up for a holiday trip Each article on the X bill of fare is discussed with endless com it t mentarics accompanied with knowing 4 F fiance or smack of the tongue By and by the choice is made One takes a hit of paper and pencils the order or-der for the waiter Consomme aux pots O tern and a solo Normande I Pheasant a la Saint Alliance Chateaubriand Teid rest of asparagus a 1amizoao sup Itmes de mauviettcs Grlolons a la Provencaie Meringues a la Vanila Ice cheese dessert The wine question is very soon settled The Frenchman is familiar with the names ni ail his favorite friends Beaune Leoville Chateau Lafitte Chateau Cha-teau Margaux will help the chosen menu to go down Ho will sometimes order a bottle of jenish wine but not without previously satisfying his patriotism by adding These rascally Prussians what beautifully colored wines they growl Two hours at least are spent at table for the whole time of the meal conversation conver-sation goes on unflagging When dinner is over our friends repair to Tortoni the Cafe Riche or the Cafe Napolitain and there sip a cup of fragrant coffee while quietly enjoying a cigar after which not unfrequently a tiny glass of fine champagne or chartreuse is brought in requisition to push down the coffee Then they rise and arm in arm smiling gesticulating they stroll on the boulevards 7 boule-vards or the Champs Elysees delighted with the world at large and with them elves in particular In all their pleasures the French bring to bear a certain amount of artistic feeling feel-ing See the workman when he starts anew a-new penny clay pipe Ele will avoid sitting i or standing in a draught and I will smoke gently to color it neatly so that the black part may be perfectly regular If he spoils it he will throw It away and start another bestowing on it still more care than before Whether he works or plays he will never do anything any-thing clumsy 4 I haw heard English people say that the trench have always an eye for effect ef-fect In such a tone as to imply that this was a blemish in the national character char-acter It is true they have this eye for effect and it is because the feeling for art the love of the beautiful is innate in all classes of the French people So I strong is it in the tradesman for example exam-ple that it would never enter his head to turn out in his trap to go to the races In the stream of carriages that flows through the Bois de Boulogne on race days Even the small bourgeois who takes a cab for the journey goes by another an-other route so as not to spoil the show L He goes by train if he cannot walk ore or-e seats himself with his friends under the trees along the route and enjoys the pretty sight for his artists eye by the file of smart carriages filled with gayly dressed people Not long ago being in a fashionable English health resort I went one morning morn-ing to see a meet The pink coats and well groomed hunters the amazons the hounds all made up a bright tableau pleasant to the eye but there in the midst was a butchers boy on his masters mas-ters nag who had joined the cavalcade and was grinning from ear to ear at the joke of being in itif not of it Now it is not that a French butchers boy would not think himself as good as anybody else On the contrary his pride Is stronger than the English boys and would not allow him to mix with tho swells unless he could be as smart as they This feeling and his natural repugnance re-pugnance to mar in the slightest degree the beauty of the scene are strong in him and he has no taste for horse play the great feature of any English holiday in which the people take part I have often heard that the English take their pleasures sadly I am not pre pared to say that I indorse the opinion but I can affirm that the French have a wonderful capacity for enjoying themselves them-selves They know how to throw off conventional restraints and give themselves them-selves up to pleasure Take the seaside for example What fine opportunities the English seem to throw away there forihoromrh enjoyment On the French I I I > a > > > beaches all the holiday makers form but one big family as it were The children play together without restraint In the evening the children of a larger growth meet at the Casino where by paying a pound a month they can enjoy I en-joy good music not German bands have the use of billiard rooms smoking rooms reading rooms etc and the entree en-tree of frequent balls and soirees All mix and are happy I have seen aristocratic ladies of the most haughty typepeople who in Paris or their country homes would not think of associating with any one outside their own classput in an appearance at these I Casino balls and dance with the first comer who asked them for a waltz or a polka These acquaintances are made for the pleasure of the moment and do not last gentleman takes advantage of such an acquaintance to go and call on the people he meets thus Nay more if he meet elsewhere a lady with whom ho has danced at the seaside he puts her completely at her ease by not showing signs of recognizing her unless she herself her-self makes advances If he behaved otherwise other-wise he would immediately be stamped asan ill bred fellow Of course you run the risk of mixing with people whose society you would not think of frequenting frequent-ing at home but when the French are are out for a holiday they have only one considerationthat of passing the time gayly If the women are attractive and the men agreeable that is all you require re-quire of them for the little time you will be thrown among them The Englishman who passes his time In standing sentry at the door of his dignity is often almost bored to death at the seaside If he have a large family fam-ily things may go very well but imagine imag-ine a man with a wife and daughter in lodgings by the sea If a week of wet weather sets in poor fellow what resources re-sources has he but the local library where the books he would like to read are generally out sirl When he does 1 find one to his taste the pebble stuffed I A Yew woras i must say Dour tne theatre Theatre going is a pleasure not confined to the refined the well to do and the middle classes in France it is a national thing and the humblest enjoy and criticise what they see on the stage as acutely as do the occupants of the stalls and boxes This class will enjoy not only melodramas and farces but psychological plays Victor Hugo relates re-lates that at the funeral of Mile Mars the famous actress he heard men in blouses and with sleeves turned up say very true and very acute things concerning concern-ing the theatre art and poetry I have always enjoyed listening at the door of Parisian theatres to workmen making their remarks on the plays and the actors ac-tors or seeing them make themselves at home in the upper gallery Look at them in the summer with their coats off eating their supper and discussing across the room the merits of the acts they have heard Every Frenchman is an observer of human nature and I know very few countrymen of mine who have not once or twice put on a blouse and a casquette and taken a seat in the upper gallery You will often hear these Paris workmen make very witty remarks I was once present at the performance ofAlexandre Dumas Anthony at theCluny theatre In the last act Mile Duvergier faints and has to be carried away by her lover Mile Duvergier was a stout lady and the actor seemed for a moment to be reflecting re-flecting how he would set about it If you cant manage it cried an occupant of the gallery make two journeys you I foolThe The French are very strict with their actors If a comedians part should consist con-sist of simply having to open the door and say Dinner is served he would be expected by the French public to bean be-an actor The Theatre Francais is not only a great playhouse it is a great school of manners Mothers take their daughters there to see and learn how a I woman should enter a room walk across Let us see how French justices proceed with Frenchmen in trouble When in England a man is arrested and infonaied of the charge brought against him he says Very well you will have to prove it and the inspector at the police station says to him I must caution you against making any statement state-ment in fait anything you say will be used as evidence against you When in France a man Ls accusedsay for instance in-stance of stealing a watchhe is brought before the commissary of police who invariably in-variably says to him You are charged with stealing a watch the best thing you can do is to make a full confession and the judge will be lenient with you If he is guilty and knows that the case is clear against him he immediately makes a clean breast of it and as a rule is qurkly and leniently dealt with But if he is innocent or if guilty he thinks he can get out of the scrape he of course answers You are mistaken I am not guilty and his troubles begin He is sent to prison and the following day is taken before the examining judge called juge dinstruction cot in public but in a private room There this magistrate says to him point blank You say you are not guilty of course If we were to listen to all of you none would be guilty Now enough of that nonsense You are charged with stealing a watch prove that you are innocent Now if the prisoner is guilty it must be difficult for him to prove that he is innocent but for that matter if he is innocent it may be just as difficult If the first comer were to accuse me of having stolen his umbrella um-brella a few days ago I could more easily eas-ily say that I was innocent than prove it So you persist in your denial says the examining judge to the French prisoner very well I will send you back to your prison I hope that next time I send for you you will have reflected re-flected and discovered that the best way to serve your own interests is to make a full confession Now this is evading the law which says that a man arrested 1t = li = Z F H bUU k C E < = c 1 I l ii < y c sr c = fIJlfj I J lkU tr I fi r 1 I c liI j S wti l li ij J III I ri 11 1 iJJ = < 7 icl lii J i iiI I 1 f c j C f KM l I E r w wwI = 1 W ww-I II ° 1IJL 1 z l oo 1jStasy I I I tZ i I II ijWI I I j III I iflf j = i I ih lll < = 1m s adlJ liI I I j I T1t 1 I 1 I I I 1 > > > 1 > II II f4f fil i l I l x ll I JW 1 7 = tt I 11 I i lIIJ U = 41 I u I t L9 v d f q > mj a I 11 1 I > 11111 I rJ2i1 j 1 Ie 11 = V W n w II ii J I < i11 mil I I I i I I t 1lf ll V I f II 1 jr iF IIi II IIP t i ls tyt f lit 1 11 II k 11 111 t fIil L ry H f 11 I li 11 1 K e I tfn 1 I i > I u iln 1 1i I J ii i e r Iij i a I ij Itjl lllJi I j i 3 N t f I I i 1t Itij j II d n rTl + r r I I I Il ll l ° t II > > Ill n i K I r 11 I I I W L I r IllII I r I 1 = rm 1 msi i nl tj1Q liil ill I > 3 I I II L i C 1 11 I II j i t II jji J j II r I I i II Ii r m 1 J li I = = I I o 41 r sank ° t I mreelsI i 111iI11 = n n iiMl IHk wq 6 II 1 < Z = c 1z1 o c 0 < J = c BUILDINGS OF 1SS9ZIONS SAVINGS BANK AND TRUST COMPANY Corner Main and South Temple Streets = sofa or the piece of furniture his landlady land-lady facetiously calls the easy chair are not precisely aids to tho enjoyment of it On the beach he looks around and says to himself that all the people look decent enough but there is no knowing who they may be at home That man over there looks very jolly but alasl perhaps his grandfather kept a shop It is too horrible to think of the risk one may be running by making acquaintance ac-quaintance with him And John Bull retires into his shell French beaches offer a most pretty spectacle My dear countrymen and countrywomen never lose sight of their get up how they are going to look is a matter of first consideration The costumes cos-tumes that she will take to the seaside are talked over for months by the Frenchwoman French-woman But all wear conventional dress this is a habit they do not seem able to throw off No harlequin striped jackets of gaudy colors on the men no economizing of ribbons on the hats of the ladies Tho former greatly favor whjto flannel suits white straw hats white shoes and white umbrellas lined with green Ladies disport themselves in white cottons muslins and crepe de Chine Here and there are wonderful new colors creations of Parisian fancy sporadic apricot dying flea bashful bash-ful frog and others equally true to nature na-ture These eccentric hues are generally made up in eccentric fashion but whatever what-ever the dress is it is worn as only a French woman can wear it A big hat turned down over one earand caught up over the other with rampant knots of ribbon is pretty sure to crown the jaunty jaun-ty little figure and rather spoil its effect rho ideal is to have one or two pounds worth of trimming on a threepenny Zulu In the evening is donned the toilette io bal of lace or muslin and monsieur ilso appears in evening dress accompanied I accom-panied by a yachting cap This is the icme of style the latest utterance the latest spasm of chic Two or three hours ire spent in chatting laughing and dancing danc-ing and all go home having thoroughly enjoyed themselves The limits of this chapter will not admit ad-mit of my entering into every favorite pleasure of the French people I would like to take you to a French soiree and the races at Longchamps or Chantilly But you might object to go to races on a Sunday so it is as well that we should avoid Longchamps 3 w 4 it bow and sit clown now i numu like to detain you over this a great favorite fa-vorite subject of minel I must stop Perhaps I have succeeded in showing that the people of Paris are like the people peo-ple of Athensthey may be a little frivolous friv-olous but they aro intelligent and artistic ar-tistic VIIFRENCH COURTS They Are Xot Much Like English Courts and They Resemble Those of America Still Less President Dupin the greatest French jurisconsult of the century once said If I were accused of having carried off the towers of Notre Dame in my pockets I would run away A more severe criticism upon our judicial procedure could not have been pronounced But is it too severe Could you believe for instance that upon the least suspicion a French magistrate may order on his own responsibilitya responsibility which no one has a right to questiona search or an arrest in any private house He may issue such a warrant upon any presumption pre-sumption uncorroborated UDon oath In trance we give almost unlimited arbitrary powers to a legion of magistrates magis-trates whom we expect to live in a state of independence on a salary of S300 to 500 a year and who are for the most part the failures of our bar I warrant that there are more judges in a French town of 50000 inhabitants than in the whole of England quite as many at all events Judicial reforms have long been demanded by the Democratic party but none have been made and I am bound to say that nothing excites public minds in France less than what passes in the courts of justice When the Frenchman has paid his taxes he thinks the government i govern-ment ought to see that everything is right There are few coun ries as I have said elsewhere in which Democratic Demo-cratic tendencies are more marked than in France In spite of this public opinion opin-ion does not concern itself about judicial proceedings because there is no country in which authority is less respected although al-though strange to say there is not one in which it is more feared and more easily submitted to We seem to accept all forms of tyranny in order to shirk all responsibility Democracy with us chiefly I chief-ly consists in holding up to ridicule a I despotism tho acts of which we to urn approve by holding UD to ridicule the = a who are the victims of it > shall the day after Ins f arrest appear De fore a judge The letter I of the law is carried out but not the spirit for no examination ex-amination takes place and very often no sworn evidence exists The prisoner goes back to jail and the magistrate begins be-gins to get up the case against him If the accusation is of a serious character the man is placed au secret that is to say that not only he cannot communicate communi-cate with his friends much less see them but he cannot even see his counsel receive re-ceive any legal advice How long is he to remain in preliminary imprisonment before being sent to a tribunal This entirely depends on the good pleasure of the examining magistrate who is allowed by the law to keep him a year under examination If at the end of the year the case is not sent for trial the prisoner is discharged I should however hasten to add that as a rule for an ordinary theft or an offense that does not require long investigation the accused undergoes only from two to six months preliminary imprisonment before be-fore he is brought before his judges During that time he is brought once or twice a month to the Palais de Justice to be asked by the judge if he still persist per-sist in his denial These visits to the examining judge are most dreaded by French prisoners especially in Paris They sometimes have six eight hours to wait for their turn in a little dungeon six feet square where they get neither food nor air It is nothing short of torture tor-ture this Inquisitorial examination in private When in the evening the prisoner pris-oner sees his cell again it must look to him like paradise compared to the hole he had to creep into during the day At last one day he receives intimation that his trial will take place But now mark well where the system Is wrong The prosecuting magistrates called the magistrature debout because they prosecute standing and the judging judg-ing magistrates called the magistrature assise because they try cases in a sitting position belong to the same set Indeed In-deed the prosecuting magistrates are in time promoted to be sitting magistrates Tho prosecution is not therefore independent inde-pendent as the defense is The prisoners prison-ers case is settled before he appears in court for both prosecuting and sitting magistrates have held a consultation over It and the speech of the prosecution prosecu-tion is merely delivered for forms sake Continued on page If c JACQUES BONllO lllIE Continued from page 13 Mme bench of the Police Correctionnelle t la composed of three judges so that at least one may be listening when the other two are asleep These men have power to award as much as five years imprisonment and five years police supervision su-pervision Nothing is more prosy than the proceedings of this court of justice unless some waggish prisoner be bent on enlivening them by exhibiting his wit in his answers The following pass of arms fa still fresh in the memory of Parisians Prisoner said the presiding judge one day you say you are not guilty of robbing the prosecutor but he will produce pro-duce three witnesses who saw you in the act of snatching his watch from his per aon Threel Is that all M le President Why I could produce thousands who didnt I remember one man who was accused of stealing geese Although plucked by the prisoner the prosecutor maintained he had recognized them as his own From their consumptive appearance I suppose exclaimed the prisoner who in France can always speak at his trial And how is it you heard nothing when r stole them You ought to know that I geese will make a noise when interfered with Why 51 lo President the prosecutor prose-cutor seems to be a most ignorant manU man-U he had read his Roman history he would know that the geese woke up the Romans one morning by their noise and warned them of the approach of the Gauls The scholarship of the prisoner was not anpreciated by the magistrates who gave him three months imprisonment I was present in the room and I remember remem-ber that the prisoner as he was removed exclaimed The magistrates are as ignorant ig-norant as the prosecutorl One of the most frequent customers of the Police Correctionnelle is the vagrant In France a man is taken up for having no recognized means of subsistence The first time he is convicted of vagrancy he is sentenced to three months imprisonment imprison-ment Whea he comes out of prison he may have five or six francs in his pocket If he has been industrious His position is precisely the same as it was before he went in except tiiat he is now a man who has been to prison and therefore work if he be ever so anxious to get it ia not so easy to obtain He fails to find employment of course and his five or tix francs are soon exhausted in a few days he is taken ap again I quite appreciate the answer once given by a fellow who was for the second sec-ond time charged with vagrancy What are your means of subsistence asked the presiding judge t Why I have lived on them answered an-swered the prisoner This second time besides a term of six months imprisonment the accused has to undergo from two to five years police supervision which means that he must report himself once a week at the police station Considering that by law Paris and the five or six largest towns of France are closed to him it would be just as well and much more human to give him transportation for life at once How is he likely to get employment in a town where he is seen paying his weekly visit to the police station In the large cities he might have had a chance When society in the name of the law deprives a man of his liberty it undertakes under-takes to provide him with the necessaries neces-saries of life but if it discharges him from prison telling him he must provide for himself and at the same time imposes im-poses constraints upon him which make it practically impossible for him to earn aa honest living what is the copse quence Vagrancy brings a condemnation condemna-tion and police supervision police supervision super-vision brings impossibility to obtain Work impossibility to obtain work Jbrin < js vagrancy This is the vicious feircle in which he is virtually enclosed If the proceedings of the Police Cor rectionnLlle dull and prosy those of the court of assizes offer a different sight We are now in a perfect theatre Nothing is wanting but stage boxes and the division of seats into stalls and galleries gal-leries The prisoner himself often forgets for-gets his awful position and thinks of the public who gaze at him He feels like a sort of hero the actor in whom the interest in-terest of the grand spectacular drama concentrates Ladies of the highest society so-ciety flock to the court duly provided j with scent bottles and extra pocket handkerchiefs hand-kerchiefs If as is the case in France nine times out of ten a woman is the cause of the prisoners terrible position they expi ct sensational scenes that would I draw at the Porte St Martin theatre and they are seldom disappointed At last a little bell is rung All are silent and I breathless The accused accompanied by two gendarmes enters the court and sits on a high bench well in view of everybody ev-erybody Then come the three judges with their scarlet gowns followed by the advocate general or public prosecutor prose-cutor All take their seats solemnly The performance is about to begin Prisoner at the bar says the presiding presid-ing judge stand up and give me your name and surname Then the examination I examina-tion of the accused by the judge begins I cannot help thinking that the French I are right in examining the prisoner before be-fore the jury The French eye is remarkably remark-ably quick to detect expression and it seldom fails to understand the movement move-ment of the muscles of the face Emerson Emer-son said he knew an experienced counsel who once said to him that he never i feared the effect upon a jury of a lawyer r who did not believe in his heart that hh client ought to have a verdict Faces 1 never lie Truth tyrannizes over the unwilling un-willing parts of the body No man need li be deceived who will study the changes f of expression When a man speaks the i truth in the spirit of truth his eye ii I clear and steady When he lies his eye la dim and muddy and sometime II asquint the examination ii When prisoners I over the proceedings continue as in England with the evidence of the witnesses wit-nesses the speech of the public prosecutor prose-cutor and the speech of the counsel foi the defense For the last few years the gumming up of the presiding judge hal I been done away with and a good thing too for this summing up used to be 81 second speech for the prosecution Now the jury retire to consider their verdict I In all cases from murder to assault j from forgery to ordinary theft the jury i have to answer the two following questions ques-tions 1 Is the prisoner guilty of the j crime he is charged with 2Are there I extenuating circumstances Take murder I mur-der for instance The law itself make I no distinction between the man who bas committed murder In a moment of pas1 J sion or jealousy and the cold assassin who has long premeditated the death oi his victim to satisfy the basest of cravings crav-ings but humanity does A French jury will always award extenuating ex-tenuating circumstances to a prisoner who may be supposed to have committed murder under the influence of love jealousy jeal-ousy revenge or despair love especially They will not uncommonly acquit man if his character is otherwise irreproachable irreproach-able who has killed an unfaithful wife or her lover Besides the idea of capital capi-tal punishment is abhorrent to the French and the jury will always try to find extenuating circumstances to avoid sending a fellow creature to the guillotine guillo-tine And even when their consciences will not allow them to find these extenuating extenu-ating circumstances they fondly cling to the hope that the president of the republic re-public will commute the sentence of death to one of penal servitude for life No wonder that there should be relatively so few executions in France and now no-w that when one takes place there should be a little excitement over it If the French executed criminals as freely as some of their neighbors do they would in time get used to it and make no fuss ahout it and would thus save some foreign for-eign reporters the trouble of sending to their newspapers sensational accounts of Exciting Scenes at the Scaffold To turn to less somber subjects I should like to say a word or two upon a kind of imprisonment that the republic has almost entirely done away withI mean the imprisonment for press offenses of-fenses Under the empire Republican journalists often got several months imprisonment im-prisonment for writing violent articles against tlw emperor or his ministers There was really nothing very terrible about thesr condemnations except the name of tlu thing At the prison Ste Pelagie special quarters were reserved for such delinquents and they were tolerably tol-erably comfortable quarters too It is true the prisoners door was locked at night by some one else on the outside instead in-stead of by himself on the inside but that was almost the only thing that could recall to him his position All daylong day-long he was free to receive friends from the outer world One would arrive with the latest literary sensation another with the foundation of a good lunch and aright a-right merry time was spent When nothing more exciting offered No 8 could call on No7 in his room and beguile be-guile the hours with a chat or the composition com-position of a newspaper article The director di-rector himself would call and see that ces messieurs were happy and comfortable comfort-able The amusing part of the business was that the populace imagined these poor journalists to be languishing on damp straw and living on bread and water for fighting their battles When the prisoner prison-er came out he was a hero to be worshiped wor-shiped and his sojourn at Ste Pelagie often led to promotion and sometimes to a seat in the house of deputies If it did not procure him this honor it was a powerful pow-erful testimonial in case he ever needed another journalistic post He was always al-ways proud to add at the foot of his list of recommendations Have suffered three months imprisonment at Ste Pelagic Pela-gic Press offenses were tried in a certain department of the Paris correctional police po-lice court called the sixth chamber and republican journalists had this name on the brain One day a journalist friend of mine in search of apartments for himself and his wife entered a house where some were to let Ho applied to the concierge who showed him over the placeYou You see said the concierge there is a drawing room a dining room three bedrooms Well said my friend that makes fie rooms Oh but besides added the man with a smile we have a sixth chamber cham-ber That concierge must have wondered for a long time why the journalist took to his heels so suddenly VIIITHE FRENCH IN ENGLAND Frenchmen Do Not Emigrate Intensively but There Are Some Thirty Thousand of hem In Great Britain Head What They Are Like A Frenchman out of France is very much like a fish out of water Of all the European people the French are those who emigrate the least Their country is large and rich enough to feed them and give them employment the family ties are very close the ambition for great wealth seldom exists and they prefer living on a snug little income in France to acquiring a largo fortune abroad Not one boy is brought up with a view to being sent abroad when he ii i grown up Most Frenchmen whom you meet settled out of France are men whose career was blighted by the political politi-cal events of the last thirty or forty years Since England gave hospitable shelter to the crowd of poor Huguenots who hounded out of their own country after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1C85 came and settled in Spitalfields and created the silk weaving industry ol England the country has seen many aa inrush of French fugitives into her borders bor-ders The chief were those that took place after the coup detat of 1851 and after the overthrow of the Commune in 1871 At the present time there is no country where so many Frenchmen are to be found as England Indeed you find now over thirty thousand Frenchmen French-men settled there and the number is increasing In-creasing every day This colony is not only important by its number but it is i laborious and well united and the English Eng-lish need not begrudge them the hospitality hospi-tality they receie for they are most useful members of the community In twelve years from 1874 to 1880 only two Frenchmen were condemned for acts ol dishonesty committed in England and one of these two was only a passing visitor vis-itor A good many years ago the French residing in England did not know each other and for that matter did not much care to make acquaintance Victor Hugo Louis Blanc Alphonse Esquiros settled on Englands hospitable shores in the early part of the year 1852 With them were a host of Industrious and learned men such as Charles Cassal exmember of the representative assembly assem-bly of 1848 who was soon appointed to r the professorship of French at the London Lon-don university Theodore Karchor one I of the leading journalists of France who I was for thirty years professor of French at the Royal Military academy Valen tin the famous prefect of Strasburg whose prowess during the siege of that town by the Prussians is still engraven on the memory of the French Nadaud Tallandier and many others To these men or rather to their memory for II most of them are cone nowwe French f < < n I residents in England owe a great debt of 1 gratitude They taught the English respect re-spect for France and tho French rw pect for England They helped by their writings to make the people of the two countries understand each other better They were the real engineers of the Channel Chan-nel tunnel as I once heard the late Lord Houghton call them Besides the French Benevolent society and the French hospital there are now I in London and in the provinces many French clubs and associations which prove that the French in England no longer shun one anothers company but on the contrary deck it In these clubs and societies where the French can be seen at home as it were their characteristics come out in full light Gayety and good fellowship reign but temperedif one may say roby the little national ilings jealousy and yearning after elect a titles These societies so-cieties we see are subdivided into sections sec-tions committees commissions etc each having a president a vice president presi-dent a treasurer a retaire rapporteur a secretaire archive and what not For that matter nu wiil never gee half a dozen Fret men inert lound a table for the discussion of anything but a good dinner without appointing one of their number president another vice president etc Each one must have a title and if there are six members and only five titles to be dispensed the one who is left out sends in his resignation and goes about abusing the other five It seems up to now as if the republic had failed to make the French people real republicans We are destitute of the first requisites of a republicanrespect and obedience to elected governors and deference to the voice of the majority Universal suffrage may be absurd I think it is but having chosen to establish estab-lish it we should abide by its decisions whether they concern the government of a society or of a nation I am afraid it is our misfortune to have made a republic re-public before we had made republicans of ourselves However this may be the French societies in England are doing good work especially the society of French teachers whose aim is to improve the teaching of French in England and = = = = = = = 0 = c = c Eii = = = f y = = m E L 4 W I arty jl = wI I r Fll = a t m r yt i I I tl r c r ii p17 wal 1 p r w 1 Y i i It rr A l r 1 t ih gggr Y 1 It lt r t BUILDINGS OF 1SS9 UTAH STOVE AND HARDWARE COMPANY Corner First South and Commercial Streets to help honorable and intelligent compatriots com-patriots Now something about Frenchmen you may come across in England There is a type of Frenchman who after residing ten fifteen twenty years in England cannot speak English He is proud of it and sometimes wonders that with so many Frenchmen in Eng land the English do not all speak French by this time But he will tell you that the English have no aptitude for languages lan-guages Although ho has lived five years in the same apartments could you believe that his landlady still compels him to give his orders in English He receives his paper from France everyday every-day and avoids reading an English one Why should he try to perfect his knowledge knowl-edge of the English language He mows he speaks it badly but he assures you that you require very few words to make yourself understood of the people This worthy Frenchman carries his patriotism to the extent of buying all his clothing in France He would not for the world invest in a cravat or a pair of gloves of English manufacture He declares de-clares it impossible to wear English garments gar-ments and almost impossible to wear out French ones Besides he does not see why he should not give his country the benefit of some of the guineas ho has picked up in England Like every child of France he has tho love of fine linen and in his opinion the article is only toM to-M found on tho other side of the channel chan-nel So he goes about in his narrow brimmed hat and turndown collar fastened fast-ened low in tho neck and finished off with a tiny black tie a large expanse of shirt front and boots with high heels and pointed toes He holds his head high is always smiling and happy looking look-ing Aa he goes along the street he hears people whisper Theres a Frenchmanl But far from objecting to that he rather likes it and I admire him for it He likes the English and recognizes their solid qualities but as he possesses many of his own he keeps to his native stock and never tries to imitate the Englishman English-man either in his habit or his dress If his English vocabulary is of the most limited his knowledge of England is still more so One of this type and a London correspondent of a Parisian paper once wrote to his editor that Lord Salisbury yesterday kissed the queens hands on his appointment as leader of her majestys opposition Another remarked that English boys are more respectful to their fathers than French ones and to prove J H 4 Cr k ur it he added In the hntrlish upper i classes the son invariably calls his father I governor a word which is pronounced guvnor If the dear fellow speaks bad I English he will never admit that there are in England a good many Frenchmen who write and speak very good English Then there is the Frenchman whose great ambition is to be thought English He frequents only English people gives his fellow countrymen a wide berth and has not a good word to say for them I am inclined to think that his slurs against his countrymen cannot be appreciated appre-ciated by his English friends for my experience ex-perience of the English tells me that their own admiration for England makes them respect a Frenchman for remaining French Needless to say that this specimen speci-men is a nob He would fain make you believe that all his spare time is spent in the country houses and the yachts of wealthy or titled English friends His conversation is full of the splendid shooting we have just had at Lord So andsos place or the delightful cruise we had in the North sea in Sir Johns yacht last August Ho never says the English do this or do that but his language lan-guage bristles with such expressions as we should never stand that in England Eng-land or as we say in English What would he not give to be able to go a little further and say we English He pushes his English getup so far a > > tow to-w whiskers and shave his upper lip and chin and not for the world would he be betrayed into a shrug of the shoul der 1 am happy to say that his name is not legion A Frenchman not very uncommonly met with in England is the Anglopho bist He hates the very name of English Eng-lish Needless to add that the man is asocial a-social failure IXCRITICS OF THE FRENCH Why Foreigners Umlerntaml the French So Little They IIivo Homes and Love Them Too Even Though They Hare No Name for Home Looking at Paris and calling it France is the great mistake which most of our would be critics make This was perhaps never more forcibly HliiEtratwl than on Sunday the 29th of January 1883 from the pulpit in the Brooklyn Tabernacle Show me the dress of a people and I will tell you what their morals are exclaimed ex-claimed the famous Rev Dr Talmage As it was evident from what had gone before that the reverend doctor was going to speak of France a vision of my country people rose to my minds eye I thought of the industrious orderly virtuous vir-tuous sober thrifty millionsthe men in their always suitable clothing never aping that of tho class above the women wom-en in their simple costumes which whether those of the picturesque Bou logne or Granville fishwives the peasants peas-ants of Normandy Brittany Burgundy Picardy Champagne or the south are always models of neatness simplicity and suitability from the crown of the picturesque cap to tho sole of the strong sensible shoe I then remembered the trim little seamstress milliner dressmaker dress-maker or shopgirl in her natty dress brightened up by a pretty bonnet on Sunday but never decked with cheap imitations of what her employers wear There was a grand illustration of the point the reverend doctor wanted to make Did he use it Not hel Passing over the great country and the people who should represent France he goes to Parisa cosmopolitan town where the good or bad tastes of visitors aye and even their vices are catered to and calling its inhabitants The French he proceeded to censure them and lamented la-mented that their eccentricities in dress should be followed by the women of other countries He passed over the fact that in the best Parisian society when a ladys street dress calls forth the highest admiration that admiration is invariably expressed by such words as How exquisitely simple Was not this a fine opportunity the doctor neglected of giving a hint to his countrywomen When copied in vile stuff and unar tistic colors by clumsy fingers the creations crea-tions of Parisian milliners reappear allover all-over the world they are often eccentric enough I admitanother form of French as she is traducedand it is no wonder won-der that reverend doctors are found to frown on them they shock none more than the rench themselves After all I suppose it is little wonder that outsiders should know so little of the French French life is so so exclusive exclu-sive The passing visitor to our shores gets no opportunity to judge of his hosts real character As a nation we are 1 i t s f 11f 1 not hospitable I am sorry to say A I stranger will meet with politeness and I attention as he travels through our country everybody will help him and if he appears in Paris armed with letters of introduction he will be made welcome wel-come at social gatherings parties may be given in his honor perhaps but go where he may throughout the country he will not have a chance of penetrating into the inner family circle The home life of the bulk of the people will remain a closed letter for him On the other hand modern literature is of little or no use in the case either for most of our novelists do not describe every day life They describe the exception excep-tion A picture of middle class life that is to say the existence by the largest part of the communityis too peaceful uneventful humdrum if you will to attract at-tract the novel writer or to please the novel leader Our manners debar him from drawing scenes from the birth and growth of the love that ends in matrimony matri-mony romance only begins after the marriage ceremony is over and the French novelist turns too often to the portrayal of illicit love Because he does so is no reason for inferring in-ferring that this kind of love is more common in France than elsewhere A Balzac may charm with pictures of commonplace com-monplace people and their doing but to the ordinary novel writing pen a moving tale of passion is a necessity So rare examples of unholy passion are seized upon as groundwork for much French fiction and the foreigner reads and exclaims ex-claims This is a picture of French life But it is not The foreigner runs away with the idea that he knows us but he does not and his criticisms on us of which he is so lavish are worthless The best critics France has had have been Frenchmen It is to them that we must turn for true portraits of the French But to return to our foreign critics I was not greatly surprised on coming to America to hear that home life hardly hard-ly existed in France I had heard that before And the overpowering reason advanced to prove this statement was that time honored AngloSaxon Chestnut Chest-nut The French language has no I equivalent for the English word home How glib is the criticism of the ignorant ignor-ant To feel the whole meaning of those sweet words chez soi chez nous one must know the language they form part of 9 They call up in French hearts all the tender feelings evoked by the word home in the AngloSaxon breast How many English or American people peo-ple have an inkling of their value Do they care to know that some hundred hun-dred years back the French used to say en chez from the Latin in casa at home and that the word chez was a noun That later on they took to adding a pronoun pro-noun saying for example encheznous and that the people mistaking the word chez for a preposition because it was always al-ways followed by a noun or a pronoun suppressed the en so that now the French language has lost a noun for home but has kept a word chez which to this very day has all its significance What an idea of snugness happiness is conveyed by the little sentence restons chez nous on the lips of a young couple though their chez nous may but represent the most modest of abodes I Whatadelight ful title chez nous would be for a little volume containing sketches of the life of a happy married couplet Home life unknown in France Why the mistake is one of the most glaring ever made There is no more home loving lov-ing home abiding creature on earth than the Frenchman The very narrowness of the French is the result of their contentment with home for they are narrow it must be admitted ad-mitted provincial to the highest degree Yes the French are essentially home loving And their morality so often impugned im-pugned by ignorant critics who find it easier to repeat idle nonsense than to study themselves will bear favorable comparison with that of any nation including in-cluding the lookhowgoodIam Great Britain Of this I am convinced from the depths of my soul But we are happy and care not a jot what impression we make Yon will never hear a Frenchman ask a foreigner Now what do you think of us We never trouble to show our best side to the foreigner This is what misleads mis-leads completely so many outsiders In France the vice that there is is on the surface for every one to see It is all open to every looker on there is very little hidden What there is that you see No slightest effort is made to hide defects In comes the Englishman or the American and forgetting the carefully care-fully hidden vice which exists and with a vengeance in his own great towns cries out upon the immorality of Paris I will go so far as to say that in France there is not even so much vice as there appears to be Let me explain myself Far from attempting to hide our faults we as a matter of fact often make show of those we have not The Frenchman is the braggart of vice If you say to an Englishman I know you are a virtuous man he will think you only give him his due If you were to pay the same compliment to a Frenchman he would resent it Like the Anglomaniacs represented repre-sented in that charming American comedy com-edy by Mr Bronson Howard The Hen rietta each fellow in France wants every other fellow to believe that he is a devil of a fellow but he isnt Reduced to literature for a means of knowing something of the real French character read then those French writers writ-ers who portray the home life of the people for after all we have a few who do not those who build up extravagant ex-travagant tales of passion from the materials ma-terials every nation will afford to those who go in for sensational novels Would you judge the English people by the works of Ouidaor Miss Rhoda Brough ton Take rather the writers who with only the uneventful lives of ordinary French people as material have succeeded suc-ceeded in giving to the world the most charming novels For delightful pictures of high life go to Gustave Droz and Octave Feuillet Read Cherbuliez and Edmond About If you would know what brave honest folk our peasantry are turn to ErckmannChatrian These are the really popular authors in France My own conviction is that the objectionable objec-tionable books published in France are more patronized by foreigners than by the French themselves for I seldom come across among my French friends a man who has read them M Zolas books are read I admit but not for the same reason rea-son as they are read in England Here I they sell as objectionable books in France I they sell as the works of a transcendant I artist We read Zolas too often repulsive I repul-sive details for the sake of the masterly I genius displayed in the nanoimg Nobody I No-body I imagine reads Shakespeare or the Bible for the sake of many filthy passages I pas-sages None the less every man of taste regrets the prostitution of such a genius as Zolas to such an unworthy cause An undergraduate was complaining tome I to-me one day that no good French modern novel could be obtained at Oxford All we can find in the French department of our booksellers he said are the works of M Zola There are piles of La TerreWell Well my dear sir I interrupted does it not strike you that booksellers are tradesmen and that they of course keep the articles that are wanted If there was no demand for La Terre there would be no supply and you would not see piles of the book The manager of a great French bookselling book-selling firm in London told me once that his firm alone had received orders for more than ten thousand copies of La Terre in England I dont wish to get up a case against the English people Judge for yourselves I have stated facts I assert that to those who will look at us without bias we must appear in our true light the happiest and most home loving people among modern nations The Frenchmans wife and children are his adoration The former is his friend and confidante who thoroughly enters into his aims and aspirations and knows to a franc the amount of his account ac-count in the bank The latter are rays of sunshine which brighten his daily life more than any gold could ever do Rich in the love and camaraderie of his dear ones and in the things which he knows how to do without he clings to his home and country and gets the full enjoyment out of the blessings that heaven sends him but has no desire to grasp more than his share and sighs not after wealth Oh that his critics would look more at his qualities which are great and less at his defects which are infinitesimal compared with them and which for the most part are but the exaggeration of themWhat What is his narrowness but the outgrowth out-growth of his love of home What is his overdone interest in women but the outgrowth of his warmth of heart Look at his foremost place in the ranks of art science and literature look at his magnanimity in conquest bravery in danger pluck in adversity Look at the worlds work done by him He is prouder of his Pasteur than of the great Napoleon not because he has saved the silkworm industry of France and Italy from destruction and taught the French wine makers to quickly mature their wine not because he has effected an enormous improvement and economy in the manufacture of beer and has rescued the cattle of Europe from the peculiarly fatal disease of anthrax not because he has conquered that horrible monster Rabies but because the great savant has shown his perfect disinterestedness by offering his services as a free gift to his native country and indeed to all mankind man-kind I have lived many years in England 1 have traveled a great deal in Europe and in America The day on which I meet amore a-more happy home loving couple than my countryman Jacques Bonhomme and his dear wifethen I will let you know THE END Another One on the Poets The trouble with our poets said Blinks is that they do not live well enough Yes replied Jinks our poetry does need something of an epic clueWash incton Capital |