| Show THE TOILERS OF L near view of the classes of the french capital A people who are fond of bad song and ft role about th xo tore pirir reeling toward in order to study the working classes thoroughly M henri lebret a literary man started business as a marchand de vin or publican in one of the most crowded districts of paris says a writer in the london telegraph he has embodied his experiences as a mas in a book entitled en plein fau bourg which has lately been published by charpentier M lebret after having denounced the bad drink supplied to the working classes not always through the fault of the public ans but rather due to the wholesale merchants gives it as his opinion that those who live by the sweat of their brow ha ye an aversion to debt the bad payers and those who wast drinks chalked up are the exception and it is needless to say that they are the idlers the loafers and the confirmed drunkards these men neglect no opportunity of sponging or of obtaining drink on credit without the least intention of paying for the absinthe or wine supplied to them As a rule the laborious people avoid the taverns wherein the loafers assemble the author also alludes to a discussion on zola which he overheard one of his customers while gazing at a portrait of the novelist maintained that the working classes had been labeled libeled in the Is the workman asked the anti to be represented as an eternal drunkard because he drinks a glass now and then the listeners applauded this speech but another man stood up for zola saying that if the novelist had exaggerated a little it was done in the interest of the working classes whose vices were to be attributed to the bourgeoisie M lebret met a confirmed absinthe drinker 0 a curious type this man was one ai the best carpenters in the district and when sober was never out of work for weeks he would refrain from touching a glass of the green fairy but suddenly forgetting his good resolutions would launch forth into a carouse on his favorite beverage never going to bed antil he had swallowed twenty four glasses of absinthe with copious draughts of wine in between the author notes that the average faub aurien workman is generally more given to eating than drinking he eats meat if possible at luncheon and dinner the former meal being the more substantial he is careless about the future and looks forward to dying straight off when he shall be no longer strong enough to toil alluding to the pleasures of the people M lebret is glad to state that berangere Be rangers songs have not yet lost their charm for the toiling masses aa to the relations of the exes the author of en alcin faubourg Fau bourg says that free unions are increasing among the workers domestic arrangements being made on a family basis alie girls who leave their shops and factories for the champs or the main boulevards are however shunned and despised by the M lebret concludes his interesting volume by some observations on the feeling of the working classes toward the anarchist and revolutionist movements in their midst at present he points out material exigencies and the necessity of living keep the average workman resigned but a desire of revenge lurks in his breast against a society in which he has to toil without the hope of what he considers an adequate reward for his services and without any security that after a life of labor he will enjoy some repose with a moderate competency |
