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Show Dictionary Stalled at "A." The French government and the French academy have been on bad terms for a long time, and everybody knows it, but their last point of controversy con-troversy is calculated to astonish the world. It is all about the dictionary, the famous dictionary, which was begun be-gun forty years ago and which is still at the letter "A." One would hardly expect the subject to rouse lively passions, pas-sions, but It appears that the government govern-ment pays a salary to the makers of this dictionary. It is not very strange then, if they begin to think that the time consumed is rather excessive. A deputy has had the audacity to propose pro-pose the withdrawal of the salary. It is easy t o understand that he has brought down all the thunders of the forty "Immortals." It is true the amount each "Immortal" receives is not very great; It is calculated that each gets on an average 1,600 francs, which draws from the budget of the state some 64,000 francs a year. But if one calculates, at the rate they are going, go-ing, the long centuries it will take to finish the work, the deputy argues that the people will have paid a little dear for a dictionary. |