CHAPTER XXIII.FRENCH DRINKING.

THE WISDOM OF THERESE.

She thought it over and decided to accept him. “It is my duty. I adored Adolph, despite his legs, and hair, and nose, but I have a duty I owe to France. How can I bring up children for France on nothing and encumbered with a five-foot four husband with sandy hair, a pug nose, and bandy legs? Clearly it is my duty to marry Henri.”

But how to get rid of Adolph? It would never do to jilt him, for it would ruin her reputation, and then she had a regard for his feelings.

“It would drive him to madness should he lose me, and once mad he would become a burden to France. I will spare his feelings.”

By this time the Commune was in possession of Paris, and the National troops were besieging the city. Henri was with the National troops, while Adolph was a bitter Communist, as were all the Parisians who had lost their money.

Women are proverbially fickle, and French women especially. Therese was not only a woman, but she was a French woman. Therefore, there could be no question as to her fickleness. She had pondered long and seriously over the situation, and was troubled. Matrimony is a very serious matter, and she finally came to the conclusion that she could not marry Henri. She loved him to distraction, but he had not enough money. Without a rich husband she should still have to depend upon her needle for a living, and if she had to needle her way through life she preferred to do it for herself alone. This interesting female found herself engaged to two men, and determined to marry neither. But she was equal to the emergency.

“I have it,” said Therese to herself. “I will extricate myself from this dilemma. I will not marry Henri. I cannot. It is a duty I owe to myself to have money, and a great deal of it. Henri has not enough, and yet I have promised to marry him. Adolph has none, and yet I have promised to marry him, though I cannot blame myself for this. When I promised him he had money. But I will marry neither, and will spare the feelings of both. No daughter of France ever wounds the feelings of those who love her. Love must be respected, even though it cannot be returned. I see my way out of these woods.”

A terrible struggle was impending. The citizens and soldierscould not help coming in collision the next day. Adolph, armed as the Communists were, called upon her, on the afternoon preceding the final struggle.

She sat calmly, frozen with despair.

“Love of my life,” said she, bursting into tears, “you, to-morrow, rush upon death; I—I shall survive—would that I might die with you. What will become of me?”

“I may not die,” said Adolph, “but if I do it will be forLa Belle France.”

And he drew himself up to his full height, which was, as I have stated, five feet four. All Frenchmen draw themselves up to their full height when they say “La Belle France.”

“I have come, my darling, to bid you farewell. To-morrow we are to be attacked—”

“Yes, I know it, Adolph, and as much as I adore you, I adore France more. I am a daughter of France. Fight! Be a hero! All Frenchmen may be heroes. And listen! There will lead the enemy to-morrow an officer whom you must recognize. He is six feet tall, with a black mustache, dressed in the uniform of the Tenth. He will have a cockade on the left side of his hat. He must die! He is an aristocrat! He is brave, and being an aristocrat and brave, clearly he must die that France may live! Shoot him as you would an enemy of France! To a hero—a French hero—I can say no more!”

“He dies—I swear it!” ejaculated Adolph, drawing himself once more up to his full height.

“And now, my heart’s beloved, go; and meet whatever fate may be in reserve for you like a man—like a Frenchman. But stay! you have a watch, shirt-studs, cuff-buttons, and some money. Should you fall, this portable property would be seized by the enemy, and be used against France. That would be deplorable. In this holy cause one should think of everything. Leave them with me, and when you return—oh, my beloved, you must return! Else I shall die!”

And Adolph took his personal effects, and gave them to her, and with a passionate embrace was about to leave her.

“Stay a moment, my darling. You must not go into battle without a charm to keep the bullets from you. Here!” and she twisted a ribbon, a very red one, into a bow, and pinned it in the front of his cap. “Now go and be a hero!”

THE TWO LOVERS.

He gave her a passionate embrace, she sank to the floor in a fainting fit, and he rushed out with a gesture.

As soon as the door was shut, she rose very calmly, and inventoried the property.

“It is not much, but it is better than nothing. I am a daughter of France. I will be content with what is sent me; but I think the chain is oroide, and I know the shirt studs are snide.”

A few moments later Henri entered. She received him with evident signs of pleasure.

“Therese,” said the handsome young fellow, “I know that you love me. We attack thecanailleto-morrow. I come to bid you farewell. I may never see you again!”

“Henri! I love you! But fight like a hero for France!”

“Adorable! Rapture! This is peaches! I will fight; I will be a hero—I am in the hero line just now. You have given me a new heart. Oh, Therese!”

And then there was more kissing and embracing, which was all very nice.

Then Henri rose and said he must go. Mars could not wait upon Venus. France called him.

“Must you go? Alas! But, Henri, should you fall, what would become of me?”

“Die,” said Henri, “and follow me to the next world.”

Therese said to herself, “Not much, I thank you. I know a trick worth two of that. I prefer to live.” But she said audibly:

“I cannot die, for I shall live to avenge you and France. But should you die on the field, the horrible Commune will take your watch, your chain, your personal effects, to continue this sacrilegious strife. Leave them with me.”

Henri emptied his pockets, and took off his watch and everything on his person that had value, even to his cuff buttons, and then Therese said:

“You have your money in the hands of Duclos, the Notary. Give me an order for that, for he is affected toward the Commune. France before everything. When you return we will destroy the paper. Should you fall, I will spend it to avenge you.”

Then Henri wrote the order for the money, and the prudent girl had up the concierge, who witnessed it, to make it all legal like, and then with one passionate embrace she bade him farewell.

“Stay, but for a moment, my heart’s beloved,” she said. “Foremost on the barricade to-morrow you will see a young man who is an enemy of France. There isn’t much of him, but what there is, is pizen. You will know him—he is only five feet four high, has sandy hair and a pug nose, and very bandy legs. He ought to dance well, for he is put up on elliptic springs. He wears a red bow in his cap in front. He must die, for he is an enemy to France. Swear that he shall not live.”

“I swear. He is as good as dead now. You may bet your sweet life he populates a trench to-morrow night. He shall count one in the census of the hereafter.”

“Thanks—for France. And now, my beloved, go! Be a hero. But stay, wear this for my sake.”

And she pinned very securely upon the left side of his hat, a cockade, and they embraced once more, and he left the room, leaving her in a swoon.

“Poor thing!” said he to himself, as he took one last look at her, curled up gracefully on the floor, “shall I leave her thus? Yes; she could not endure a second parting.”

And he went. Then she immediately got up and inventoried his property, and put the order for his money in her bosom, which all French women do, though I can’t say that that is a very safe place—in France. And she was pleased to find that his jewelry, though not extensive, was all genuine, and she said her prayers and went to bed, with the calmness of one who had done her whole duty.

The next day the assault was made and things worked about as Therese had calculated. Adolph had but one objective point and that was the man with a cockade, and Henri carried a carbine for the fellow with the red bow. They saw each other at precisely the same moment, both fired the same moment, and both fell mortally wounded. Having each noticed a peculiar mark upon the other’s hat they used what life was left in them to crawl to each other.

THE END OF THE ROMANCE.

“Who put that ribbon in your cap?” gasped Henri.

“Therese! And who that cockade in yours?”

“Therese! And she took my effects?”

“And mine.Perfide!But we die for France all the same?”

“Precisely.”

And they both went into the hereafter. Therese waited quietly and with great resignation till the troubles were over, and then realized upon her trust funds. Shortly after she purchased a café in a good drinking quarter and grew wealthy. She married a rich, banker, whose place of business was just over her’s, and they waxed very rich.

“What kind of a banker was he?” I inquired of a gentleman who indistinctly mastered some of the English language.

“WHO PUT THAT RIBBON IN YOUR CAP?”

“He eez some thing vat you in L’Amerique would call—vat eez eet?—oui, a faro banker.”

I do not vouch for the truth of this legend, though I have every reason to believe it to be true. I was personally in a café presided over by a woman whom I firmly believe could manage just such a scheme. True or not, it shows what the women of France will do for their beloved country.

THEFrench are the most temperate people on the globe. Why this is so is not easily explained, for it would be naturally supposed that so excitable a people ought, in the very nature of things, to be intemperate. They have no fixed code of morals, as the Saxon people have, and they make no pretense of anything of the kind. They are intemperate enough, heaven knows, in their politics, and apparently so, to a stranger who does not understand French, in their conversation; but in the matter of drinking they don’t do enough of it to injure an English baby, and an American is lost in amazement at the little stimulant they get on with.

There are drinkers of the deadly absinthe, and occasionally indulgers in the more immediate but less fearful brandy, but they are rare. The absinthe drinkers are, as a rule, literary men, reformers, and the long-haired visionaries who have a notion that in stimulants there is inspiration, and the reckless ones who hold that the more they get out of life in ten minutes the more they enjoy. They are the men who invite the guillotine, and walk to the scaffold with great alacrity, and shout “Vive La France,” in the most picturesque and absurd manner. The devotee of absinthe drinks it as a part of his social system, and generally dies of softening of the brain at about thirty-five. He thinks he has a good time, but he does not.

THE WATER OF PARIS.

There are low people who stupefy themselves with cheap brandy, but they are not common. The Frenchman does not take kindly to the fierce stimulant so common across the channel, and the amount of raw whisky consumed each day by the average whisky-drinking American would fill him with astonishment.He cannot comprehend it at all, and regards such a man as a brute. Possibly he is not very much out of the way. I, for one, quite agree with him.

And when it comes to wine he is very moderate. There is very little alcohol in the red wine he drinks, so little that Tibbitts, after taking a glass of it, remarked that he had known water in America that was more exhilarating. And that wine, mild as it is, he dilutes fully one-half with water, and sips it very slowly. In an evening he consumes not more than a pint of it, getting out of that pint about as much stimulation as is held in one drink of American sod-corn whisky.

But it suffices him. He sits and laughs and talks just as well over this mild swash as the American does over his fiery, bowel-burning, stomach-destroying, brain-shriveling liquor, and a great deal more, for he enjoys himself, and the American does not. At least, so I have been informed.

The use of wine is universal. It is in the bed-room in the morning, on the table at twelve o’clock breakfast, it is taken at dinner at six o’clock, and during the evening till bed-time.

The water of Paris is very bad; at least, so all Parisians tell you, though I cannot see why it should be. I tasted it several times, and I saw no especial difference between Paris water and any other, except, as they do not use ice, it does get rather insipid in the Summer, when the thermometer reaches ninety-five. But there is a superstition prevalent that it is unhealthy, and hence it is never used as a beverage unless it is qualified. The Frenchman drops a lump of sugar in it when he takes it raw, though, as a rule, wine is used as a corrective.

Tibbitts had a bottle of cognac in his room to mix with the water. He insisted that he thought too much of his mother and her happiness to endanger his life by taking the water, bad as it was, clear, and the wine of the country did not agree with him. He wanted to get back to America, he did, that his friends might have the benefit of his foreign experience.

An American in London remarked, that in all the time he spent in that city he met but one cordial Englishman, and he was a Dublin man. So with me in Paris. In all the time I spent there I saw very few drunken Frenchmen, and they were to a man from either London or New York, and I madevery thorough search. The sobriety of the people is something wonderful.

THE CORRECTIVE USED BY MR. TIBBITTS.

I saw plenty of men exhilarated; I heard more laughter than I ever heard in twice the time in any other country; but drunkenness, the drunkenness that maunders, and is idiotic, or the drunkenness that tends to destroying property or life, I saw none of. In the Jardin Mabille, where in England or America drunkenness would be co-extensive with the attendance, at the students’ balls, at the Chateau Rouge or at even the less pretentious places, there was hilarity in plenty, but no vinous or spirituous excess. The same condition of affairs obtains in Switzerland and Germany. I don’t want any man to say this is not so, for I assert that drunkenness is comparatively unknown in the two countries where wine and beer are the staple drinks of the people of all classes. I am aware that the same statement has been made hundreds of times before and disputed a thousand times, and therefore I was at pains to get at the truth of the matter.

The use of wine in France is universal. It is drank by the commonest laborer and the most aristocratic citizen. You go nowhere that you do not see it—it is everywhere present, and is the one drink of the country. The fruitful vineyards of France make it almost as cheap as water, and the pampered wives and daughters of the ancient nobility who bathed in wine were not guilty of a very frightful extravagance after all.

THE MILD SWASH.

What a Frenchman satisfies his appetite with for drink is

THE COCO SELLER.

something astonishing. The middle-aged man in America who would deliberately ask for the root-beer of his youth would be laughed at as a milk-sop. In America even the lemonadedrinker is not looked upon with favor, although that is admissible.

But in Paris you shall see a sturdy man walking the streets with an immense can upon his back with cups attached, and men of all ages stop him. He draws from the can a cup full of a liquid. He drinks it and pays for it. What do you suppose this liquid is? Merely a decoction of herbs and Spanish licorice, and coco, as harmless as mother’s milk, and a great deal more insipid. Of mother’s milk I cannot speak, for it is a long time since I have tasted it. I wish to heaven that the gap between the present and the mother’s milk period were less. But the Frenchman patronizes the coco seller, and his Chinese pagoda arrangement is always well patronized.

There is no drunkenness. It may be that the Frenchman does not want to get drunk, but I am convinced that the nature of the regular beverage of the country is to be credited with this delightful exemption from the great curse that devastates other countries. I am compelled to this conclusion, for I have noticed that the French in America and England, where spirituous liquors are the rule, come to be as frightful drunkards as anybody; and, per contra, I know scores of Americans in Paris who at home drank whisky habitually, and in consequence rarely went to bed sober—so seldom that when it did happen their wives needed an introduction to them—I know scores of these men here who have fallen into the French habit, and drink nothing but wine, and are as sober as the French themselves. They are getting to be so good that some of them have felt justified in taking on other sins to keep them down to the true American average. They have discovered that they can get on very well with wine, and do not crave the fiery liquid they considered so necessary at home.

A WOEFUL LACK OF MORAL.

I made a point of investigating this very thoroughly, for in days past I have seen some drunkenness and the effects thereof. I have seen the dead bodies of women murdered by drunken husbands; I have seen the best men in America go down to disgraceful graves; I have seen fortunes wrecked, prospects blighted; and I have perused a great many pages of statistics. There are crimes on the calendar not resulting from rum, but,were rum eliminated, the catalogue would be so reduced as to make it hardly worth the compiling. Directly or indirectly, rum is chargeable with a good ninety per cent, of the woes that afflict our country.

The moral to all this is—but come to think of it I am not here to point out morals. I have made a true statement, and each one may extract from it any moral he chooses. This is all there is of it: The French drink all the wine they want, and the French are a sober people. It hasn’t much to do with foreign travel; but to see thousands of men sitting and drinking without a fight, an angry word, a broken head, or a black eye, was so delightful an experience that I felt it must go upon paper.

THEParisian family, unless it be one of the bloated aristocrats and pampered children of luxury, do not occupy separate houses, as families do in American cities. Rents are somewhat too high to permit that luxury, and besides they never were used to it, and it wouldn’t suit them at all. They have been accustomed to living up stairs for so many generations that I doubt if a genuine Parisian of the middle classes could be happy on or near the ground floor.

The first floor, and, for that matter, the second and third, in the heart of the city, are devoted to business purposes. Above the third floors the residences begin, and they continue to the very top. As a rule, each floor constitutes a dwelling by itself, with halls, parlor or drawing-room, dining and sleeping rooms and kitchen, all compactly and very conveniently arranged. True, some of these apartments are small, not large enough to swing a cat in; but, as Mr. Dick Swiveler wisely observed, “You don’t want to swing a cat, you know.” The French housekeeper finds a kitchen five feet wide and six feet long quite large enough for the preparation of the food for the family, and the sleeping rooms, being only used for sleeping, may be very comfortable, if they are only large enough to hold a bed and the other necessary furniture.

HOW YOU GET INTO YOUR HOUSE.

The entrance to these buildings is on the ground floor, and is a wide gateway with a diminutive suite of apartments on one side, which is habited by the concierge, or, as the English call it, the porter. This personage, usually a woman, receives all messages from the different flats above her, answers all calls and gives all the information concerning the various families inhabiting it. It is she who cleans the main staircasewhich goes to the top of the house, and has charge of the buildings.

At night, say at eleven, the great doors guarding this common entrance are shut, and whoever desires to enter thereafter finds a bell-pull, the other end of which is at the head of the concierge’s bed. She doesn’t bother herself to get up and see who it is, but she merely pulls a wire, the bolt of the great door is withdrawn, you enter, and shutting the door after you—it fastens with a spring lock—go to your floor, and enter your own house.

Tibbitts likes this idea very much. He says that when you come home late at night, and not precisely in the condition to be accurate about things, there isn’t any nonsense about finding a key first, and then going through the more delicate operations of finding a keyhole and getting the key in right side up. “All you have to do is to catch on that bell-pull, and the more unsteady you are, the better, for you lean back upon it, and your whole weight takes it.” And he further remarked that there wasn’t a concierge in Paris who wouldn’t know his ring before he had been in the house a week.

The principal business of the concierge and her entire family is to keep the stairs clean. I once held that the Philadelphia servant girl would die were the supply of water to run out so that she could not wash sidewalks and marble steps, but she has a worthy rival in the Parisian. The stairs leading to the top of the buildings are kept sloppy all the time with the perpetual cleaning. Indeed so constantly is this going on that no time is given to enjoy the luxury of clean stairs. Not only the stairs are cleansed, but the very sides of the building are washed and scrubbed once in so many years, by law. If Paris only took as much pains with its inside as it does with its outside! But it doesn’t.

Once inside the houses, the first thing that strikes an American is the total absence of carpets; that is, carpets as we have them. The floors are of wood in many patterns, and in the center there may or may not be a rug, which covers, perhaps, two-thirds of the room. A room carpeted the entire surface is very rare, and I must say that therein the French housekeeper does better than the American. These rugs aretaken up very frequently, it being no trouble, and are kept clean and free of dust, something impossible when they are fastened to the floor, as is the custom across the water.

In the Summer they are taken out of the way entirely, and the bright waxed floor is deliciously cool, and in the Winter the rug, always in warm colors, forms a pleasing contrast to the wood on the edges. The French idea is better than ours.

The French housekeeper is perfection in her way. She allows nothing to go to waste. There is not a penny’s worth more purchased than can be used, and the ending of the day sees the ending of what was bought for the day. If there are ten to sit down to the table there is soup made for just ten—not enough for twenty and the remainder to the slop bucket—and there is just meat enough to make ten portions, and no more. There is butter for ten and vegetables for ten. By the way, very little butter is used. Wine is providedad libitum, and even that, cheap as it is, is carefully poured from the half or two-thirds emptied bottles into others and carefully husbanded till the next meal brings it out.

There is nothing of meanness in this—only the good sense not to waste. The French housewife, very properly, sees no use in throwing away food any more than she does money. Consequently, despite the much higher cost of provisions, a French house gets on in better style than an American, and at a much less expenditure.

THE MARKET WOMAN.

The skill of the French cook is proverbial, and his reputation is deserved. One of the craft once said that with a pair of cavalry boots, a handful of grass and plenty of salt and pepper, he could make soup for a regiment, and I believe him. They use more vegetables than we do, and use them infinitely better. Out of the despised carrot, which seldom makes its appearance on American tables, they make a delicious dish, and their treatment of potatoes, tomatoes, and the whole race of salad-making vegetables, is something akin to miraculous. They use oil in profusion, and no matter what the raw material is that comes under the hands of a French cook, there is a taste and relish about the product that is satisfying as well as gratifying. The Frenchman at his table aims at all the senses. To begin with it is garnished with flowers,and, second, the dishes gratify hunger, and, thirdly, they gratify the taste. Then, as an appropriate finish, they will have the most cheerful conversation, and for the time all care and trouble is banished and the feeding time is the good time of the household. A Frenchman may come to his house ever so much depressed, but he has a thoroughly enjoyable time at his dinner. He may rise from the table and blow his brains out, but at the table no one would ever know or dream that he ever had a trouble.

Among the middle classes, and indeed the better, the lady of the house does the marketing in person. It is too important a matter to be entrusted to a servant, for they are exceedingly particular as to the quality, and equally so as to the price of the supplies. French market-people, especially the women, are the shrewdest and the most unscrupulous in the world, and it requires much care and skill not to be imposed upon. I went one morning with my landlady to see a French market.

The first thing desired was a lobster. One was selected and then commenced the bargaining.

“How much?” demanded the Madame.

“Five francs,” was the answer, “and very cheap it is. Observe, Madame, its size, and its condition. Oh, I have nothing but the best. Shall I put it into your basket?”

“No, it is too much!”

“Too much! Madame, you would starve me. Well, then, you are an old customer (she had never seen Madame before), I will give it to you—I would no one else—for four and a half. It is ruin, but I can’t keep them over.”

“I will give you two francs.”

“Two francs! You jest, Madame. Two francs for this king of lobsters—this emperor! Ah no! but I will say four—and little Jean shall go without shoes.”

“Two francs.”

“Say three and a half—my landlord can do without his rent till times are better.”

Precisely as the two franc offer was being accepted, a young man drove up in a stylish coupe.

“How much for that lobster?”

“Ten francs, Monsieur le Colonel,” replied the dame without a blush.

“Wrap it up and put it in my carriage,” was the reply, and it was done.

“Why did you ask him ten francs when you only asked me five to begin with, and intended to take two?” demanded my landlady, purely that I might hear the answer.

“Eh? Oh, the young man has plenty of money—it is for his little woman, I suppose. We poor must live, and I must make my profit. But here is one just like it—rather better. Shall I say three francs?”

“Two.”

“Well, it must be so. But I lose money.”

The old dame made a good hundred per cent. as it was.

As it was in lobsters so it was in everything. The price offered in every instance was about two-fifths of the price asked and even then it was not certain but that too much was not paid. But when a French market woman and a French housekeeper come together there is not going to be very much swindling. Both know their business and whoever gets the best in the encounter may congratulate herself upon possessing a great deal of acumen.

The servants in French families are now tolerably attentive and obliging, but their bearing depends very much upon the political condition of the country. Every Frenchman is a politician, and they have all the shades of politics down to the humblest, and the lower orders, as elsewhere, take their politics from their superiors. The retainers in the families of the old nobility are Monarchists to a man, and hate the Republic with a hatred that the dispossessed nobility themselves do not feel. The waiters at the cafés and those who entered domestic service latterly are all virulent Republicans, disagreeably so. Especially was this true just after the downfall of the Third Napoleon, and after the Commune. A lady of my acquaintance, who got out of Paris just before the Commune, returned and rearranged her household after order was restored. Her daughter had engaged servants, and the good old lady rang for one.

PARISIAN WASHING.

“Are you one of the new servants?” she asked, as a strange man answered her summons.

“No, Madame. I am in your employment, but no servant. Since the Republic, there are no servants. Address me, please, as ‘citizen!’ ”

And she was compelled to do it, or go without service. The man considered himself the equal of his mistress in all particulars, and would be counted nothing less.

Fuel is very costly in France, and consequently very little used. In Paris the climate is mild, and very little is needed. But the same economy is observed in this as in everything. Twigs of trees and the smallest bushes, cut in uniform lengths, are used for firing, and for cooking the use of charcoal is almost universal.

As the shops furnish food as cheaply as it can be prepared at home, it is only in families that cooking is done. The washing among this class is done altogether at the public wash-houses in the Seine. These are immense boats anchored close to the bank and partitioned off into spaces just wide enough for a woman to work comfortably. For two sous, the woman has the use of tubs and hot and cold waterad libitum. She takes her bundle of soiled goods, and her own soap, and washes them, using a heavy wooden paddle to drive the soap through the fabric, instead of the pounder and washboard, and, wringing them out, carries them home wet. A few sous’ worth of charcoal suffices to iron them, and the same fire cooks her little dinner, and so two very important birds are killed with one stone. The shop girls, whose attics will not admit of a fire, have no other way of washing their clothes, and so the public wash-houses are always full.

The eating of the day commences with a very slight breakfast in your room at any hour you choose. The said breakfast consists of exactly one cup of coffee or chocolate—it is measured accurately, there is exactly one cup in the little pot—two rolls and an infinitesimal portion of fresh butter. You bid good-bye to salted butter when you leave the steamer. On this you exist till twelve, or thereabouts, when you have a breakfast as is a breakfast. There are eggs and one or two varieties of meat, and winead libitum, ending with sweets.This over, at six you have the meal of the day, the dinner, consisting of five or six courses, commencing with the everlasting soup, and ending with black coffee. Wine constitutes the drink of this meal, as at the breakfast.

IN ANY OF THE PARKS.

THE TIDY FRENCH WOMAN.

It takes an American some little time to get used to this light breakfast, but when accustomed to it he is entirely satisfiedwith it. If he has nothing to do it is certainly better than the heavy breakfast of his own country, and unless he has the most violent bodily labor to perform, it is better than to go to business with an overloaded stomach. Anyhow, whether you like it or not, it is all you can get, and a wise man always manages to like what is inevitable. One very soon gets to liking this very strange innovation upon one’s established habits.

The French woman esteems tidiness and cleanliness above everything on earth, that is, outward tidiness. If rumor be true, they are not so particular as to internal economy, but the outside of the platter must be as white as the driven snow. An English or American woman will walk the sloppy streets and drag her skirts in the mud and filth till they are not only uncomfortable but are absolutely indecent in appearance. All this could be avoided by merely lifting the skirts, but the notion of delicacy, the fear of exposing an ankle, prevents this. That is the Anglo-Saxon notion of delicacy. The French woman has other views. Her ankles are not sacred, but her skirts are. She will not have soiled skirts, she will not have petticoats with the filth of the streets upon them, and so when she comes to a vile spot, she lifts her skirts and passes over without carrying any of the filth with her. It matters not if her ankles are exposed. That she expects. But she does this skirt-lifting with such a grace and such a manner that to an American even it is the most natural thing in the world. The French woman hoists her skirts in a way that makes it apparent to the most critical observer that it is not done to show neatly turned ankles, but to save her person from filth. It is a necessity with her, from her stand-point, and is consequently accepted as such. She has no objection to exposing a shapely ankle, but whether the ankle be shapely or not, no Parisian woman will ever, under any circumstances, be untidy. She has a passion for neatness, and a very pleasant passion it is. Would that she were as correct in her other passions.

Every woman in Paris, or for that matter everywhere in France, works. This is the secret of French prosperity. This explains the ease with which the French people recovered from

THE NO-LEGGED BEGGAR WOMAN—BOULEVARD DES CAPUCINES.

FEMALE SHOP-KEEPERS.

the extravagance of the Empire, the frightful cost of the war with Prussia, and the enormous indemnity exacted by the merciless Bismarck. It is the universality of labor, and the knowing how to live well upon next to nothing. A French wife not only does the house keeping for her family, but she takes care of the shop. She sells the goods which her husband makes. Say he is a trunkmaker—he is in the shop on the floor above, or the floor below, as the case may be, working for dear life, but in the salesroom sits Madame, his wife, orMademoiselle, his daughter, who sells the goods, takes the money, keeps the books, buys the materials, and runs the business end of the concern.

But this is not all. Customers do not come in every minute, and Madame has time upon her hands. She does not waste it. There are her children, too young to work, but they must be clothed, and if there are no children there are a few sous to be earned by knitting, or fancy needlework. And so all this spare time is put in by Madame, sewing or knitting, either for her own family or for a market. Not a minute goes to waste. Wherever you see a French woman you see her doing some thing. The nurse-maid, who takes her charges out for an airing, has work in her hands, and she works. In the gardens in the Palais-Royal you shall see hundreds of nurse-maids whose charges are playing under the beautiful trees, knitting industriously, one eye on the work and the other on the children, and in every shop you enter you see the same thing.

Wages are very low, but with this absolute economy of time and the more absolute economy in the matter of living, the French workingman manages to get on better, on an average, than those in the same station in any other country in the world. French industry and French thrift make anything in the way of living possible. There is nothing like it.

Transportation is very cheap in Paris and exceedingly good. The omnibusses are large and the street cars likewise, and have the delight of holding as many people on the top as on the inside. And then they are never overcrowded. You are entitled to and get a seat. When the seats are all taken the sign “Complet,” is displayed, and no more passengers are admitted. A ride on the top of a French omnibus in good weather is a delight.

The Frenchman tries to imitate the English and Americans in the matters of sport, but it is a sorry failure. The young French sport gets himself up in remarkable sporting costumes, and goes out gunning, and always returns with game. Does he shoot it? Alas! It can be bought, and—he buys it. But he brings in his hare or his birds, or whatever can be bought that has been freshly killed, and proudly displays it to his friends and talks loudly of the pleasures of field sports.

HOW THE FRENCH SPORT KILLS GAME.

THE FRENCH SPORT.

Fishing in the Seine is another amusement, though I never met anybody who had ever caught a fish. There are more lines in the Seine any hour of the day than there are fish, but they all fish just the same. The docks are lined with men and boys at all hours, and all standing as gravely and patiently asthough they made their living by it. The sight of a fish would astonish them.

FISHING IN THE SEINE.

Bloss, my old showman friend, arrived last night from Switzerland. There are a number of bears kept at Berne, the property of the city, one of which, some years ago, killed an English officer who fell into his den. That bear—but Bloss may tell his own story.

“Wat I wantid wuz that bear. I wantid that identical bear, the very one that squoze the Britisher. Ef I cood hev

INSIDE A PARISIAN OMNIBUS.

A SHOW ADVERTISEMENT.

got that bear it wood hev bin the biggest thing in the annals of the show biznis. So I went to Berne and saw the President of the Swiss Republic. I offered him fust two hundred dollars for it, pervided he would write a certifikit on parchment and put the seal of the Republic onto it that it wuz the identicalanimile. Ye see, ef he hed done this I should hev put it onto the bills this way:—

That there may be no doubt in the minds of a too-oft deceived public, deceived by audacious pretenders who advertise what they know they cannot perform, that this is the identical ferocious bear that did actually kill an unfortunate British officer in the presence of his newly-made bride (he wasn’t married at all, but you can’t awaken no interest without the pathetic)—who was powerless to extricate him from the tenacious grasp of the ferocious brute, the most dangerous of the species, the certificate of the President of the Swiss Republic, with the broad seal of the Republic attached, will be exhibited at each and every entertainment, all reports to the contrary notwithstanding, and positively without any extra charge. This statement is made to counteract the envious and malicious reports of would-be rivals, who seek to make up by slander and misrepresentation, what they lack in enterprise and resource.

THE SHOWMAN SHOWN THE DOOR.

I should hev hed a copy—a fac-similer—uv the certifikit printed, in two colors, and I shood hev hed the certifikit itselfhung out afore the big tent, and it would hev bin wuth a heap uv money to me.

“Did you succeed?”

“Succeed! Why the bloated aristocrat refoozed to hev anything to say to me, and directed a servant to show me out. A pretty Republic that is, where the President won’t hear a common biznis proposishen! And then I went to the Mayor uv the city, and when my proposishen wuz translated to him, he remarked that he wuzn’t in the bear biznis, and he hed me showed out. I shood like to be a voter in Berne at one elecshun. But I shel hev the bear that killed the offiser jes the same. That is, I shel advertise that one uv the bears I yoose that eat the children in the Elijah act is the identikle one. I don’t like to deceeve the public—I hed ruther deal strate with ’em, but I must git my expenses out uv that trip to Berne somehow, and I shel hev the President’s certifikit all the same. Yes, and blast me ef I don’t add the Mayor’s to it to make ashoorence doubly shoor. I ain’t agoin’ to Berne for nothin', nor am I goin’ to lose an ijee. Ijees are too skase to waste one.”

“Did you enjoy this trip to the land of Tell?”

The sound of the word “Tell,” was sufficient to tap the old gentleman once more, and he went off into a narrative that flowed smoothly as cider from a barrel.

DE LACY’S IDEA.

“The land uv Tell! I shel never forgit Tell—Willyum, the Swiss wat shot a apple offen his boy’s head. It wuz way back in 1844, when I was runnin’ my great aggregashun in the West. We had a minstrel sideshow in the afternoon, and a regler theater for a sideshow in the evenin'. Our leadin’ man wuz Mortimer de Lacy, from the principal European and Noo York theaters—his real name was Tubbs; he wuz the son uv a ginooine Injun physician, which hed stands about the country suthin’ like a circus—who wuz very fond uv playin’ Tell. De Lacy wuz one uv the most yooseful men I ever hed. He rid the six hoss act, the “Rooshun Courier uv Moscow,” and did the stone-breakin’ act, where he bends over on his arms and hez stuns broken on his breast with sledges, and he did the cannon ball act, and in the afternoon wuz the interlocootor in the minstrel show, playin’ the triangle—anybody kin play the triangle, and he alluz sed he wood give anything ef he coodmanage a banjo or even a accordeon so ez to git up in the perfesh—and in the evenin’ he did the classical in high tragedy. The afternoon minstrel show wuz for the country people, but the play in the evenin’ wuz to ketch the more refined towns folks. Well, one day De Lacy cum to me, and sez he:—

“ ‘Guvnor, I hev a idear.’

“ ‘Spit it out,’ sez I. ‘Idears is wuth money in our biznis.’

“ ‘I kin make Tell more realistic. You know the way we do the shootin’ uv the apple off the boy’s head is to shoot an arrer into the wings and the boy comes runnin’ out with a split apple in his hand.’

“ ‘Yes, that’s the way it alluz hez bin done. It’s a tradishn uv the stage.’

“ ‘I perpose to hev the boy stand on the stage in full view uv the awjence, and to shoot the apple off his head under their very eyes. It’s a big thing.’

“ ‘Big thing! I should say so. But you can’t shoot an apple with an arrer. You couldn’t hit the side of a barn.’

“ ‘Very good, but this is my idear. We only play Tell at night. We stretch a wire across the stage jes the height of the boy, and the wire runs through the apple on the boy’s head. Then I hev a loop fixed onto the arrer, and when I shoot it runs along the wire—see?—and knocks the apple into smithereens. It’s a big notion.’

“It occurred to me that it wood be a good piece of biznis and I agreed to it. My youngest boy, Sam, alluz played the boy, and De Lacy and I fixed the riggin’ and hed it all right. To make it more realistic De Lacy hed a very broad-headed arrer made so that the awjence should see it wuz reel, and everythin’ wuz ready. When that scene come on, the boy come out walkin’ very keerful—we hed the apple fixed tight upon his head so that ef he walked in a strate line it wooden’t be moved, and he wuz placed. After the speeches De Lacy sprung the bow, and let the arrer drive with all the force it hed.”

“It must have been a thrilling scene.”

“Thrillin'! Yoo bet! But we didn’t repeat it. Bekaze yoo see the wire slackened, and the arrer struck Sam on the top uv the head and scalped him as clean as a Camanche Injuncood hev done it, and he howled and jumped onter De Lacy and the wire tore down the two wings it wuz hitched onter, and De Lacy in gittin’ rid uv him tore down the rest uv the wings, and they clinched and rolled down onto the stage, and the awjence got up and howled, and the peeple all rushed on, and there wuz about ez lively a scene ez I ever witnessed in a long and varied experience. It wuz picteresk and lurid. I rung the curtain down and separated ’em. It wuz a good idear, but it didn’t jes work, owin’ to defective machinery.”

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