Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-09-27
CONSUMPTION IN FRANCE.
How the Process Is Carried ON,


with them. During a fortnight more
the man lotteries will be continued in
the provinces, and then the Republic
will stand provided with the last army
to be levied under the system of 1882.
The conscription formalities are enter
tanning to witness for those who take no
part in them but they are never gay,
even in Paris. 1t is all very we'll to
deck ones head-dress with tri.colOred
streamers, to pin the unlucky ticket one
has drawn jauntily to the crown Of it,
to trudge twelve of a row with brother
conscripts, all bawling the Chant du
Depart ? and to be generally beery for
two days and night. But this does
not constitute gladness of heart. If
one could follow to his garret the Paris
ian ex.gamin, who is just turned twenty,
and whose ticket entities him to be shot
at for his country sake during the next
seven years, at the rate of a sou day.
one might see curious picture of ami
NAL grief, not much tempered by pa
triotism. Paris is all to this pale-faced,
perttongued hero, and the memories of
| il must come back to him very fresh
and alluring as he sits rubbing the
knuckles Of his thin hands into those
habitually Shrewd and mocking eyes of
his At five he was cast loose into the
streets, merry in his rags; deft at clear
ing puddles, DETER still at making grim
aces when coachmen shouted to him to
get out of the way. Older gamins
taught him to charcoal his name and
those of public men on newly painted
walls, to wait for scraps outside barrack
gates at four p. M, when soup and beef
are eaten, to dip his fingers into those
tubs of stewed prunes and brown
sugar which stand outside grocer s
doors. By and-by he learned to
fill up his days Tor himself. In the
morning he tramped abreast of the regi-
mental bands leading battalions to target
practice at Vincennes, to maneuvers at
Longchamps, or to parade at the Tuil-
cries. In the afternoon he picked up
cigar ends ON the boulevards, sat fishing
Intellectually but blithely for gudgeon
with string and crooked pin under the
bridges of the Cite, or hung about the
newspaper Offices, where, if there were a
special edition coming out, he would be
entrusted with few copies on depositing
some portion of his raiment generally
his shoes as guarantee for the receipts.
The evening found him hattening his
nose against restaurant windows, open
ing the doors of carriages outside thea
ters, begging for counter-marks which he
resold if he could, or mounting guard at
stage entrances and coaxing silver
money out of actresses who happened
to be in good humor from being ap-
plauded. That reck. a-day life of his was
perpetual holiday and yet perpetual
lesson, for who so versed as this gamin
in the unpublished facts of contemporary
history? If any man Of Importance
were married, buried, or beheaded; if
there were big trial, FIRE, a state
pageant, q revolution-there was he to
the front, peering and seeing as much of
the sight as could be witnessed gratis.
Then he gambolled home, and it was his
glib tongue that retailed those pictu-
rescue accounts Of the occurrence which,
borne from ear to ear on the lips of an
imaginative people, became accepted as
the popular version that stumbling
block of perplexity to the truthful his
torian. Yes; indeed, it was a joyous
life, and every day of it must beam under
the touch of memory like pearl on a
chaplet; and yet now they are going to
take
THE POOR GAMIY,
sheathe his meagre legs in red trousers,
and teach him the art of suppressing his
neighbor. He whose will was as free as
the sparrow's or the gadhy's; he who de-
throned Caesar, and may be helped to
set his countrys capital on FIRE, will be
fettered by regulations, the military
code and the gear OF the guard-room.
They will pipeclay him, crop him, drill
him. They will hint to him that he had
best walk upright as ramrod, salute
his superiors, behave himself in the
streets, and throw less levity into his re-
lations with the other sex. No wonder
he snivels and sobs. No wonder that
when his bonnie annie comes in from
her work she finds him looking limp
as washed-out rag, She asks what
up, and he points mutely to the paper
numbered on his cap. Then she, too,
sits down and sobs, not without a few
sub-thoughts as to whether she had not
better now take up with young Jules,
the wheelwright, who drew an exemption
number last year.
Your pumpkin conscript is not less
afflicted Frenchman than his brother of
Paris but his grief assumes a more
public form. He has no sooner realized
the fact that he is to serve his country
than he bleats like a sheep and fills the
whole marie of his native village with
his unmanly wailings. His women rela-
tives and the girl of his choice, who are
waiting outside, take up the dirge, and
so does his thoughtful father, who re-
fleets that he must now hire boy at fl2
a year to do some Of the work which |
this son of his performed. 1t is an
affecting family scene, and round and
about are other bowling groups. The |
yellow-belted gendarmes outside the
marie doors shrug their shoulders impa-
tiently, and cry, Pass on, pass on,
to the string of hobbledehoys who are
hurrying up every minute to draw un-
der the escort of their respective may
ors lthe eonseription being done at the |
chief towns of oantons, not in each com
mune), and pass ON they do, tFeading on
one another's hobnailed heels. AT one |
end of the municipal room is a table,
and, seated behind it, the prefect, the
general Of the military division, the re-
cruiting captain, and q secretary.
Before them stands the instrument
Of misery, q mahogany cylinder
hung on piyots between two up
rights, and each rustic, as his name is
called, slouches up to the table, gives
the box a touch so as to set it spinning,
and, when the Bhirring has stopped,
opens the lid and dips his hand in. Some
dip at once, unhesitatinglyi bat these
are strong spirits. The majority sign /
themselves with the cross, mutter invo-
cations, produce 9 talisman-generally |
a leaden image Of saint-from under