The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1876-06-28
. I ~ }sE S Sis.se $3.50
JDHNP'AUL
His Impressions Of France.
New York Trfhuno

houses with, red tiles, fishermen 81
bl0uses, wrinkled market.Nomen lin
caps, dogs and fleas. Famous for it's
Ecarv ed, ivory and herrings; you smell
one orsthe 3othe :. manuffA cture as you
pass through. Outside of Dieppe one
gets his first killings of French scenery.
More picturesque than the English, it
is not SO comfortable looking. One
misses the symmetrical hayricks, haw.
thorn hedges, and stacks of Brussels
sprouts, which surround the English
cottage and impart to it an air of com.
fort and cleanliness which is not dis
sipated until you enter the interior.
Along the line Of railroad you see
women taking care of switches. do
not mean their own back hair, but
those ingenious contrivances for throw.
ing train off the track, and the blame
anywhere but where it belongs, which
no we'll regulated railroad is without.
Passengers who have ever been in
smash-up will know what sort of
switches I'm talking about. But rail-
road accidents are not frequent in
France. And calling to mind how
well women worked switches when
I was a boy, I do not see why they
can't do it now quite as we'll as men.
1t is long indeed since such vivid re-
collections of youth and an old stone
school-house as this sight revived have
been called up to me.
The Frenchman is not big feeder.
He breaks his fast in the morning
with a little coffee and a good deal of
bread and butter. Along toward noon,
if ravenously hungry, he seizes on
radish or perhaps the hind legs of
sparrow, which latter make it a de-
jeuner a la forrch cite. But for din
ner-ye gods, what a gorging is there!
Two spoonfuls of soup, the backbone
of a .smelt, mOrsel Of meat the size of
a saddle rock oyster, mushroom, an
onion, a Glove Of garlick, a smell of
cheese, a gallon Of red wine, and he's
ready for an opera or the theatre.
The Frenchman can cook a dinner, but
when it comes to eating one, why,
bless your soul, an Englishman can eat
all around him. Yet all fait Though he
be at dressing a fish or fowl, the
Frenchman does not, to my thinking,
dress himself-who is neither-well.
His sleeves are too short, his skirts
are too narrow, and he has altogether
a skinny look. When he attempts to
be elegant he is only dandified, and
when he sets out to be heavy swell he
only succeeds in being flashy. But the
French woman-ah She knows by
instinct what to put on and how. Sup
posing Eve to have been French, it is
safe to assume that when the idea of
dress daWned on Eden, had there been
in the garden leaf more becoming
than that of the fig, she would have
gone straight to the tree. Little given
to difidence, the mere discovery that
she had nothing on could never have
distressed French Eve very much,
but the sudden awakening to a guilty
knowledge that she was not we'll dress
ed would have just about killed her.
A new and becoming bonnet, a pair Of
high-heeled shoes, might have relieved
her feelings and the situation, and
saved a valuable life. If you doubt
the correctness of my generalization,
go to the opera any evening and see
what is considered full dress. This
being the rule under the Republic.
what must it have been under the EN-
pire!
AS it is, compelled by the prejudices
of society to wear some clothes, the
Parisienne considers the lilies 49, or
roses-on her cheeks (if there be none
there remedies the omission delicately,
not obtrusively), and adopts the style
of dress which is most becoming to
the figure that God has given her, the
color most becoming to her complexion
which--she generally regulates for
herself. Not for Worlds--no, not for
Tribune, even-could you persuade the
FrenchwOman overmuch given to en-
bonpoint into a PIN back which should
bring the drawback of her figure too
prominently forward. AS to following
any fashion implicitly, this she will
not do. That folly is left for the fair
of my own native land, who, so far
as l can see, enjoy monopoly IF it.
For the Englishwoman follows nothing,
but dresses herself by accident with
some reference to the price of consols
and the state of the dry goods market),
putting on the first thing that comes
handy, and stopping round in it with
supreme self-sa+isfaction.
But with this frank confession of the
superiority of the French woman in
dress, let the abasement of my nation
end. For the male bird is horse of
another color entirely. And I come
out of the valley Of humiliation where
I have just been crawling, to remark,
in stentorian tones, that, if I~could
not dress myself better than the.
Frenchman does himself, I'd drown
myself-and perhaps him as we'll. So
let every country hold to it's own.
think that facilities for physical
life inevitably bring about moral de-
termination. hold that it is impossi-