Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1878-08-22
EUROPEAN LETTER.
From our regular Correspondent.

From our regular Correspondent.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND.
The FOREIGNER in Paris will never real
ize how much he is beloved, until the
bour that he is ready to leave the hotel |
1vhare he has been struggling for subsist- |
ence. The keen-eyed chamber-maid and |
the man that assists her have observed |
that your papers and books which have |
been scattered over the room are no long |
er scattered, and with remarkable fore
cast say to one another: He is going to
leave; those articles are in his valise.
All at once they have become wonderful
ly attentive, and anxious for your COM
fort and welfare. Want to know if Non
seur is about to sortie, and if he will not
return. No matter how much you have
been neglected during the weeks of your
stay, it will all be atoned for now by po-
liteness, in the space of half an hour, and,
just as you are ready to turn your back on
the hotel with its landlady, of whom the
Thenardieress of t'Les MiserabIes'' is not
an overdrawn type; with its table d'hotel
prelude of famine, and its bankrupting
bills-all the attaches appear around you
as instantaneously as the host of High
landers at the blast Of Rhoderick Dhu's
bugle-they have come for their Poir foire
The table boys who never brought you
half enough, and, then not till it was
cold. The negligent chambermaid and
her assistant; the cooks assistant, and the
boy that did not black your boots. Give
them three francs apiece, it is the custom
of the country, always something more to
pay after you have been overcharged.
When complained of the exhorbitance
Of my bill, my landlady kindly re-exam-
ined it, and added four items she had
overlooked. have heard of nothing like
| 1t, except that the French courts will fine
man for allowing himself to be run over
| by cart on the Boulevard. But to return
to the subject, give the servants their pOir
foire. it is about all they get. Their lot is
hard, it is sad thing to be Frenchman, ,
but to be a French servant is a life of
| abjectness and misery.
""Tfs sweet to turn from civic revelry
to rural mirth, - and it is exhilerating to
turn from the gay, glittering, conceits of
Paris to the sublime mountains of Switzer-
land. From Paris to Geneva is a ride of
! fourteen hours. I got into a little
pent up compartment of a car which I
| found occupied by three other Americans,
and one Irishman. There was nothing of
interest in the long night ride. We had
no water to drink. and suffered other dis
comforts from their antideluvian railroad
accommodations. Morning dawned upon
us in the beautiful district of Savoy, near
| Difon. 1 have never seen any French
country that was not beautiful and high
ly improved, it is country "where every
prospect pleases and only man is vile. ."
Farm laborers were at work with their
primitive farming Improvements cutting
| grain and plOwing at a very early hour,
while women, with wooden shoes or bare
feet, were watering little herds of COWS,
to prevent their transgressing the bOun-
daries of their fenceless farms. The plows
were drawn by oxen, not in yOkes as we
harness them, but with pad fastened
around their horns, and pressing against
their foreheads, they were pushing the
resistance from the beam end of the plow
Inasmuch as the bovine race fight by
pushing, 1t brings the position that de
velops their utmost strength. This may af
ter all be the most sensible way of har
Messing oxen. Now let some American
invent an improved pad for the OK to but
against; and he might develop the idea sc
far as to utilize the kicking energy of {
mule.
We observed from the window a long
line of French cavalry horses that were
being trained and exercised. Their tail!
were cut short, a fashion, 1 observe, quite
common in France and England, ant
coming into use in America. 1t is crue
fashion, for horses have a right to theil
tails to fight flies, besides the ceaseles
agitation of the caudal extremity is neces
sary to the health of the vertebral. Tht
bobtailed horse will in time become dis
cOuraged and cease to wag his tail, ant
this disuse will react upon the health o.
the animal. No horse should be deprived
of the usufruct of his tail. find that
am at the bottom of the page without hav
ing written about Geneva. There is moth
ing much to write about except fine view!
of the Alps and Mount Blanc. The city
seems to be about equally divided between
watch factories, music-box factories, mos
quitos and hotels. G. A. S.
P. S. Speaking of hotels, the one tina
write about in this letter is at 90 Ru,
Caumartin. 1 would like, if possible, t,
defend Americans, for whom especially
the proprietor, Demailly, has laid hi
snares. A great historian says, and h
knows as much about it as anybody, tha
nations have no hereafter. 1 am afraid i
is so'with hotels, and that if this one es
capes temporal punishment it will neve
receive its eternal internal deserts
Please send the proprietor copy.
G. A. S.