Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-09-17

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! consolable widow, who, according 10 sle
| date thereon Inscribed, wept tor her NOBLE
husband just thirty years.
THE VILLAGE
OF Langrune presents nothing OF interest.
The houses are for the most part modern,
homely, ungraceful structures. piled up one
against the other as for mutual support or
to keep warm. Occasionally a handsome
private residence may be diseerned through
the open gate of high wall, but as they
are jealously concealed from the outsider
! the passer-by is not enchanted by view of
them. Onee in while green vine or ivy
will be seen climbing stone wall or the
peasants window, and in front of some
dwellings are small gardens with sun
flowers and few stunted apple trees. 1t
cannot be that the ground is poor, for
nothing can be more beautiful than the
gardens and lawns of these rich proprie-
tors, who enjoy a variety of fruits and
flowers after comparatively little cultiva-
ton. 1t is that the people in general are
indolent IN that respect, and III fact have
no taste for the beautiful or ambi-
ton for comfort. The Normans are
noted as being an obstinate people
and rapacious to fearful degree, and
Langrune can well claim representatives
possessing both these qualities. They do
not appear to have that intuition and in.
telligence belonging to the French peasant
in general, but instead may boast of cum
ming as to gain without foresight as to
interest. They are hard and unyielding,
bigoted and cruel, and their moral training
= I'D 81 - = "a
propensities the only interesting portion
of the inhabitants is the children, but even
they must be very young without having
passed the primer or the catechism then
there are the old people grown children
again, who are possessed of some charity
and tolerance. They are all poor, and
even the Marie, the most important Off
cial, lives in a dingy low house over a
stable-yard of cows and horses The reason
is that their only industry has always been
the manufacture of Chantilly lace, and since
there is little market for it at present,
there are hundreds of women without en-
| ployment, and they seem to have no idea
of turning their attention to anything else.
Their only resource at present is the sea-
| son of
SEA BATHS,
And numerous stores are seen filled with
such objects the Partisan alone would re-
quire when DESTROYS of bathing, or of crab
or shrimp fishing. Others gather a little
fruit together and bring it to sell on the
market-place, at price which causes the
Parisians to laugh in their faces, when the
fruit is carried away and brought back the
/ y 70 no ca1A = botr th1 Y,al
price, Others do washing for the visitors,
and do it very poorly, since they have
learned only TO make lace. But that which
brings them the largest profits during the
summer season is the rent from their
houses. They manage to get bed through
loan or credit, as well as soup-pot, and
then move to the lumber-room, but most
generally to the cellar, with all the
children, and rent their houses to
visitors. These houses are of course simply
furnished, containing that only which IS
actually necessary, but with few COM
forts brought from the city, the Parisians
| find them habitable so long as the weather
is pleasant and they can spend the entire
day on the beach; and even when it rains
they are privileged to find shelter in the
cabins they rent by the season or month,
which is preferable to shutting themselves
up in the houses in the village. 1t is pitlful
in going along the street to perceive in all
the cellar doors some two or three small
children, while the mother is further down
in the bowels of the earth with just room
enough to stand between the one bed and
the soup pot. No wonder they are
DYING OFF
With consumption, when living like rats,
and with no means of obtaining air but
through the cellar door, which is OF course
closed at night, if only to keep the dogs out.
There are some few who do not resort to the
cellars, but they are old in the service and
have been able to rent their dwellings att
sufficiently high price to permit themi in time
| to fit up store.house or cow.shed with
some appearance of comfort. The street
seems to be their parlor and reception
room, for whenever the weather permits
they crawl up to the sunlight, and sitting
in corner by the house, twist back and
| forth their hundred or so bobbins, while
| constantly wishing that capriclous Fash
! ion. who has treated them so cruelty, may
relent, and command her subjects to clothe
themselves only in thread lace. They
scarcely know what to do with their chill
/ dren, for when trade was thriving the little
ones were ardently put to work at the ages
of six and seven to learn to make lace but
if there is to be no demand for the article
in the future, why should they waste their
time, and yet they cannot endure the idea
of their learning anything else, for it is the
| trade handed down from mother to daugh.
ter since generations.
THE LACE WORKERS
Are rather an amiable class of people /;
they always have a friendly nod for the
passer-by, and any number of good-natured
aswers to questions, in the hopes the ques-
tioner will be induced to buy piece of
/ lace or give an order for collar or so.
They do not prove themselves intelligent
in their endeavors, for their rapacity nat
urally gets the better of them, and al
though the merchant who purchases of
them pays them but pittance, whenever
they have the opportunity to sell they ruin
their chances by asking higher price than
any establishment of Paris. They work all
day long, and often times late in the night
with marvellous rapidity, and yet they
majority who have families earn but ten
cents day. There are of course excep-
tions, and often chatted with young
girl who seemed to be possessed of more
intelligence than the others, for she had
succeeded in opening a little shop of her
own in which she had spread out her own
work and that of some of her comrades,
thus endeavoring to dispose of their wares
to the visitors without the aid of the cruel
middle man. She claimed to be bonnie
ouuriere and informed me with much
triumph and Importance that in prosperous
days she had earned as much as forty sous
a day. but it was at the expense of her
eyesight and when she had the strength to
work as late as three o'clock in the morn
ing. This lace is long and tedious to make,
particularly when the thread is fine, and a
piece sometimes of no very great width