Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1881-03-04

leisurely breakfast gave us just time to reach
the 1O:45 express train for Paris. The
orderly quiet with which everything is done
in French city is very refreshing. The
hotel porter calls cab-man, lifts your trunks
10 the driver, who places them on top, the
clerk at the office tells YOU what the cab
man is to have, and YOU are rapidly driven
to the station. There the cab-man delivers
you and your baggage, takes his money and
goes away without II word. At the station
men in uniform are ready to receive the
baggage and render any necessary assistance
to passengers. Americans are apt to think it
little still for officials to be uniformed, and
so on our railways one station master
wears Il slouched hat, the next one shining
beaver, the next one cap, and so on, and so
It happens that the stranger who desires in
formation is not certain whether he is ad-
dressing a farmer from the country, a mer-
chant from the town, OF a railroad man. On
the continent or in England man is not thus
left IN dOubt-public officials are all indicated
by their dress.
The distance from Marscilles to Paris is
about $40 miles. The most rapid train leaves
ut p. m, going through in fifteen hours.
The time OF our train was eighteen and one
half hours, an average of about thirty miles
an hour, including stoppages. The motion of
one of these trains is far less than on our
American roads. partly because frosts do not
disturb the track and also because the cars
or carriages as they are called in Europe
are shorter than those in use
here. Each car or carriage is
divided into three, sometimes four 'com-
partments" which are entered from the sides
like the doors of coach.
All the carriages on this train were first
class, each compartment being planned for
eight persons. There were no sleeping
cars" for night use, and the best that one
could do at night was to lean back in the
well cushioned seats and catch an occasional
nap. There are two sets Of stations on op-
posite sides of the track, for trains going in
opposite directions. This is an admirable
arrangement SO that no one need cross a
track in entering q carriage, and the doors
of the carriage opposite the station are Kept
locked so that no one can by mistake get on
track.
1t was bright August day that our train
moved out of Marseiles, and after skirting
the seashore for little distance moved up
the Rhone. The towns where our train
stopped seemed thrifty and there was an airof
comfort and taste about the houses, but
the peasantry in the country We're living
in small dark novels, very nearly like their
barns. There seemed almost an impossible
gulf between the civilization of cities and the
country. The land did not seem fertile. un-
til we were near Paris we looked in vain for
green pastures with grazing flocks and herds,
and luNuriant meadows. Some fields had
been harvested, q few persons here and there
were working in the fields, but except from
the olive trees and an occasional vineyard, il
was difficult to see whence came the agricul-
tural products of the country. 1t was pleas
ant to see the hard. smooth carriage roads.
They almost never require repairing, and are
as smooth as a floor and carefully graded.
1t must be luxury to ride on such roads,
and wagon will certainly last twice as long
to say nothing of relief TO horse flesh. To
build such roads in our New England towns
would be heavy expense, but if each
town would build mile of such
road each year, the burden Of expense
would be very light, and in short tine the
whole would be accomplished. Which town
will take the lead in the beginning to build
substantial macadamiZed roads that will last
thousand years and more?
In the early gray of the morning We passed
the suburbs Of Paris, beautiful with leaves
and cultivated forests and gardens, and en-
tered our station glad to be ut the end of our
long and wearisome ride. There was no crowd
ing up and clamoring for baggage. All the
trunks were placed on counter, each man
baggage being together. This is possible
since certain number is pasted on all the
pieces belonging to one man and he is given
receipt for all those pieces. When all the
baggage is sorted each man presents his re-
ceipts and receives his pieces, the porters
carrying them directly to II cab at the door.
All is as systematic AS when Napoleon
reigncd, and as we rode through the streets
to our hotel no trace of the siege or the Com
munist revolution could be discovered but all
seemed moving on as had seen il thirteen
years before NJ. F. T.