The National tribune., 1883-03-08
deliberation. The French seem never to un-
load anthing-they always unpack.
ALI. ABOARD.

deliberation. The French seem never to un-
load anthing-they always unpack.
ALL ABOARD.
Horses are few in France and the great Nor
mandy horses serve chiefly for omnibus lines.
| Whenever a load can be divided so that women
or donkeys can draw it, this arrangement is
preferred. A still different arrangement is in
vogue at BoulOgne; and, instead of the dray-
men and horses who, in America, would trans
fer the baggage and enable the train to start on
time seven men and rope with a stout hook
at one end drag each package of goods up
gang-plank and along a continuation of 1T laid
for the purpose on the quay. These men, al
though extremely strong and athletic, are all
slender, short, and the reverse in every way of
the hardy men who do such work in New York.
Almost as striking q characteristic as their
small stature is the neatneSS of French work.
ingmen and their surroundings. The men wear
wooden shoes, blue overalls, bright Eandker-
chief about the neck, and general aspect OF
having thrifty, skillful wives to put in order
the working clothes, which these men are care
full to keep neat When the slow process OF
transferring baggage is completed, a dog
whistle sounds, hOarse voice shouts all along
the train: :" En- voiture, messieurs, ell vOus
plait!''-(" into the cars, gentlemen, If you
please" French elaboration of "all aboard -
a sound which becomes annOyingly familiar in
a short journey and exasperating in long one.
No one is supposed to be capable of self-care the
guards are responsible for getting every one into
his own compartment safely and locking him
there. Then some one rings a dinner-bell the
dog whistle sounds, and the train moves y
wards Paris The ride is through rather a fat
country cultivated with uniform minuteneSS
not vet dreamed of in America, except among
the Chinese in California. The streams in some
places seem almost canalled, so carefully is the
soil shaped to their very edges along the banks;
trees grow in straight, prim rows, trimmed for
sometimes, trimmed because the French taste
runs to this extreme in the direction of order
and symmetry.
Much of France is submerged this year, and
although the sun sometimes shines through a
rift in the clouds it is with a rather feeble and
watery light; and the landscape between BOu-
lOgne and Paris in December is melancholy.
Closely populated as France is, the people are
packed so excessively close in any given town
or village that one receives the impression of
lack of houses and lack of people, and the
fields seem mysteriOusly cared for by invisible
agencies. There are no struggling, untidy,
formless villages, such as train flies through
by scores in America, where every family has
its own house and garden, air and sunshine,
and where vacant lots promise future comfort
able homes. Here every inch OF land IS econo-
mized, and human beings are packed away on
fifth, sixth, and seventh floors of narrow houses
in order to save room for agriculture. The
boxes on window ledges; and his clothing,
washed in a stream, is hung to dry on a cord
stretched high in the air across sunless, mar
row, village street.
With all its discomforts and depressing re-
Elections, however, European railroad travel has
certain compensatiOns of its own. If ones bag
gage is paid for by the pound, at least it is
handled with unfagging care, and the baggage
smasher is unknown. If one is shut up in
little coop for car. at least is not mOlested
by "gum-drop" vender. If the economies of
the lamp and the hOt-water cylinder are an
nOying, it is yet this principle of economy
which chiefly accounts for the fact that chill
dren do not travel. There are no babies whoss&
crying tOrtures their fellOw-p passengers
registers their own distress. There are HF7E|$1
little girls and restless little boys. I'M
children are so emphatieally kept at home tffS
the traveller, measuring by American standN
ards, might well decide that the population is
dying out. Nothing, however, could be wider
of the mark; for this careful guarding of chill
dren from the fatigue, exposure, and nervous
strain of travel is one small part of the economy
of vitality which the New World has yet to
learn from the Old. F. K.