The Press., 1894-12-13
WALKING ON STILTS.
A DISTRICT IN WHICH THIS IS DONE
 FOR SUBSTANTIAL REASONS.

The HerdeTs and Peasants Of Landes use
 stilts In Their Avocations--In Belgium
 They Had a Festival Which Bore Some
 Resemblance to Our Football Game.
 The curious district of tho Landes be- tween Bordeaux and Bayonne mainly consists of heaths and pine woods, ln- terspersed with few patches, growing barley and little maize.
 The surface of the ground is dull gray or ash colored sand, and over this unpromising pasture wander scattered focks of lanky, coarse wooded, ill con- ditioned sheep, tended by shepherds, who from time immemorial have been noted for walking on stilts. by the as- sistance of which they are not only able to stalk over the prickly bushes and avoid the disagreeable contingency of filling their shoes with sand, but they attain an elevation not afforded by the level surface of the ground, and from their artificial altitude can overlook their fiocks and prevent their sheep from straying. They also carry long pole that, when stuck into the earth, forms a support against which the shep- herds can rest and knit stockings all day long. Altogether the appearance of this extraordinary tripod of which the apex is human something in sheep skin, is weird, not to say alarming.
 By the aid of their wooden legs the peasants of the Landes with very slight exertion and without an exceptionally rapid movement; will go over the ground at pace which would keep a horse at hard trot. Nature, however, is power not to be trifled with and which sooner or later visits with visi- ble censure the violation of biological rules. Consequently the artifcially long shanked inhabitants of the Landes are somewhat diminutiye ill stature and are said to be not very long lived race. These poor people have to endure se were privations, among which chronic want of water is the cruelest, but of late years steps have been taken to rem edy the evil arising from the circum stance that all the streams ill the Grandes Landes are brackish.
 The railway through this desolate re- zion was built by English engineers, who imported contingent of English navvies to assist in the most laborious part of the work. Obviously navvy on stilts would be grotesque anomaly. The English workmen, therefore, wore French wooden shoes, or sabots, which they carefully stuffed with wool or straw to keep out the sand, but the con- tractors took care that their employees, when they had finished their toll, should not be constrained to walk long %Io Ip and the men were lodged ill a kind of travelling village placed on trucks and pushed on the rails day by day as fast as the line advanced, food and fresh water being sent to them from a dis, tance sometimes of 40 or 50 miles. It must not, however, be supposed that walking on stilts is a custom indigo nous to the French Landes. In the mid dle ages laborers from Flanders were imported to the Garonne for the purpose of draining the marshes, and their pres ence in this part of France is commem- orated in place still known as Bruet or Bruges. These Flemings probably brought with them their stilts, the an cient Flemish name of which was "schaetse, which would in process of time be naturalized as the French 'sechasses ''
 There was formerly an annual festi- val held Id t at AF fesnur; iii iii Belgium; called the battle of the stilts, and which, to all seeming, was unique in Europe. The youth of the town were divided into two amicably hostile camps under the re- spective names of "Melans" and I'd Au- resses,' said to represent two very an- cient families of Namur, the relation between whom in bygone times was of the nature of that which existed be- tween the Capulets and Montagues of Verona. On each side there were from 800 to 600 combatants, all mounted on stilts Each army had its commandant and it's regimental officers, together with its distinctive cockade and flags, which last during the action foated from the windows of the hotel de vile.
 At the signal for the battle to begin the combatants advanced to the sound of trumpets from two opposite extremi- ties of the Grand place, and the engage ment began in right earnest, the object of the wooden legged warriors being to knock each other over, in which lauda
 
 smiles and waited kisses of the prettiest maidens of Namur. They were only to use their stilts and their elbows to trip their opponents up, and at given time the ''Hola!" or "Cease kicking!" was sounded, and the army which had knocked over the largest number of legs was declared the victor.
 This fantastic exhibition was wit messed in the course of generations by the Emperor Charles V, by Peter the Great of Russia and Napoleon I, but the magistrates of Namur toward the close of the eighteenth century SUD- pressed the battle of stilts as yearly function because it frequently led to 8 slightly undesirable occurrence of crack ed sknlls and fractured arms and legs. France and Flanders cannot, however, lay claim to 9 monopoly of stilt walk ing. It is indeed very ancient man. ner of locomotion, but in countries not abounding in marshes or in extensive sandy wastes stilts have not been turn ed to any practical use and have usu ally only formed part of the stock in trade of showmen and mountebanks for the amusement of the frequenters of fairs and village festivals.
 Boys at all times have been accus- toned to improvise stilts by means of couple of poles, with thong of leather or cord, through which the feet could be passed, and their prowess on these artificial supports has led to their being rewarded by the enthusiastic admira- tion of the, small girls of the village and to their getting from time to time some ugly tumbles. .-Lopdon Standard.
 
 WHAT CAN ONE DO?
 Doctors Forbid Both Indulging and Re-
 pressing Ones Anger.
 When girl is young and in the stage of pinafores and bibs, she is told that she must not indulge ill fits of i'll tenn ;c ,fv hot Sc