Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-05-13


on $40 a day? Yet some of them do it,
The colonel is the most important per-
sonage in the provincial town where he is
stationed and IS supposed to have duties
OF hospitality. \ rich manufacturer o.
Lille. dining with colonel to his own So
clal triumph, ventured to ask the salary of
his grade
Twenty-Five francs sixty day" replied
the colonel
Just heaven!" cried the manufacturer.
Il pay more than that to my fore men,
For the captain his 81. 20 to S. 20 a day is
misery. Il is true that French officers like.
others. enjoy advantages in the way of free
domestic service, ana the system of the
mess supplies them with cheap food. But
the ministerial restriction in restraint of
marriage indicates how closely the pay of
each officer is calculated to answer only
10 his own bare personal necessity
Must Marry Rich if at All.
No officer is permitted to marry a girl
having less than 1,2GU francs a year in her
own right, principal and interest calculated
at } per cent. y mere allowance from her
parents is not sufficient.
a captain with So a month therefore
marries the girl of his heart, whose parents
have been able to scrape together for her
dot OF $1,000 yielding, a 3 pei cent inter
est, $50 month. The combined budget is
$50 month, with both husband and wife
loFbldden TO do any kind of outside work
eat up the principal. The state ii is true
does something for the children of officers
without fortune. BOYS are educated and
supported at the Prytanee of La Fleche
and girls in the maisons dedication of the
Legion of Honor. Only the schools of the
Legion of Honor refuse to take more than
one enid from each legiOnary, however
many little girls he may have to bring up,
Then, after a life spent IN privations the
poor oft1cer is Shelved upon his half nav
Esterhazy, writing after his mise en- re-
forme, IN 1897, drew a sad picture of his
Posltlon: L am at the end of my resources
incapable of earning my living wha, am |
to do? l am fifty years old, and | do NOT
KNOW now to do anything. Here / am re-
duceo 10 living on my half pay. Nov can
i !; no matter what l do, arrive at earning
tAat which L absolutely need?"
The Secret Service Fund.
Hungarian cavalry officer of my ac-
qualhtahce, who comes now and again to
Paris TO anuse himself, has just been say
lnS to me- BE sure that the great Dreyfus
secret settles around nothing nobler than
the mlsapplication of certain government
moneys In my country, as in all the
others, officers make debts. They cannot
help 1t; When captain or a colonel or a
general finds his debts are weighing on him
lntolerably he goes TO the emperor My
emperor, he says, L am about TO be dis
graced. Unless l find the means to pay
these debts | must shoot myself Franz
josef, who has great private fortune
writes him out a check. French officers
urhappily, have no Franz Josef to relieve
them. The private fortune of the emperor,
foc those near enough to get at il, has been
in France the secret service fund"
Each year fortune Of 100000 francs is
handed out in darkness, from person to per
son, uncontrolled and unreceipted. on one
occasion General Billot had diminished the
allowance of the service de renseignaments
by 5000 francs a month. Lieutenant Colo
mel Picquart's chief told him to draw I'D a
memore asking for an extra 100 100 francs.
The memorial was presented TO the council
Of ministers and allowed; but when il came
to drawing the cash General Bilot held
back $1,000 francs of ii, which he reese rved
for his own disposition Clemenceau.
speaking of these matters with forced dis
erection in the Aurore, says simply: Il know
that Billot will say that he owed an ac-
count of these secret funds only to Felix
Faure. Felix Faure is at Pere Lachaise
Admire the auditingt' Another ray of light
is thrown when Henry ASKED for LEO
francs to give to an unknown agent who
had lost money at cards. He will pay II