Omaha daily bee., 1902-09-21

favorable comparisons are made as 10 our
shippers and those of India and Egypt.
The custom officers were sampling the
bales while | passed through the cotton
wharves. They opened each bale and took
out a bundle in order to assess the duty
upon it. They did their work well, but it
seemed to me that the amount OF cotton
removed was unnecessarily large.
The hauling of the cotton from one part
of the wharves to another is done by Per-
cheron horses, finer than any horses en-
ployed about the wharves of New York.
| saw one hauling fifteen cotton bales
which must have weighed on the average
800 pounds each, and | find that the usual
French load fer one horse is from three to
five tons. In the country one horse is eX-
pected to haul at least three tons, and
this is so throughout north France. The
horses are well kept and are apparently no
worse for such loads. They compare favor
ably with the Clydesdale and Shire horses
which | described in my letters from Liver
pool, and they will haul about as large
loads. The streets along the Havre docks
are paved with CObbles, and as far as I
can see they are no better than similar
streets in New York. In the country the
roads are macadamized. You can drive
for hundreds Of miles and not find a rough
place, so that the horses can haul great
loads.
Nearly all the hauling here is done upon
one-hOrse carts. If there is a second horse
it goes in front of the one in the shafts,
three and four-hOrse teams sometimes be-
ing so hitched up tandem. The carts have
fiat beds about fifteen feet long and three
feet wide, with shafts about half the thick
ness Of telegraph poles. The shafts are on
hinges, and the loads are raised and low
cred by means Of a windlass where the
shafts join and on the left of the cart.
This windlass also binds ropes about the
loads to hold them on. The wheels are
about as high as the hind VIII els of a farm
wagon, ard the average cart itself will
weigh, | should think, about a ton. All
weights are estimated in Kilograms. and |
was shown loads which I was told weighed
as much as 5000 Kilograms hauled by one
horse. 1t is roughly estimated that 1000
Kilograms equal one ton.
Among the curious exports l see here are
dried apples from New York and corn oil
cake from Chicago. The dried apples are
used for making French cider and are
brought here from America for that pur-
pose. France takes something like II, 600
600 pounds Of such apples every year.
The cider made from them is sold at all
the restaurants and cafes. 1t costs but a
few cents a glass, and it is better than any
hard cider | have ever tasted in the United
states. The corn oil cake is a refuse of our
Indian corn after the oil has been squeezed
out of it. 1t is used for feeding, as is also
American cottonseed meal and oil cake.
The corn cake I saw came from Chicago.
Another Of eur queer exports which is
now coming to Havre is Camembert
cheese. This is surprising to the French.
for they consider this cheese one Of their
spccialties, and il is only within a few
miles Of this port that the most Of their
product is made.
Hayre is one Ct the largest wood mar
kets of Europe. | saw vast quantities Of
wood of all kinds during my trip about the
wharves. From enc ship they were dis
charging mahogany logs about thirty feet
long and two feet square, and from another
they were taking off vast quantities Of
logwood for use in the dye factories Of
France. ! saw considerable American oak
and pine and Consul Thackara tells me
that such shipments might be greatly in
creased If our people were more careful
in their saving. The French customs
laws permit the free entry for cabinet
making Of wood which is eight inches or
more in thickness. Owing to our poor saw
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