Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-09-20

| them so made that the ships can sail right
\ up to the warehouses and discharge their
| goods and-so that goods can be put upon
the railroads or on the canals for all parts
| of France.
| There is one dock in the very heart of
| the town facing the Place Gambetta. This
| is reserved for yachts. and there were a
| score or more of steam yachts lying in ii
| when l visited it this afternoon. One of
these belongs to the Baron Rothschiid and
| another is I am told, the property of one
] of the Vanderbilts.
Signs of the American Invasion.
| The first sign I saw of the American in
! vasion was one of the transatlantic liners
| coming in from New York loaded with
American petroleum. agricultural machinery
and cotton. AS We came to the quay l saw
| weil-known brand of Akron oats adver
tised on the walls of a building that must
| nave been a century old. and in walking to
the Hotel FraScati | passed office in
which an American typewriter was clicking
| away.
Later on 1 called at the consulate and,
! IN company with Mr. A. NJ. Thackara. who
| is Uncle Sans representative here, took a
aflVe OF several miles, going from one dock
| 70 another and stopping at the various
! places Where steamers were unloading
| American goods.
| AT the transatlantic quay We visited a
warehouse as large any in the city of
| New York. 1t was packed to the top with
noXes and bales from different parts of the
| United states. l saw American plows I'M
| loaded from one of the Atlantic liners and
| outside We're reapers, mowers and all sorts
or farm tools of well-known American
brands.
At another dock I found the wharves COW
cred with bales of American cotton. There
were many thousands of these. covering an
| area of several acres. They were lying on
the stones out in the SUM- The cotton was
| poorly packed; some of the bales were open
and the white wool seemed to be bursting
| out in every direction. l hear complaints
everywhere about the poor packing of our
merchandise, and esq tally about the poor
| ly packed cotton. Complaints are common
at Manchester and Liverpool, and unfavor-
aple comparisons are made as to our ship
pers and those of India and Egypt. The
| custom officers were samplng the bales
While passed through the cotton wharves.
| They opened each bale and took out a bun
Gle IN order to assess the duty upon 1t. They
dld their work well, but ii seemed to me
that the amount of cotton removed was
necessarily large.
The Big Horses of France.
The hauling of the cotton from one part
Of the wharves to another is done by
Percheron horses, finer than any horses
employed about the wharves of New York
L saw one hauling fifteen cotton bales
which must have weighed on the average
800 pounds each, and 1 find that the usual
French load for 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 favorably
with the Clydesdale and Shire horses which
L described in my letters from Liverpool,
and they will haul about large loads.
The streets along the Havre docks are
paved with cobbles, and as far as I can
see they are better than similar streets
in New York In the country the roads are
ma cadamized. You can drive for hundreds
N a jph ro11 hot
the horses can haul great loads
Nearly all the hauling here is done upon
one-horse carts. If there Is 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
Windass also binds ropes about the loads
to hold them on. The wheels are abou. as
high as the hind wheels of a farm wagon,
and the average cart Itself will weigh, 1
should think, about ton. All weights are
estimated In kilograms, and l was shown
loads which 1 was told weighed as much as
5000 kilograms hauled by horse. 1t
is roughly estimated that 1000 kilograms
equal one ton.
Among the curious exports see here are
dried apples from New York and corn oil
cake from Chicago. The dried apples are
uSeu LOT making french c1Qer ana are
brought here from America for that pur-
pose. France takes something like II 0O0,-
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 glass, and it is better than any
hard cider 1 have ever tasted in the United
States The corn oil cake Is refuse of our
Indian corn after the oil has been squeezed
out of 1t. 1t is used for feeding, as is also
American cottonSeed meal and oil cake.
The corn cake 1 saw came from Chicago.
Another of our 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 specalties,
and it is only within a few miles of this
port that the most of their product is made
Points for American Lumber Men.
Havre Is one of the largest wood mar
kets of Europe. 1 saw vast quantities of
wood of all kinds during my trip
about the wharves. From one ship
they were discharging mahogany logs
about thirty feet long and two feet
square, and from another they We're taking
off vast quantities of logwood for use in
the dye factories of France. l saw consid-
cradle American oak and pine and Consul
Thackara tells me that such shipments
might be greatly increased 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 more in thickness. Owing to our
poor saving the American wood often ar |
rives a shade under this size, and |
the who orders it has to pay
the duty. The result is he stops at one or
der. There is also a good demand for our |
oak boards and planks, provided they are
sawn to the right thickness but at present
the Austrian wood is crowding the Ameri- |
wood out because it is better seasoned
and more carefully prepared
American Machinery in France
I am surprsedjat the amount of American |
machinery l see about the docks. The ware |
houses are full of it and the streets outside |
are blocked by it, In addition to farm i'm
plements there are packages of carpet
sweepers, meat grinders and ice cream
freezers. There also large importations
of electrical machinery, and within the past
few years the Westinghouse company has
ESTABLISHED a factory at Havre to supply
the French market. 1t has a large building
on the edge of the city where a number of
bright young Americans superintend the
Frenchmen who do the rough work The
company has French name, being entitled |
the ''Societe Industrielle d'Electricite, Pro-
cedes Westinghouse" Its capital is ten |
million francs, or about two million dollars