Omaha daily bee., 1902-11-09

conductor punches the tickets before the
train starts, and they are also punched as
you come out of the cars.
The tracks are not fenced. Indeed, there
are few fences anywhere and their absence
adds to the beauty of the landscape. In
coming to Lyons l rode for miles through a
patchwork carpet of many colored crops in
terspersed with pasture and cut by white
roads bordered with tall poplars and Other
green trees. Along the railroad was a
fringe of the most brilliant red poppies set
as it were in a gold ground. l saw cattle
here and there in the fields, but every ami
NAL was tied to a stake and ate a circle out
of the green. At each road crossing there
was a flag woman to warn the people to
keep back while the train passed, and now
and then we rode through sections where
the road was being repaired.
l asked some questions as to wages. They
are lower than in the United States En-
gineers earn about $36 a month and in ad-
dition have a commission on the amount of
coal they can save over a certain fixed
quantity by which a man can raise his
wages to $50 a month. Stokers get $25 a
month, foremen in the shop $4S a month
and ordinary workmen about 500 per month.
Station agents have proportionately low
wages and the scale on the whole is far un-
der that of our country. More than one
tenth of all the men in the service get less
than $17 month; little more than one
third receive from ST to $22 and more than
half get less than $25 per month. The men
work from seven to twelve hours per day
and on the average about twenty eight and
a half days per month. The women at the
crossings usually get from 10 to 20 cents
H.. FTI.
have to be on duty only at the times of the
trains.
There are now a number of American
locomotives employed on the French rail-
roads. They are very successful and some
OF them on their trial trips have maintained
an average speed of seventy miles an hour.
The locomotives were somewhat changed
after they were received here, because the
French engineers did not think the weight
was equally distributed over the wheels.
The French have some fine looking loco
motives Of their own, and it seems to me
that their engines are somewhat better fn-
ished than ours. Their cars are very light
and neither freight nor passenger cars will
carry as much as those of the United
States.
France has now "a 900 miles OF railroads
and little over 10000 locomotives The
average engine travels 25, 900 miles during
the year and the speed of the express trains
range from seventeen to sixty miles an
hour. Freight trains run from four to sew
enteen miles an hour and they carry much
less than similar trains in the United
States. AS a whole it seems to me that we
are far in advance Of the French as 10 all
matters relating to railroads.
The French railroad stations, however.
are better managed than ours The res
taurants are good. l took my dinner at
the Paris depot before I left for Lyons
The meal included a soup, an excellent fish
and also meat, potatoes, cheese and straw
berries, with half-bottle OF Chablis The
charge was 70 cents You can get a good
dinner without wine at almost any station
for so cents and the trains stop long
enough for you to eat your meals. There
are but few dining cars and only the fast
express trains carry sleepers.
Newspapers and magazines are not sold
on the cars, The newsboy brings them to
you at the stations, holding his rack Of
papers outside the car windows. In the
towns the newspapers are sold by women
in booths on the streets. Some of the
booths have advertisements about their
tops and among these are often cards ad-
vertsng American goods.
Indeed, the Americans are better adver-
tiseTs than the French. / see signs de-
scrlbing the virtues of American sewing
machines and typewriters everywhere, and
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