The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1908-12-19

necessities of life are cheap enough in northern
France, but here the prices are astonishing
Many laborers support wife and family on So
per week. while the beggars and gamins subsist
without hardship, when necessary, on a daily
Expense account" of eight or ten cents. My
actual experiences, coupled with reliable infor-
nation regarding localities which have not yet
visited. have convinced me that an American
who is willing to dispense with style and luxu-
ries can live comfortably anywhere in Europe.
with the exception of Switzerland, on daily ex-
penditure averaging from so to IS cents, avoid
Ing, of course, the tourist hotels and patron
izing instead the places which cater exclusively
to the humber classes of the native population
"a method which, after all, affords the only
real way to get acquainted with the most
picturesque and characteristic phases of Eu-
ropean life.
At Marseille had no trouble in finding clean
and airy bedroom. at the Hotel du Soleil ct des
Alpes 10 Rue des Recollettes, for 20 cents day.
The neighborhood was modest but thoroughly
respectable, and in a restaurant next door. pa
tronized by prosperous workmen and petites
bourgeoises, dined for ten and fifteen cents,
this figure not including wine, which costs an
additional six cents per bottle. approximately
the same prices prevail among establishments
of similar class in smaller Provencal towns
that have visited. These places are not fire.
quented by tramps, peddlers or the ''poor;' for
them there are other restaurants, where they
pay four or five cents for bed, and two cents
for a steaming bowl of soup or hash. The ex-
istence of such conditions is not generally
known in America, and is equally ignored by
the average traveller, who lives in the grand
hotels and devotes all his time to dinners thea
tres, museums and art galleries; so am offer
ing these practical data with the hope that other
young Americans who have long dreamed of
visiting the old world, but who have been de-
TERED by an exaggerated idea of the attendant
expenses, may be induced to undertake like
experience.
When l set out from Marseille, the hills and
fields golden with autumn leaves and ripened
harvests, were glowing in the warmth of Indian
summer. The first day afoot crossed the little
mountain ridge behind the bay, skirted the in
land seas that form the eastern delta of the
Rhone, and reached Martinique. fishing village
whose fleets have sailed the Mediterranean for
seven centuries, and whose boats are handed
down from generation to generation. Aside
from the fishermen the population is composed
almost exclusively of cats. The place is liter
ally alive with them; they crowd the streets
and overflow into the adjacent bitches, prowl
ing about by night and day, bouncing with fren-
zied delight upon a ravishing landscape or a
odorous fish carcass, multi colored sunset or
basket of decayed shrimp. Their life is one
long, voluptuous feast. Henceforth, forever,
my dream of Paradise will be something like
the existence of the cats and painters of Martin
ique. Only, if l am accorded the privilege of
choice, will elect to be cat, for noticed that
the felines were all sleek and fat, while the
artists we're gaunt and lean.
After spending the night at Martinique shoul-
dered my knapsack and, with chance COM
panion, entered the arid plain of Crau, with
Aries forty kilometres distant as our objective
point. The Crau is desert covered with stones
and boulders, uninhabiteda and barren of vegeta-
ton, sort of miniature Sahara that has resisted
all attempts at irrigation and reclamation, ex-
cept for an occasional oasis in the northern dis
trict. The road was long, the horizon was vast
and monotonous as the ocean, and more than
once before our pilgrimage was ended, 1 sighed
for camel or an automobile. But, finally, one
Saturday evening, we reached our goal, and on
Sunday afternoon 1 followed the entire able
bodied population of Aries to the ancient Ro-
man ampitheatre to witness the final course de
taureaux' of the season, kind of French YER
sion of the Spanish bull-fght, not so dangerous
as the latter, but none the less exciting, and
oSA1OOAAAOo ACodAeAh6 III OAOOuohSN ohN AoeoiAOJ
A savage bull, goaded into blind fury, is turned
loose in the arena. with red cockade tied Sc
curely on his forehead. The benefcent NUM-
cipality offers prize of couple hundred francs
to the matador or ''razetour" as he is termed in
| the patois who succeeds in snatching the trophy
| from its place between the horns of the infuri-
ated animal Thirty or forty young men. I'M
| armed and clad as for a foot race, enter the
arena and stake their lives on the slender chance
of gaining thirty or forty dollars and few mo-
ments of applause. Truly gentle and divert
| ing pastime. But the grey old coliseum, with
its double row of massive arches practically in
tact after twenty centuries, interested me more
than the bull-baiting and the two or three thous
and modern Artisans, who, despite their num-
bers seemed absolutely lost in the vast circular
ampitheatre which historians say was fashioned
to furnish seats for forty and fifty thousand
spectators; for Aries was once the proudest
city Of the Western world, animperia metropo-
lis. the "Provencale Rome"
The modern Aries is one of the solemnest and
saddest spots have ever visited. Nothing re-
mains but the broken, shattered skeleton of the
once splendid city. Formerly so grand and
powerful, celebrated for its noble population,
its commanding situation, its immense CONNER
cial activity and its formidable proves in war;
Aries. the ancient metropolis, turn by turn.
Greek Roman. Gothic, Saracon, the city of i'm
perial councils, the city of miracles, traditions
and legends, is today a dead Provencal village,
built around a pile of crumbling mutilated
stones And yet, despite the miseries and mis-
fortunes which have followed it even unto the
end, despite the wars and political conspiracies
which contaminated its ruin, or perhaps because
of these calamities, it will be forever the rem
devious of poets and the inspiration of artists.
w. D. SEABRooK.
REV. DR.. ROBERT CoLLYER-now eighty-five
years of age-talked about himself lately to
Brooklyn Times reporter. He attributes his
green old age in part to his twenty-one years
in the smithy. He goes to bed about $50
o'clock at night, and gets out of it soon after
in the morning. He takes plenty of exercise.
He breaches when he feels like it, but isn't
writing any new sermons. II have lived in
two worlds in my lifetime" he said to the re-
porter, land the one l am living in now is
great improvement on the other l am two
years older than the first locomotive, and only
think of the vast number of improvements
which have been introduced. especially during
these later years. have lived in two worlds
a world of primitive things and a.world of
enlightenment and progress" When we find
wise old men like DR.. Collyer optimistic there
is no excuse for young men being pessimists.
The great trouble with this world is that too
few young men are unwilling to work in
blacksmith shop twenty-one years. They
begin their education at the wrong end.
A REPORT of the Secretary of Agriculture,
made on the 18th instant, shows that the value
of all farm products for the year 1908 reaches
the most extraordinary total in the nations
history-S7, IT'S, O00, 600. The gain over 1907 is
$500, ,O00 Greatest of all crops is corn, the
production this year being 2 643 600 600 bushels,
worth 81, 615, 100000. The crop is worth this
year nearly as much as the great crops of cot
ton, hay and wheat combined. The greatest
hay crop in history has been gathered, 6S,0OO,-