Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-17

arrived they went in a body to reproacl,
| the mayors adjoint for mailing the fresh
! ment OF the towns public place. over
| which the town hall was built. on pillars.
| What harm can the skin do to your
Sheep protested the clerk.
''It will make them familiar with the
| bears smell" answered the mountaineers.
And the sheep will cease to be afraid %
What harm, since these particular
sheep are TO be sold down on the plain,
where they will never see a bear again.
! the clerk argued; but they did not deiKn
to reply. They are silent folk. Three
rose approached the bloody skin, tore It
down and flung 1t to FIVE big dogs. which
| had been growing and snifning at it In
three minutes they had torn it to rags.
True a bear skin taken in summer has
no selling value
Even French tourists. coming newly to
the higher valleys in automobiles. are at
first incredulous about the bears Of the
Pyrenees. Stories. printed every winter.
of how troops OF bears come down as low
as Luction and AK, killing the pigs in
their very pens. have been looked on as
imaginative. 1t is not 50. Last winter
Luchon had two invasions Of black bears.
When you pretend incredulity the
mountaineers grow indignant against the
French government which they say ought
to destroy the bears In great military
hunts 1.-THE Alpine Chasseurs would be
able to do 1t In FIVE years." they say. III
put to work Systematically. Yet the only
outsiders who give us any help are the
gypsies:'
of explanation throws a great light on
the subject. All over France there Is
pest of wandering Romancheis or gyp-
sizes. travelling with their horses. donkeys.
goats. dogs, women. children-and bears.
quite truly. single caravan will often
have as many as FIVE bears. on whose
clumsy. rudimentary tricks they almost
live. when not stealing or terrorizing lone
households
Dance, Caroline! Martin, bow to the
lady!
Wilhelm. the reverence! Suzanne. the
tambourine!'
Where all these bears continue to come |
from, now that France and Germany have
been throwing the Romanchels back and
forth across the frontiers like ball for
six years past, Is q continuaLPa Paris query. |
All over France mayors are selling away
the poor beasts from them. on all kinds |
of pretexts. cruelty to animals. debt, alb |
sence Of proper papers or presence OF I'M |
proper skin diseases. but In reality to |
harass the gypsies out Of tho country
side. |
Yet every summer, they reappear with
as many bears as ever. Paris papers
regularly point out that they cannot get
them across the frontiers from Russia
one time the supposed place Of supply
and that they probably como from the
Pyrenhes." but the fact becomes more
and more obvious to automobilists ad- !
venturing of the great trunk arteries
into side roads. AS we get down into
Dauphiny and Savoy we strike increasing
numbers Of gypsy caravans cannily NOV
ing north in zigzags. always with new, UNI
trained bears among the others. rebel
lious. red-eyed, bloody-snouted where the
great iron ring. newly placed. fortunes
them. While from Lourdes or Toulouse
on down to the Pyrenees the roads are
simply full of them.
They are bears from the Pyrenees.
'"This Is the land Of bears" said the
smart young son Of a sheep rancher on
his way down for a week end among
Luchon luxurics. We were on our way
up, and we met him at a roadhouse above
the clouds In the high valley Of the
Oeuil. To the right. far away. the Monts ;
Maudits shone pink. with Maladeta. the
especially Accused One, dominating.
''All fun Of BEARS" he said, waving his
hand round the circle. to his own home val