A fruit seller was crying his wares along the platform, and just
before we started from Laroche breakfast was preparing on board the
train; I thought a basket of French grapes--the grapes that grow in
the open air, not the leathery hot-house grapes filled with lumps of
glue that we eat in England--would pass the time. I got out and bought
a basket from him. On journeys like these one has to resort to many
various little expedients. Alas! The grapes were decaying; only the
bunch on the top was eatable; nor was that one worth eating, and I
began to think that the railway company's attention should be directed
to the fraud, for in my case a deliberate fraud had been effected. The
directors of the railway would probably think that passengers should
exercise some discrimination; it were surely easy for the passenger to
examine the quality of a basket of grapes before purchasing--that
would be the company's answer to my letter. The question of a letter
to the newspaper did not arise, for French papers are not like
ours--they do not print all the letters that are sent to them. The
French public has no means of ventilating its grievances; a misfortune
no doubt, but not such a misfortune as it seems, when one reflects on
how little good a letter addressed to the public press does in the way
of remedying abuses.
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