They are, for the first time in France, stimulated partly
by the alarming adulteration of French wines, rigorously applying and
enforcing the pure-food laws.
As a consequence, there is a palpable and decided improvement of the
vintage of the Garonne and the Champagne country. One may get a good glass
of wine now without impoverishing himself. As men drink wine, and as the
wine is pure, they fall away from stronger drink. I have always considered,
with Jefferson, the brewery in America an excellent temperance society.
That which works otherwise is the dive which too often the brewery fathers.
They are drinking more beer in France--even making a fairly good beer. And
then--
But gracious, this is getting upon things controversial, and if there is
anything in this world that I do hybominate, it is controversy!
Few of the wondrous changes which the Age of Miracles has wrought in my day
and generation exceeded those of ocean travel. The modern liner is but a
moving palace. Between the ports of the Old World and the ports of the
new the transit is so uneventful as to grow monotonous. There are no more
adventures on the high seas. The ocean is a thoroughfare, the crossing a
ferry. My experience forty years ago upon one of the ancient tubs which
have been supplanted by these liners would make queer reading to the
latter-day tourist, taking, let us say, any one of the steamers of any one
of the leading transatlantic companies. The difference in the appointments
of the William Penn of 1865 and the star boats of 1914 is indescribable.
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