From a fill we could look down into the brown swamp where the villagers had built their homes. What could have induced them to settle in such a morass? In any case, they were under no illusion as to the site they selected, for it was called Swamp Station.

The neighborhood of the stalled trains was a scene of great activity. To be sure, there was no hot water, but people were promenading in groups between the tracks, condoling with each other over our long delay. Our regimental band was perched upon the roof of a freight car, and the fat trumpeter was favoring the crowd with a supersentimental rendition of An der Weser. Soldiers and peasants were jostling each other in the narrow passages between the trains. Most of the refugee ladies had brought only their best clothes with them when they left home, and were perforce dressed as if they were expecting to attend a court ball. The station platform was crowded with fish-sellers. The price had gone down to fifty rubles, and one fellow was very proud because he had got two eggs for six fish. We rejoined our fellow passengers with an exceedingly high opinion of our skill as traders.

Of course the girl we had spoken to in the morning was among them. She called to us: 'I have made tea.'

'We have butter.'

She merely turned pale. "The tea is still hot,' she stammered. 'I put a fur cap over the samovar.'

Could we resist such an invitation? She saw at once that we could not have our little party either in her car or in our own. We did not have enough butter, and she did not have enough tea for all who would be present. Finally we agreed to meet at a coal car that was snowed in on a side track some distance from the station. We took our bread and butter there, and she brought her samovar. The car was full of coal dust, and not exactly the place for transparent silk stockings. We rigged up a table from broken boxes, the butter was put into a blue jam-tin, the girl's yellow kerchief served as a tablecloth. We even gathered splinters enough to start the samovar again, until it bubbled merrily to the accompaniment of the distant music of the band. The girl played the housewife and set the table.

Altogether it was a blissful occasion. What more could human beings want?

'MONSIEUR,' the Unknown said to me solemnly, 'behold in me the savior of France!'

'Indeed!'

'Indeed, sir. While we are waiting for the Ruhr to prove a paying proposition, I have prepared for your consideration a plan by means of which the equilibrium of our budget may be established, and consequently cause our national money to rise in value above par, or to half par, or perhaps to one-third par; for, curiously enough, no two economists have ever been able to agree on just which of these is the most advantageous for us, or the least harmful. And I am sure I don't want to get into hot water with these expert gentlemen. What I am after is to restore to France a condition of happiness and prosperity unknown since the days of Louis XII of extinct memory.'

'If you are really in possession of such a valuable secret,' I ventured, 'why do you not first profit by it yourself, applying it to the security of your own fortune, thus following the advice given long ago by, I think, Xenophon: "Well-ordered charity begins at home"? And besides this excellent counsel of the author of the Economics there are many other maxims to the same effect. Your personal appearance does not predicate exactly a state of opulence.'

As a matter of fact, he exhibited, with his somewhat tattered raiment, a condition far removed from luxury. It disclosed a man who had seen better

days and retained nothing of them but bitter memories.

'You mean that my aspect does not prejudice you in my favor? It will be less a matter of surprise to you when I inform you that I am a vineyardowner. Ah, monsieur, what a fate is mine and that of those in my situation! Do you appreciate with sufficient clearness how absolutely desperate is the condition of France to-day? They tell us that not sufficient wheat was grown last year the price of bread is rising! And France groans in discouragement.

'But, mark well, I have developed an idea, and I am convinced that it is a good one. I said to myself: "Very well, since the wines of lesser quality are unsalable, let us make good out of evil; let us improve the quality. I therefore distilled a portion of my crop in order to put the alcohol into the wine that I kept. That's better than watering it, far more advantageous.

'But the Government got after me immediately. "Aha, you are manufacturing alcohol; very well, pay the tax on alcohol!" I thought to ameliorate

'And what recourse have I? It is a subject for derision. The Minister of Agriculture thus harangues his fellow citizens: "It is true that we have too little bread and too much wine. Very well, the remedy is simple: don't eat any bread, or eat as little as possible, but drink a lot, drink as much as you can hold. The more the merrier don't stint yourselves!" And the Minister of Finance raises his voice in his turn: "It is not to be denied that we have come to a crisis. Yes, a mild crisis; but you can see that it comes from the fall of the franc. That raises the price of indispensable raw materials, and nothing is now bought that is not absolutely necessary. Therefore you wine-growers can't sell your product. But I advise you, all the same, to pay your legitimate taxes, for that will tend to send the value of the franc up again. These taxes have been increased once already - I am going to increase them again by twenty per cent. It is for your own good."

"Eh bien, monsieur, I have been inspired with another idea, a very monarch among ideas an idea which will be the salvation of France and of her wine-growers. Listen!

'I demand that we shall return to the admirable, benevolent, and millennial customs of our ancient monarchy. Did they appoint any functionaries, these dear, regretted old monarchs? Never in the world! On the contrary, positions were bought, like those of head waiters in the great hotels to-day. All the positions were unsalaried. You ask how the officeholders managed to live? They took their salaries out of their collections. They were paid by the percentage, the pot-de-vin! Very well, then, I demand the reëstablishment of this antique custom-I demand the reësI demand the reës

pot!

'I beg you to reflect that this is not at all incompatible with an advanced state of civilization. Was Russia, before the advent of Bolshevism, civilized or not? At all events, she appeared to be, which is sufficient for the enjoyment of credit; she certainly made a pretty good showing. Well, and how did she pay her functionaries? She left them to help themselves from the pot-de-vin! And from the day when this wise provision was abolished, there has been nothing but chaos and disorder in Russia. If you hear of any improvement in conditions there, you may be sure that they are reintroducing the legitimate and salutary system of the pot-de-vin.

'And how about ourselves during the war? It is hinted that the system was more or less in vogue, in the markets. We had the culpable imprudence to proceed against those who put it in force and gained by it, though it was perhaps on its account that we won, for we certainly did win. What ingratitude!

'Very well, monsieur, there you have my remedy. Let us abolish in future every sort of public gratuity, of whatever description, establishing in its place the inviolable and permanent principle of unsalaried service. But, on the other hand, the principle of the pot-de-vin- is it called graft in English? — shall be declared not only to be legitimate, but to be the only just, legal, and intelligent manner of recompensing government functionaries. Vive the farming of our taxes!

"The State will immediately find itself relieved of a formidable, a crushing burden. It will no longer have to bear the expense of paying its employees, and the equilibrium of its budget will be reëstablished as if by magic. The profiteers of London and

New York who have been gambling on the fall of the franc will drink bitter beer and eat their bread in sorrow; gold will pour into the coffers of the Banque de France, and it will be necessary only to prevent the franc from rising too high above par, since it seems to be as bad for us to have our money worth too much as not enough. In a word, the National Treasury will show so enormous an increase of receipts over expenditures that the Chamber will vote me a statue!

'But I shall refuse this monument. My modesty will prevent my accepting this homage, even if it is my rightful due. I wish only to stand for solid principles. I am thinking of myself and my brothers, the unfortunate vineyard-owners. I shall reply: "No, no! I want nothing except that the pot-de-vin shall be a real pot of wine, to be used in natura, and that it shall be genuine wine, and nothing else, that is used to pay governmental salaries."

'And in this way, monsieur, wine will become the legal tender of France. In Germany it has been proposed to do the same with coal, that being the principal product of our neighbors on the East. What is the principal product of France? Wine! Very well, then, why should not wine become the basis of our monetary system?

"The salary of every official shall be paid in wine. I see no objection or inconvenience in adjusting the different qualities of the vintages to the rank of the functionary. For example, cabinet ministers, ambassadors, admirals, generals, and prefects may be remunerated

with the very best vintages of Champagne, Burgundy, or Bordeaux. The treasury collectors also, for the reason that, since they will be in charge of the distribution, it will be wiser not to expose their probity to too great temptations.

'Possibly a similar privilege might be extended to members of the Senate and Chamber, and their salaries, or rather rations, can be paid them by the quæstor.

'As to subprefects, heads of departments, and the like, people of more modest demands and accustomed to content themselves with less, they will be satisfied with vintages of the second quality, the less expensive wines of Touraine and Anjou; and the torrents of very good vin ordinaire that flow down from the vineyard-covered hills of Hérault and the Gard will fill the vats of the army of lesser functionaries of every description. I do not forget our dear Alsace-Lorraine, but I assume that, up till the time when these provinces which we have happily reannexed will have become completely French, her functionaries, accustomed as they are to a special regimen, will be willing to consume the products of their own neighborhood.

'There, sir, is my proposition! You perceive how simple it is, how luminous, how overwhelming its advantages. I cannot doubt that you will approve it, and I confidently expect the same of all my countrymen. It cannot be otherwise!

'Ah!'

No one who sees Rio de Janeiro today, lying among the gleaming waves of the mighty ocean and surrounded by blue mountains, can believe that only twenty or thirty years ago this city was a pesthole that filled every seafarer with fear. Even to-day the inscriptions in Rio's cemeteries tell many a tragic story of ships' crews, every member of which, from captain to cabin boy, died of yellow fever. More than one sailing ship from the north rotted in harbor at Rio while its crew rested in the red soil of the cemetery, and no one remained to take the vessel on her homeward course. The Italian Government was once compelled to dispatch an entirely new crew in order to take over a great warship that had come on an official visit, the entire crew of which had fallen victim to the devastating plague. Later the bones of the dead were taken to Italy and there buried. A great monument in the white cemetery remains to tell the story of the tragedy. But today one strolls out on the quay on the Place Quinze de Novembre into a country where slender palms and green branches wave friendly greeting to the traveler, and need no longer fear for his health.

The distinction of bringing about this change belongs to Dr. Oswald Cruz, the Brazilian physician who, trained at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, was called by President Rodriguez Alves in 1903 to reform the sani

tary administration of Rio. Anyone who has any conception of the ideas of cleanliness that obtain among dwellers in southern lands will imagine what a gigantic task it was and what stern regulations were required to make this into one of the cleanest cities of the world within the space of a few years.

President Alves, who held office from 1902 to 1906, was a striking personality of unusual energy, and even to-day Brazil owes him a debt of gratitude. Characteristic for its impulsiveness was his action in having the most unwholesome quarter of Rio leveled in order to create a spacious avenue. With pencil and ruler he drew a line over the city map. Here the magnificent new street was to lie. He allowed the owners of the property through which the line ran to come to him and he ascertained the value of their houses. If their claims seemed reasonable, he added twenty-five per cent to the valuation, and in this way his new measure became instantly popular. After about two years the old quarter had vanished and along with it a precipice through which the presidential pencil stroke had passed; and in their place stood the magnificent Avenida Rio Branco, ready for use, two kilometres long, forty metres wide, and lined with stately buildings.

But not all of President Alves's reforms were greeted by the populace with joy. One was the excuse for a