In War 



food for powder" was the grim epi- 

 gram of the day, summing up the life 

 of the French peasant. Kead the 

 dreary record of the glory of France, 

 the slaughter at Waterloo, the wretched 

 failure of Moscow, the miserable slaugh- 

 ter of Sedan, the waste of Algiers, the 

 poison of Madagascar, the crimes of 

 Indo-China, the hideous results of bar- 

 rack vice and its entail of disease and 

 sterility, and you will understand the 

 " Man of the Hoe." The man who 

 is left, the man whom glory cannot use, 

 becomes the father of the future men 

 of France. As the long-horn cattle 

 reappear in a neglected or abused herd 

 of Durhams, so comes forth the abori- 

 ginal man, the " Man of the Hoe," in a 

 wasted race of men. 



A recent French cartoon pictures the 

 peasant of a hundred years ago plough- 

 ing in a field, a gilded marquis on his 

 back, tapping his gilded snuff-box. 



47 



