THE OUTLETS 327 



The application of this scale gives us the following 

 results : The cost of transporting a ton of fish from 

 Boulogne to Paris is 42 fr. 90=^1 145. 3d. ; from La 

 Rochelle to Basle (878 kilometres =545 miles), 6 is. 5<i.; 

 and from Lorient to Paris, ^3 43. 9d. From Havre 

 to 



s. d. 



Nancy ... 409^ per ton or is. 3'47d. per box. 



Lyon ... 4 13 i is. 2'4d. 



Saint-Etienne 4 13 3 is. 2'4d. 



Bordeaux ... 4 14 10 is. 2'88d. 



Toulouse ... 55 IS - 4'3 2d - 



The Midi Railway not having adopted the general 

 common tariff, a ton of produce sent from Arcachon to 

 Avignon, or a distance of 393 miles, costs .5 IDS. 5d., 

 while the freight on the same amount sent from La 

 Rochelle to Avignon, over a distance of 497 miles, costs 

 only 3 1 6s. 



II 



A Frenchman feels almost ashamed to compare the 

 freight tables of his own country with those of foreign 

 railways. Let the reader consider the following table. 

 Columns of figures are tedious, I know, and they 

 often have no other object than to give a book a 

 learned, authoritative, and therefore respectable air. As 

 people are not fond of the respectable, such books 

 are seldom read ; a -fact which justly punishes the 

 author for an offence committed in a spirit of trivial 

 and pedantic pride. I hope I myself may be par- 

 doned, for I have not sinned very deeply ; whenever 

 I have cited figures in the course of this book it 

 has been because I thought them indispensable. So 

 here, cited from Commandant Charlier, is a table of 



