A GLIMPSE OF FRANCE. 215 



did not have the reputation of being very strict Sab- 

 batarians. 



The French give a touch of art to whatever they 

 do. Even the drivers of drays, and carts, and trucks, 

 about the streets, are not content with a plain, mat- 

 ter-of-fact whip, as an English or American laborer 

 would be, but it must be a finely-modeled stalk, with 

 a long, tapering lash tipped with the best silk snap- 

 per. Always the inevitable, snapper. I doubt if 

 there is a whip in Paris without a snapper. Here is 

 where the fine art, the rhetoric of driving, comes in. 

 This converts a vulgar, prosy " gad " into a delicate 

 instrument, to be wielded with pride and skill, and 

 never to be literally applied to the backs of the ani- 

 mals, but to be launched to the right and left into 

 the air with a professional flourish, and a sharp, ring- 

 ing report. Crack ! crack ! crack ! all day long go 

 these ten thousand whips, like the boys' Fourth of 

 July fusillade. It was invariably the first sound I 

 heard when I opened my eyes in the morning, and 

 generally the last one at night. Occasionally some 

 belated drayman would come hurrying along just as 

 I was going to sleep, or some early bird before I was 

 fully awake in the morning, and let off, in rapid suc- 

 cession in front of my hotel, a volly from the tip of 

 his lash that would make the street echo again, and 

 that might well have been the envy of any ring- 

 master that ever trod the tan-bark. Now and then, 

 during my ramblings, I would, suddenly hear some 

 Viaster-whip, perhaps that of an old omnibus-driver, 



