THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



369 



Photograph by H. C. Ellis 



A BIT OF FUN OR A HUMANE PROVISION FOR THE COMFORT OF THIS PATIENT 



LITTLE PLODDER? 



The trousers are supposed to keep off the flies, but the clever mountebank knows that they 

 also attract attention to his traveling Punch and Judy show 



may be prosecuted for homicide, but if it 

 was a fair duel is almost certain of ac- 

 quittal. 



Often indeed a French duel has re- 

 sulted from what we Americans would 

 consider very small breaches of polite- 

 ness. But we must remember that polite- 

 ness is one of the most marked national 

 characteristics ; the courtesy of the 

 French, "punctilious," as some one has 

 called it, is but another evidence of their 

 love of form, system, established tradi- 

 tion. "The French put the same inten- 

 tions into manners that all civilized people 

 do into language, and have systematized 

 them with the same care for correctness 

 on the one hand and pliability on the 

 other." 



This observance of traditionally polite 

 forms is often irritating to the hasty 

 American. I remember that after I had 

 waited in line an hour and a quarter in a 

 Parisian railway station to reserve a seat 



on a train I was dumbfounded to see 

 two women clerks enter the office and 

 hold up the entire business of the occasion 

 to say good night and shake hands with 

 every one behind the counter. 



What is the use, says your average 

 American, of this constant tipping of hats 

 among the men, this constant shaking of 

 hands when entering and leaving an office, 

 this saying of farewell a dozen times be- 

 fore one goes? But the French know 

 what they are about. Long centuries of 

 such little courtesies have reduced the 

 forms of politeness almost to a ritual, and 

 every French boy, unlike every American 

 boy, knows exactly what to say and how 

 to act in every business or social situation. 



THE FRENCH HOUSEWIFE WITHOUT AN 

 EQUAL IN ECONOMY 



The French have long been a shrewd, 

 calculating people who have watched 

 closely every sou. They may seem ro- 



