habit to rail at the lavish expenditure of the French Government.
Cavillers of this kind wholly lose sight of the tremendous strides made
during the last fifteen years in the matter of communication. Surely
money thus laid out is a justifiable expenditure on the part of any
State?

I lately revisited the Vendee after twelve years' absence. I found the
country absolutely transformed--new lines of railway intersecting every
part, increased commercial activity in the towns, improved agriculture
in rural districts, schools opened, buildings of public utility erected
on all sides-evidences of an almost incredible progress. In Anjou the
same rapid advance, social, intellectual, material, strikes the
traveller whose first acquaintance with that province was made, say,
fifteen years ago. Take Segre by way of example; compare its condition
in 1888 with the state of things before the Franco-Prussian War. And
this little town is one instance out of hundreds.

It was high time that something should be done for Mende. No town ever
suffered more from wolves and wolf-like enemies in human shape. Down
almost to our own day the depredations of wolves were frightful. The
old French traveller before cited, writing in 1816, speaks of the large
number of children annually devoured by these animals in the Lozere.
The notorious 'Bete du Gevaudan,' at an earlier period, was the terror
of the country. It is an exciting narrative, that of the gigantic four-
footed demon of mischief, how, after proving the scourge of the country
for years, desolating home after home, in all devouring no less than a
hundred old men, women, and children, he was at last caught in 1767 by
a brave monster-destroying baron, the Hercules and the Perseus of local
story. The ravages of wild beasts were a trifle compared to the
enormities committed by human foes.