FRENCH FARMERS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2204, 20 August 1889, Page 2

FRENCH FARMERS

The lot of a Frenoh farmer is nei her happy nor jolly. He fares frugally on soap and the thineat of ordinary red wine or cider. The Btcck of his soup id baoon, and he eats butcher's meat only tirloe a week — that is on Sunday and market day. When he attends market be makei a succulent dejuner and drinks a good deal of beer afterwards at tho oafe, This is bis only cheerful time. At ordinary seasons be is morons, troubled about the weather, the oonscription which is going to take his eon into the army, and abont pol tics, of which he understands juit enough to be m constant dread of revo> lutioacu He Is conservative— that is to cay, he upholds the Gove.rament of the day, whatever it is, for fear of anarchy, but no Government is popular with him, for every Administration findß it neces* eary to lay on taxea. The climate, how- | ever, is m his favor. A bad harvest is not a common thing m Fradee, and a succession of bad harvests never ocour. It is luoky for the French former that this is so, for there are few Frenoh landlord! who would ba in a position to remit any part of a year's rent after a bad harvest. The rule m Franoe is that farmer's rents must be piid as pnnotually as lodgers 1 rent, If it be not be paid, ejection is resorted to at once, and nobody thioka of looking upon the tenant as an illased man. — ' ' Waverley Magazine ."