nce for the pedal of the bicycle.
During the annual manoeuvres of 1896, he issued an order to the mounted
escort of the foreign officers, recommending to them an extreme
cleanliness, even to the point of cleaning their finger-nails with "a
piece of paper folded in four." This was really a very practical
regulation, for the hands of the French soldier are capable of the most
extreme dirtiness. In this respect, they practice more than even the
usual neglect of their countrymen for the most elemental rules of
decency in washing. It may be said that they would be a much pleasanter
people to live with if they observed the Semitic regulations and
observances of their hated Jewish fellow-citizens.

In the present year, General Billot issued an order to the commandants
of the corps d'armee to request the chiefs of corps and of detachments
to take measures against those civilians who, by the unseemly cracking
of whips, caused the soldiers to fall off their horses and get hurt.
This measure calls attention at once to two national peculiarities,
nowhere more noticeable than in the streets of Paris,--the ungraceful
and apparently insecure equitation of the mounted soldiers, and the
childish, not to say idiotic, delight that the French driver and
teamster takes in cracking his whip. It is not only the reckless youth
who have in charge light wagons and trotting horses, but carters of
every grade may be seen amusing themselves by filling the air with an
ear-splitting series of detonations produced by their long lashes.
Naturally, the more intelligent beast they conduct soon learns that this
is not addressed to him, and plods along without even moving his ears
while his master is awakening all the echoes in the neighborhood. The
military horses are, apparently, more spirited or less intelligent, for
General Billot proposed to hold these inconsiderate civilians to strict
account, to make them pay the hospital expenses of his unhorsed
troopers, and even, if need should arise, to hold them responsible for
the pension charges that may ensue because of their intempestiveness.
The sudden irruptions of barking dogs are also responsible for many
equestrian accidents, and "the proprietors of _chiens hargneux_" are
also to be held to strict account for any diminution of the military
strength of France for which they may be responsible.

In the streets of the capital, the French soldier trots his horse
instead of cantering him, and his military