rom a lantern hook.

The seats in the barn once filled, some fifty auditors grouped
themselves in the farmyard about the wide-open doors of the barn, and M.
Labitte mounted the extemporised platform. The proceedings had to be
suspended for a few moments as the attention of the audience was
suddenly drawn to the high road by the galloping past of two generals in
full uniform, with their staff officers, from St.-Omer. There was no
nomination of a chairman or a secretary, none of the inevitable
formalities of an English or American political gathering. M. Labitte
called the meeting to order by the simple process of beginning to
address it. Nothing could be more direct and business-like than his
speech. It was exactly what he told his hearers he meant it to be, an
account of his stewardship as their councillor-general. He said not a
word about the personal aspects of the party conflicts raging in France,
and very little about the national aspects of that conflict. Speaking in
a frank conversational way, and referring to his notes only for figures
and dates, he gave his constituents a succinct picture of the effect
upon their own local interests of the policy pursued by the Government
of the Republic. He told them how much of their money had been spent
under the action of the Council-General during the six years of his
term, and on what it had been spent, and with what results. If they
liked the picture, well and good; if not, the remedy was in their own
hands at the next election. He had forewarned me to expect nothing
demonstrative in the attitude of his audience. 'They listen most
attentively,' he said, 'but they give you no sign either of agreement
or disagreement, of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. At night, after the
meeting is over, they will break up into little knots and coteries, and
talk it all over among themselves. If they are pleased on the whole, one
of the group finally will say: "Well, Labitte told us the truth," and
that being admitted by the rest, the conference will be a success!'

On this occasion the auditors were much more outspoken during the
conference. Speaking of the unequal pressure upon the different communes
of the military service, M. Labitte told them a story of a youth who
came to him to get an exemption from service. 'I told him,' said M.
Labitte, 'that I should be very glad to get it for him, but that his
commune was not at that moment entitled to an exemption, and that I
could not be a p