than it has ever yet been in
the United States, unless perhaps during the domination of Mr. Tweed and
the Tammany Ring over the taxpayers of New York.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE NORD

VALENCIENNES

It says but little for what Texans call the 'sabe' of the municipal
authorities of Valenciennes that this, which ought to be one of the most
picturesque and attractive, is really one of the shabbiest historic
towns of North-eastern France. The streets are ill-paved and ill-kept,
the public buildings are untidy, and the whole place contrasts most
unfavourably, from this point of view, with the rich and beautifully
cultivated region through which you reach it by the railway from Douai.
This is the finest agricultural region in France--the old French
Flanders, a 'fat' country as well as a flat. You hardly see a weed
between Douai and Valenciennes. Great fields of beetroot are cultivated
like flower-gardens, and the green and growing crops are as daintily
ordered as the coils and plateaux of flowers with which it is the
fashion to adorn dinner-tables _a la Russe_. It is not pleasant to be
assured that the industrious dwellers in this land of Goshen are as fond
of cock-fighting as the Spaniards, who probably enough introduced the
amusement here during their long domination over what is now known as
French Flanders, and that they are addicted also in a systematic way to
the abominable practice of blinding bullfinches to make them better
singers. I am told that in many communes the authorities actually give
prizes for the best singing birds thus produced, and that 'blind
bullfinch societies' are among the many associations regularly
established and nourishing among the fields and villages. The old
Flemish love of strong drink also survives here, as is shown by the
number and the prosperous appearance of the cabarets.

These average, for the whole Department of the Nord, no fewer than one
to every sixty-six inhabitants, and around Valenciennes, the proportion
rises as high as one to every forty-four. There is much subdivision of
property, but it has not been pushed so far around Valenciennes as in
some other portions of the department, a majority of the small
properties extending to twenty-five hectares, and properties of from one
hundred to three hundred hectares being considered large estates.

Thanks to the energy and intelligence of many considerable landholders,
a great improvement has taken place of late years in the