Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1891 — French Afraid of Water. [ARTICLE]

French Afraid of Water.

Much has h*en said in a facetious way about th 6 difficulty travelers havo In. France getting a simple drink of water, and some personal experience of the kind is one of the stock anecdotes of every tourist. And yet, as a matter of fact, this difficulty can hardly be exaggerated, writes a traveler. Im Normandy and Brittany Normandy cider, with a taste like poor Rhine wine but a complexion a shade darker, is the exclusive beverage of the people; wine is a luxury, as it is not made so far north; tea is practically unknown: coffee is taken solely In the morning, and chocolate likewise; milk is rarely found at all, and absolutely unprocurable after noon; and water, to end the list, would never be thought of in this connection. Wc stopped at a fine by the roadside, and a native passing by hesitated in curiosity and surprise and hastened to warn us that water was injurious and it would make us sick; and every time wo inquired! for water at a wayside cottage madame would refuse to givfe it to us and would resjxind with the inevitabl cider. We had been about two days-on our road to Paris when we began, to get desperate at this treatment, for we had forgotten how water tasted; and as we passed a well and saw a woman appear at a door with a bucket one ol us rushed upon her and unceremoniously seized it, and In anothen minute'we were drinking defiantly of the interdicted liquid. The woman was still standing in her tracks dazed and dumfounded as we returned her the bucket full to the brim, and in her absence of mind she refused the sous we offered her—the first case on record.