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are exceedingly foolish & often disgusting. In France it is far different. Society is freer & more Republican. After leaving England I sailed for Dieppe in France crossing the Channel in one night only. Dieppe is a great bathing & fishing place & you cannot imagine what a novel yet picturesque scene it was to see the old & young French women in large groups selling fish in the streets with their wooden shoes on & white turbans around their heads. I had seen such groups only in old paintings. Artists were sitting about sketching them. After I had gone through the Custom House routine & looked the town over I took the train for Paris via Rouen. The country & the dwellings [[crossed-out]] are more scattering and the trees have [[/crossed-out]] look very much as in England, but the forests are more scattering and the trees have their limbs trimmed off, as every twig is used for firewood & not a tree is allowed to be cut unless for the use of the Government. In passing through I of course saw many things very novel to me. Many French Soldiers in their gay uniforms, lots of women with queer caps on & plenty of priests everywhere. When I arrived at Paris my attention was immediately attracted by the great number of gay "salons" & "cafes" with gentlemen and ladies sitting in front drinking wine & coffee at little tables upon the sidewalk. It looks very strange indeed to a foreigner at first but one soon gets used to it. In passing through any of the great Boulevards one will always see hundreds [[crossed-out]] and [[/crossed-out]] & thousands of gentlemen & ladies drinking wine & coffee & smoking cigarettes. The fashionable ladies all smoke here. Wine is cheaper than milk & the poorest laborer always takes his quart or more a day. When I first came here I experience great difficulties in making my wants known as I could not speak a word of french but I managed somehow & was but a very few days here before I was at work. The first thing I did was to go to the Lovre where I wandered about among the great paintings and statues. There are always great numbers of artists there copying the paintings & I discovered a name on one of the easels which I knew was English & upon finding the painter to be an Englishman I asked him to direct me to an English Sculptor who I found to be an exception to Englishmen generally as he treated me very cordially indeed. He went with me to the school of design