Leclerc denounces the fact: let us interpret it. If, as there
is no doubt, the increase of population is felt principally
in the large cities,--that is, at those points where the most
wheat is consumed,--it is clear that the average per head may
have increased without any improvement in the general condition.
There is no such liar as an average.
"They talk," continues the same writer, "of the increase of
indirect consumption. Vain would be the attempt to acquit
Parisian adulteration: it exists; it has its masters, its adepts,
its literature, its didactic and classic treatises. . . . France
possessed exquisite wines; what has been done with them? What
has become of this splendid wealth? Where are the treasures
created since Probus by the national genius? And yet, when one
considers the excesses to which wine gives rise wherever it is
dear, wherever it does not form a part of the regular life of the
people; when in Paris, capital of the kingdom of good wines, one
sees the people gorging themselves with I know not what,--stuff
that is adulterated, sophisticated, sickening, and sometimes
execrable,--and well-to-do persons drinking at home or accepting
without a word, in famous restaurants, so-called wines, thick,
violet-colored, and insipid, flat, and miserable enough to make
the poorest Burgundian peasant shudder,--can one honestly doubt
that alcoholic liquids are one of the most imperative needs of
our nature?
I quote this passage at length, because it sums up in relation to
a special case all that could be said upon the INCONVENIENCES of
machinery.
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