San Antonio Daily Light

Thrift in France.

London Daily News.

We have all by this time a pretty accurate notion of the Eiffel Tower. Reconstructed in silver, the money value of this modern Babel would amount to two milliards of francs. Some idea of a milliard may be gained by the fact that as yet since the Christian era not a milliard of minutes have elapsed. Well, two stages more would have to be added to an Eiffel Tower in silver in order to represent the total savings of the French people now deposited in the "Caisse d'epargne," or savings banks. Dry as statistics are usually supposed to be, such comparisons as these appeal to the imagination. Imaginary they are not, but emanate from the highest statistical authority in France—namely M. de Foville, the eminent Chief du Bureau de Statistique de Ministere des Finances. The savings banks and postal banks combined now number 6,500,000 deposits, representing, as we have seen, two milliards and eight hundred millions of francs. Thrift in France, as in England, is combated by one foe—the cabaret. In the words of M. de Foville, a war to the knife is waged in every French town and village between the savings banks and the public house. In certain communities of Brittany the establishment of branch savings banks has been temporarily abandoned, so determined is the hostility on the other side. The annual outlay on spirits, liquors, absinthe, etc., amounts to half a milliard of francs; that on tobacco to nearly as large a sum. M. de Foville concludes his summary with these wise words:

"Pauperism, for which so many seek utopian remedies, will never disappear, rest assured of it, till driven out of the world by thrift."