FROM ONE DAY TO THE NEXT
Their Champagne!

The proposal to immediately purchase 1200 bottles of Champagne, transmitted by the mayor with a very favorable opinion to his Council and the appointment of a Tasting Commission seemed at first so extravagant and, to tell the truth, so crazy, that many Cherbourg residents, loyal political friends of the municipality, imagined that it was a Carnival joke. Others said: "Come on, come on, don't try to tell us... April Fool's Day is a little too early this year!" However, it was necessary to face the facts and note once again that the truth can sometimes be implausible. The history of Champagne is therefore real and of indisputable authenticity; the last unbelievers, if there are any left, need only go to the Hôtel de Ville to consult the public and official register of minutes and they will see that Mr. Mahieu reigning, at a time when bread was thirty-two sous per kilo, when milk for children was rare and expensive, when meat reached exorbitant prices, when the entire population deplored the increasingly expensive cost of living, mayor, deputies and radical-socialist and socialist municipal councilors of Cherbourg had no more pressing concern than to pile up twelve hundred bottles of Champagne in the cellars of the Hôtel de Ville.
These gentlemen have already said and will certainly repeat: "The deal is good, why should we not let the Cherbourgeois benefit from it?"

Of course, we are not discussing the value of the market that is being negotiated; we are even willing to admit that the tasters will only have to pay tribute to the natural qualities of the Champagne offered, but that is not the question... It is simply a question of knowing if we must, at a time when the purchase of hundreds of bottles of Champagne is necessary; if the taxpayers' money would not find a better and more urgent use; if finally it is not making fun of the unfortunate people soon reduced to drinking only the water of the Divette and eating only bread... all the drier because it is more expensive, to let them know that the cellars of the town hall are gradually filling up with drinks that have nothing in common with the water of the city, even when chlorinated! In the past, the Roman emperors guaranteed their people at least bread and games. Nowadays, our demagogic cartelists have managed to make bread unaffordable because of its price, and games useless, the people no longer having much desire to take part in them.

But for them there is still Champagne! Ah! the smokescreens!

E. C.