have torn up the money or tossed it recklessly away. Prices have
doubled and trebled in the village in a few weeks, and the peasants
have come to the conclusion that every American soldier must be a
millionaire; as the boys have sometimes told them that the pile of
notes, which represents several mouths' pay, is the amount they receive
every month. Compare this with the $1.80 a month, in addition to a
small allowance for his family, which the French private gets, and you
will readily see how this false impression is formed.

Temptation and solicitation in Europe have been in almost exact
proportion to the pay that the soldier receives. The harpies flock
around the men who have the most money. As our American boys are the
best paid, and perhaps the most generous and open-hearted and reckless
of all the troops, they have proved an easy mark in Paris and the port
cities. As soon as they were paid several months' back salary, some of
them took "French leave," went on a spree, and did not come back until
they were penniless. The officers, fully alive to the danger, are now
doing their utmost to cope with the situation; they are seeking to
reduce the cash payments to the men and are endeavoring to persuade
them to send more of their money home. Court martial and strict
punishment have been imposed for drunkenness, in the effort to grapple
with this evil.

Will the friends of our American boys away in France try to realize
just the situation that confronts them? Imagine a thousand healthy,
happy, reckless, irrepressible American youths put down in a French
village, without a single place of amusement but a drinking hall, and
no social life save such as they can find with the French girls
standing in the doorways and on the street corners. Think of all these
men shut up, month after month, through the long winter, with nothing