Georges Barbot, who has accomplished such surprising feats with his miniature plane, will return to France convinced that the perils of flying are slight indeed compared with the dangers of landing in the American countryside. A fall left his little machine practically undamaged, but a single night at the mercy of souvenir hunters resulted in its utter ruin. Not only the wings but the engine were dissected and ravished away; and this patron of low-power craft finds himself robbed of his entire equipment.

But this is only a single example of that American disease known as "souvenior-collecting". According to Europe, America entered the War for the sake of souvenirs; the hammers of Yankee vandals have chipped corners from every unguarded work of art from the Sphinx to the Coliseum; and probably some ingenious progenitor is responsible for the present condition of the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and Venus de Milo. Innumerable replicas have saved the Lion of Lueerne, and in the Lincoln Memorial is a gentleman who follows every visitor around at a polite distance to preserve the gleaming integrity of the marble columns.

Inanimate objects, however, are not the only targets of this petty but altogether barbarous vice. If M. Barbot had remained with his machine, his overalls or whatever aviators wear, would probably be decorating some New Jersey villa; certainly Boston women assailed the fair Rodolpho as furiously as ever the Bacchanalian revellers rent poor Orpheus. The Enthusiasm of the demoniac souvenir-fiend is boundless, and if half of the present monuments are to be kept for posterity to admire, vigorous measures will have to be adopted.