Some employment is also had in the making of wooden inlaid articles for sale in the shops, generally with the word ‘Mentone’ on them. The articles sell well; but it is said that many of them come from Sorrento, which is the headquarters of this description of work, and where it is carried to the highest perfection, or at least to its largest extent. The prices asked at Mentone are sometimes double what are asked for similar work at Sorrento; while the same variety and beauty of work cannot, I think, be procured, although a Mentone workman laboured to make me believe his _modus operandi_ was superior. The great mass of the Mentone men, however, seem to be occupied in the various trades connected with house–building—in quarrying stones; and upon the works of the town, such as metalling and watering the roads forming the promenades, etc.; and I must say that the men appear to be industrious and steady in their application to their appointed tasks, as well as sober, for during all the time we were in Mentone, I never witnessed but once a case of drunkenness, and it was that of two men who apparently were not of the town, but from the rural parts. Not that they do not drink, for even the women carry to their work a huge litre bottle, but their drinking must be in great moderation and of a weak quality of wine. It is, however, very desirable to have some saving of human fatigue effected. For example, instead of lifting large stones by means of cranes, three or four men may be seen tediously and laboriously moving them by means of levers, keeping time to an unearthly sound ejaculated by the foreman or leader of the group. Labour is no doubt cheap. I suppose that wages do not exceed 2 francs per day, but the employment of so many men unnecessarily must add to the expense of public improvements. I suspect, however, that in this also, as in other things, there is a conservative clinging to old habits and customs, and fear of innovations, which it is very difficult to eradicate, and that men follow in their fathers’ ways just because their fathers had always done so before them. Necessarily the visitors bring with them employment to the inhabitants, such as in dressmaking and the various other requirements of life; and if one be passing along the main street of Mentone after the sun has reached the meridian, for no public clock strikes or bell sounds, he will find it crowded with girls and men leaving work and going to dinner.