WOMEN IN PARIS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 226, 28 October 1914, Page 4

WOMEN IN PARIS.

All the accounts received from Paris during the first month of the war describe it as a city of women and of old men. All agree in admiring its wonderful courage under the restrictions of martial law and the suspense caused by the dearth of news. These indefatigable workers, the women of Paris, have taken up many of the duties abandoned by reservists who were called to the front. On the tranrways the conductors are now all women, inos|ly wives ' of the,mobilised, whose places they are taking. In the Metro, or underground railway, they are also employed. Women also carry dispatches, do postal work, and help in other public services. Motors and horses, requisitioned for military purposes, have practically disappeared from the boulevards and streets. On the other hand, hosts of women cyclists have appeared, speeding through the now quiet streets in bright blouses and short skirts prepared for holiday use. Actresses and singers from the theatres, which are now closed, are giving entertainments in open spaces and courts of large dwellings, working in this way for the Red Cross fund. Frenchwomen are just now paying special honour to their national saint, Joan of Arc. Her statues in the churches are profusely decorated with flowers and candles. On the statue by Fremiet, in the Rue de Eivoli, a woman had placed a little bunch of red, white, and blue blossoms, with a simple hand-written card underneath, calling on her pure spirit to go before the armies of France and to quicken the souls of her children with a love of country and heroism in the fight against oppression. A - psychological feature which has marked this crisis in France has been the sudden revulsion of the most careless portion of the population towards rites of religion. In Paris thousands of irregular unions were legalised before the father left to serve "sous le drapeau.''