LIFE IN PARIS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 225, 20 September 1913, Page 18

LIFE IN PARIS.

PRESENT BAT EXPERIENCES. (By FREDERICK STUBBS.) This is not the first time I have lived in Paris. I stayed there nearly twenty years ago, but though I was a young man then, with a keener appetite for the pleasures of life, I must say 1 enjoyed my last visit more than the first. For one thing I had a little more noney to spend,jind I think most of my readers will admit that that makes a lifference. Then, although I was a good .leal older, I was still —thanks to a tem-ps-rate life—possessed of a fair amount of health and vigour. And Paris itself sad changed for the better. Magnificent new thoroughfares had been constructed, the Bois de Boulogne had been improved; the trees that lined the boulevards were finer than ever; splendid up-to-date buildings, thousands of them, had been erected; there were more and better houses of entertainment. When I was in Paris twenty year 3 ago, it was difficult to find an entertainment that was not coarse; to-day things are much better, and one can find amusement night, alter night without once having one's: of decency offended. And last, but not least, one can get about much more easily and cheaply to-day than twenty years ago. There is now a splendid system of underground electric railways all over Paris, and one can travel | from one end of the city to the other for three halfpence. The fare is the same to all stations, and there are facili-1 ties for changing from one line to another. In some eases, as in London also, there is a moving staircase. You just I walk on to it and the machinery does the rest. The motor bus, too, has made a tremendous difference. It is swift and cheap, and there is plenty of it. Every quarter of the city is reached by these conveyances, and at certain principal points the routes are made to intersect each other. Each omnibus or tramcar is divided into two classes, first and second, and the fares are, first class IJd per section of about a mile, second class Id. Nor must I forget the splendid system of steamboats on the Seine. They run every eight minutes for a distance of nine miles, and the fare is a penny. This matter of swift, cheap locomotion is a very important one, and makes a city much more desirahle to visit or live in. The strange thing is that London with a nobler river and much larger population is not provided with a good river service. Progressives tell mc that it is on account of certain large trusts that might be injuriously affected. However that may be, it certainly does seem absurd that Paris should have such a magnificent service, and London, which is more favourably situated, practically none at all. LIFE ON THE BOULEVARDS. One of the principal and pleasantest features of Paris is the life of the boulevards. The boulevards, as most of my readers will know, are fine wide thoroughfares lined with trees on either side, and in Paris nearly half the shops built on them are cafes. Here on the wide pavement outside the cafes thousands of men and women are to be found all day long, and almost all night. The number of people that spend time thus is prodigious, and has to be seen to be believed. For the Parisians love eating and drinking, even more than most other peoples, and to a larger extent have reduced it to a fine art. Hence the Parisian does not take his meals at home, as the Englishman does, but after taking his petit-dejeuner, a cup of delicious coffee and a roll, he lunches and dines at a restaurant or cafe, and nothing pleases him more than to sit out on the pavement at a little table, sipping his coffee or chocolate, smoking cigarettes, chatting with a friend, or listening to music. This, of course, during fine weather; in cold or wet weather he is driven indoors. I always found I could get an excellent lunch or dinner for from 1/8 to 2/, and these prices included half a bottle of wine or a bottle of mineral water. My advice to visitors is to take a bedroom, which can be easily procured at from 2/6 to 3/ per night, and then get their meals at a cafe or restaurant. This saves a lot of travelling, and one sees a very characteristic and interesting feature of Parisian life. The Frenchman likes to take hi. pleasure without -exertion; heace

his love of the boulevard and of the music-hall. "Tea" is a meal unknown to Frenchmen, so that although the coffee is excellent, the tea one gets is generally poor—and very dear. It is quite a common thing in France for the visitor to pay a franc (9_d) for a cup of tea, and sometimes for afternoon tea two francs is charged. The experienced traveller carries a little spirit stove and makes his own. EXIT FRESH ATIOne peculiarity of the, Parisian, and of Frenchmen generally, is his objection to fresh air in an apartment. He will sit out on the pavement in front of a cafe even in chilly weather for an hour, sipping coffee, but once in an apartment he will scent the slightest trace of fresh air and be unhappy till every door and j window is closed. He demands that rooms be heated to suffocation, anil thinks it a sign of idiocy to leave one's windows open at night. Anyone who has travelled, as I have, by the night train between Paris and Marseilles will appreciate these remarks. The steam and stench are sometimes awful. AMUSEMENTS. In regard to amusements, I have already noted a great advance in this respect. There are now, owing to the improvement of the music-hall and the advent of picture palaces, plenty of decent evening entertainments. Some of them such as those at the Opera House and the principal theatres, are magnificent. But there is no doubt that the typing Parisian likes a performance more highly spiced with suggestions of immorality than, happily, would meet the taste of the average Englishman, and he takes the female members of his family to representations that would make a Britisher blueh to the roots of his hair. At the same time, such is his I inconsistency, he will not allow his i daughter to go out alone, nor even sit I or walk alone with her fiance. Our young j people would not at all appreciate the restrictions placed upon even engaged couples by respectable Parisian parents, i ' POLITENESS. When I was a boy the Parisian was [considered as a paragon of good manners, a shining example for all the rest of the world, and especially for Englishmen. He could not truthfully be held up as such to-day. There is a good .deal of lifting of the hat, and everyone, •even the humblest, is ceremoniously addressed as Madame or Monsieur. " But j the Parisian stares aud pushes, and I elbows others on one side, and seizes on the best of everything with almost as j little ceremony as a German now, and on returning direct from France to England I was much struck this year with the greater consideration and politeness of the British. There is no doubt whatever that in point of manners the British have risen, whilst the French have deteriorated. I hope that in the colonies also our manners are., becoming softer and more -polite, for there is no doubt that a courteous bear,ing and manner of address make the business and intercourse of life easier and more pleasant. Few more impor- j itan. subjects could be taught in our ! schools. Nor is the Parisian as sober as he once was. Twenty years ago one seldom saw a case of drunkenness in ' the streets. More are to be seen now, j though I admit with shame not nearly as many as in an Australasian city, and the Government statistics show that there has been a great increase in ' the use of ardent spirits of various kinds. PATRIOTISM. Just now a wave of patriotic feeling is passing over France, and nowhere is I ■this more evident than in Paris. The Frenchman realises that, owing to voluntary restrictions of the birth-rate,! he is becoming more and more inferior numerically as compared with his neighbours, and so he has made up his mind to seek compensation for this by means of efficiency, wealth, and personal sacrifice. Hence he is becoming increasingly efficient in almost every department. He is not a mere frivol- j ous, excitable pleasure-seeker, as some j seem to think. Slackness is not considered a virtue in France, as it ap- I pears to be with some classes amongst ourselves. The general opinion on the Continent is that the French army and equipment superior to the German, jand in aeronautics and motor supplies •their supremacy is acknowledged. (They export £8,000,000 of motor cars, per year.) But it is not only in mili- j tary matters that they are efficient, f .There is a laudable ambition to be in I the very front rank as regards general maaufaeture-, arid commerce too- and J

to save money, and to become, if not the largest, then the richest State in Europe, and so be able to bear better than their rivals the strain of a great war. All this is admirable, as is also the spirit of sacrifice which is leading to the extension of the term of military service, and the adoption of an income tax. But the Germans are also an extremely .patriotic and self-sacri-ficing people* and whether France can ■compensate in these ways for her relatively falling population is doubtful. I will only add that in Paris, as in Germany,' outdoor sports are becoming increasingly popular, and football, tennis, golfing and boating are indulged in to a far greater extent than formerly. This must have ,<a. .goo.d, v effect on the physique of thp iwplere 1 will help, I trust, to counteract other' less wholesome practices. The extent to which young Frenchmen now play football is really surprising to anyone who knows their aversion to strenuous physical exercise in the past. All these features of modern Parisian life have lessons for us, which I trust will not be unheeded. I '