OUR PARIS LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 27, 1 August 1923, Page 10

OUR PARIS LETTER

BELLICOSE POLITICIANS

ROYALISTS IN MINORITY

(FROM OUR OWN CORREEPONDEXTO

PARIS, 13th June. Unless the Royalist leaders -pall off their bands of "matraque-men," there is likely to be a rapid extension of street conHicts between the two bodies. As the Royalists are in a minority and Fascist methods are .abhorred by the majority of French people, : the Camelots will-find themselves.in sorry state. Feel--ing in the Chamber to-day was shown to be .strongly against the" Royalists, all but a handful of members of the Extreme Right vigorously applauding the criticisms which were" made on last night's outrages. In former instances, the victims of the Camelots have been persons who had no particular call on general sympathy, such as M. Caillaux," but the latest sufferers included a couple of Deputies, Aim. Moutet and Sangmor, who hayfenot aroused personal dislike, although 1 their political views are not popular with the majority of the Chamber. Moreover, M. Moutet, one of the representatives of Lyons, had shown considerable magnanimity by protecting M. Daudet from cuffs which a score of heated Deputies tried to administer to the bellicose author-politician as he passed through the lobbies

POLITICAL EFFECTS. One fairly certain consequence of the thirty-to-three aggression is a political gain for the Radicals, as public opinion will undoubtedly take their side. The Moyolist ultra-Nationalists were avowedy irritated by the action of the Senate last week, when it refused to try the and they sought a set-off in the introduction of Fascist weapons of clubs and castor-oil. But if they really thought this would be tolorated by Frenchmen, they should by this time have been disillusioned. The Government will probably be impelled by public opinion to put an ond to Royalist preeumption. The Royalists have taken advantage of a spirit of tolerance, reahging that so long as the Government did not move against thorn they wero secure, as nobody dare turn out tho Government while tho Ruhr question remains dominant; but this time thoy have probably overstepped the. bounds, and will have to pay tho lon-

SPECTRE OF THE PAST. The right to immunity from having us past bared in the newspapers wai the bams of an action which a man has, just brought unsuccessfully in the Paris I bourts. ihe case originated out of the publication by several Paris newspapers of the story of a truckload of aniline dyes alleged to have been stolen in Ger-' many, and which intermediaries attempt- j ed to sell in Paris. The merchant to I whom the stuff was offered became suspicious, and informed the police, who discovered that one of the middlemen was M. Crozat de Fleury, who was condemned to five years 1 imprisonment for reselling goods stolen by the notorious Bonnot gang of motor bandits, who -.terrorised the Paris region in 1912. The newspapers in question recalled the man s connection with the bandits; and i he brought an action for damages. The ! newspapers invoked the' freedom of the! Press, and in their defence observed tint they had merely made use of information in their possession without imputing any offence to M. Crozat de Fleur'v. This contention was sustained by the judgment of the Court,. which observed that M. Crozat de Fleury has -"only himself to blamo if public opinion has been attracted once more to his past.:" He was ordered to pay the costs of the action. OILING X-RAYS. Two French scientists, Drs. Sicard and rorestier, have communicated, says the "Matin," to medical societies the account of some very interesting experiments which they have made with oil impregnated, with iodine. Certain parts of the human body have not been really reachable for the purpose of X-ray photographs. The tissues have not been i opaque enough to resist the passage of the rays, and, therefore, do not appear on tlie sensitised plate definitely enough for examination. The French doctors, however, have struck the idea of injecting iodised off, which is harmleas, and percolates through tho interstices of the body, leaving dark traces exactly modelled upon the shape of an interior organ, which can thus be readily photographed. By thi ß means, remarkable photographs have been made of the district of tha spine, showing abnormalities m the spinal cord channel, treatment of which has had effect upon paralysis. Tho cavities of the lungs and other human Tecesses have also been "early photographed in outline through the iodised oil actipc ag a sort of m«li- j cal explorer of the body.

WAR AND LEARNING. It appears from the recruiting statistics of the year ? 1921 and 1922 that the number of illiterates in France is lio T on' he ltlcreaße- Out o£ 696 - 348 youne men called up for military service, 13,764 could neither read no* I write, and-14,262 could only read. Most ] of them knew just enough about writin? to sign their names; the others, -when ! confronted with a document could do no more than make a cross in the place j oi-a signature.- This proportion of 4 ' per cent, of illiterates anion c tfie voune of the country is probably, to some extent,- a consequence of the war. The ! father of tho family being absent, many boys sewed the golden opportunity to shirk school. Of what the girls ' did, there is no record; perhaps thcv were more amenable to control by their mothel9' t A i ? ill ' intended to impress upon parents thai they are responsible for the school attendance of their children was recently voted by the Senate. MAN OF MYSTERY. Phenomena "unexplainable in the present state of scientific knowledge" have been observed in the course of recent experiments held- in Paris with a, medium named Jean Guzik. The report is eigned by bir Oliver Lodge, M. Marcel Prevost, of the Academic Francaiso M Camille Fiammerion, the astronomer and the other members of a committee' of 34 investigators, ineludine prominent medical men, journalists, men of letters engineers, and military officers. Various object*,, out of the medium's reach wei-p moved for considerable distances." and the observers frequently experienced the I sensation of being touched on the arms back, and head. Some of the observers saw luminous traces, and heard articu,'. late sounds. The utmost precautions were taken against "trickery. The medium wore pyjamas with no .pockets. His hands were constantly touched by those of observers sitting on each side of him , and their wrists were tied to his by ribbons. All the experimenters wore tied together by short padlocked chains. ' The floor, -was covered with sawdust, so that if a trap-door had been used it would have been noticed at once. FATHER OF' "METRO"' RAILWAY. M. Bicnvemie, tho eminent civil eneineer who holds th« post of inspuctorKeaeial sf .tiip Metropolitan EaUway,

has received a well-merited testimony from dig official supponeid. Although he is past the age at which officials retire, he has been maintained at his postby special decree of the Prefect of the Seine. He is thus treated with the same honour as is bestowed on a general-in-chief, who, having commanded the i trench army in battle, sees his name { at the head of the active list long after age and infirmities have laid him on the shelf, il. Bienvenue may fairly be called the father of the Paris "tube" railway system. He drew up the first -plan j in 1896, and, iuet a. quarter of a century ago. the work was begun under his supervision. Like all pioneers, he encountered plenty of opposition. Some people told him this line would be only a plaything, and others predicted . that Parisians would never consent to travel underground. Time has demonstrated the absurdity of these opinions. JF. Bienvenue has planned and built the whole of the "Metro" system, which now penetrates to nearly every quarter of the city, and everyone hopes that he will remain at the head of the enterprise until the projected double line under the grands boulevards and the intra-mural | system is completed. £7 FOR A CUP OF COFFEE. Coffee for which as much as £7 per cup was paid was dispensed ab a Paris bar .yesterday. The money ' was paid cheerfully, and there was quite a rush to give these high-flown sums for the beverage. Not that there was anything remarkable about the coffee, which was just as good as French coffee usually is, but the secret- of the "golden" run on .the bar was that the well-known evening paper, the "Intransigeant," had hit upon a novel plan for raising money for its fund to supply comforts to the French troops in the Ruhr. Parisian music-hall artists lent their good, services at the bar, and for six hours worked hard at their now vocation. Quite a substantial sum was realised for the men who are keeping France's waich on the Ruhr.