OUR PARIS LETTER

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 85, 9 April 1924, Page 9

OUR PARIS LETTER

THE FOREIGNER IN

FRANCE

NEW TAX PROPOSAL

(FROM ODE OWN COURFSPONDENT.) PARIS. 13th February. A group of French deputies considers that foreigners in France who are enjoying, and consequently are not hit by the high cost of living, should make a special contribution to the State Budget. They have tabled in the Chamber a project ■which would require proprietors of hotels, boarding-houses, and furnished rooms to impose a 20 per cent, tax for the benefit of the French State on all bills incurred by foreigners other than Belgians. Relief \fi-om the provisions of the- Bill might be granted, after consideration, to subjects of former Allied Powers where a favourable exchange does not prevail, and to persons employed by French firms and paid in francs. The authors of the project estimate that it would affect about 600,000 persons, and brina in to the French state an-au-nual sum of about 2,000.000,000 francs. It is not a Government project, however, but merely a private proposal. Before it can become law, too, it must be passed hy both the Chamber and the Senate, and quite recently a similar measure was abandoned by its author after a private talk with M. Poincare, without its ever having got the length of a Parliamentary discussion. ' . , • M. CLEMENCEAU'S LEISURE. It has been said,that M. Clemenceau, who was present at the dress rehearsal of "LeTombeau sous l'Arc de Triomphe" at the Comedie-Francaise, the play, by M. Paul Raynal, which evoked protests from the audiencej was stirred to a manifestation of resentment by some of the remarks made by the young soldier in_ the play to his father. It must be said, however, that this would hardly be in accordance with the impassive attitude which "The Tiger" seems to have adopted definitely since his ; retirement. The bulk of his leisure, according to ''Excelsior," is, devoted to the elaboration of an important philosophic work in which, it is said, he endeavours to condense the lessons of his long experience of politics, war, and men and matters. Asked by somebody what conclusions he would come to "in the work, he said thoughtfully :- "I don't know yet. It's difficult. * . Sometimes truth strangely resembles error." WHERE ZOLA WAS BORN. A commemorative tablet has been placed on the facade of a house in the Rue Saint-Joseph where the novelist Emile Zola first say the light. The dark narrow street is in the.heart of the newspaper printing quarter of the city, and No. 10 bis, where the writer was born in 1840, is now filled at intervals with the clamour of the evening newspaper sellers setting forth from the neighbouring Rue dv Croissant, crying the news. Hardly four years of Zola's childhood were spent in the city, the life of which he so. closely studied and described later, for his parents removed to. Provence when the future novelist was only five.- But he came back to Paris and lived and*died in Montmartre. The present tenants of the flat on the fourth floor of 10 bis, Rue Saint-Joseph, are well aware of the fame of the infant horn there , eighty-four years ago, and the memory of the author of the "Rougon Maequart" novels and of the tri logy, "Paris," "Rome," and "Lourdes," is also preserved in an avenue named after him in the Grenelle quarter, stretching from • the Mirabeau Bridge nearly to the Place Cambronne. REVERSED SURGICAL PROCESS. By a curious reversal of principles and methods, transfusion of blood now takes the place of bleeding in the treatment of maladies, says "Excelsior," and whereas in former times men and women paid to be bled, they now receive a handsome fee for submitting to. the operation. In the 16th and 18th centuries, blending was regarded as the sovereign remedy for many ills on both sides of the Channel Louis Thirteenth's physician ordered him to be bled forty-seven times in a single year, and the celebrated Dr. Guy Patin, of Louis Fourteenth's reign, bled a patient suffering with rheumatism sixty-eight times in eight months.' The barber was the surgeon of those days, and in France the dish that was Used during the operation is still retained as the sign of their trade. . For.a headache or an attack .of low spirits, the old-time barber would be asked to ply his lancet; now the Faculty prefers transfusion. "FOLLOW YOUR HUSBAND." Finding that his,wife had not followed him into the motor bus that should have taken the pair to the Bois de Boulogne, a Parisian workman jumped out to ask the reason why. Standing on the pavement the wife declared that she wished to travel by "metro," and not by omnibus, but this unforeseen attitude so provoked the man that he administered a resounding box on the ears. A crowd then collected round the couple, and a policeman hastened up. But the angry workman seized him by the collar and shook him violently, when the representative of order retaliated by boxing his ears. The group then proceeded together to the police station, where, before the eyes, of the commissary,•■ the tragedy swiftly turned to comedy. The husband took all the blame on'himself.' If the policeman had struck him, he said, the blow was merited, and ought by rights to have been heavier. This brought the woman into the field. The whole incident was her fault, she said. What business, had she- to prefer the metro when her husband wished to take the bus? Finding the ground thus cut away from beneath his feet, the commis- I sary dismissed the couple and the policeman. ROYAL COOK'S VICISSITUDES. The late Tsar's cook has been found m Pans, according to. the " Figaro"" lie keeps a pastry shop in a little street down by the river, and makes a speciality of Muscovite dainties, which tempt the palates of compatriots who, like himself, have found .sanctuary in the French capital. The " Figaro " reporter found him at work, ■ a big man with bright eyes, an engaging smile, and his moustache powdered with flour. " Yes, I am Monsieur R., ex-cook to the Tsar and former chief of the culinary services o: His Imperial Majesty," he declared with pride. A newspaper carried by the reporter announcing in large head 'lines the death of Lenin caught his eye. " Ah what times we're having!" he sighed! " I was in the Tsar's service until 1914' Tnese were the good old days. I travelled in his yacht, and used to prepare the imperial repasts at the army manoeuvres, where the company dined under canvas, and whole sheep and oxen were roasted in the open air. Ah, these were the days, believe me," he sighed again as he viciously thumped the dough. ' SHOWER OF DOWRIES. A number of poor little Paris workgirls will benefit this year by the gener osity of a well-wisher. M. Louis Ernest Mouchct, who has set aside a snm of I money to provide dowries of 1350fr each ; Cor them. _ A provision of tho offer, how[eveiy limits the recipients .to dwellers

m arrondissements numbered from 5 to' 13. It is to be hoped that the equally poor and equally deserving girls in other! arrondissements will not be jealous of1 the good fortune of their sisters The' money is not to be paid at once, but only during the month following their marriage. Furthermore, if they do not ' find a partner ready to share life's joys' and sorrows—and the 1350fr—within ai year of the dowry being attributed theyl do not get it.!.., - - MALE HAIR FASHIONS.- - The modern young man is.affecting a , few delicately-waved lines in his hair, running from ear .to. ear., .With. his.hair Km Mlk Carpentier, and that . waved lock above his smooth,.beardless' cheek, he presents . a uniformly 'smart! appearance.in the fashionable dancingi halls According to one .of...thai.barbers:1 i h*, A- Clty-; thf eis- a likelihood, ol.thej | beard coming back to favour/but not! with young men. It will be seen on men; past middle age.. The no-parting-.coif-! -idsm that shows no sign of abating, but1 lar from making men independent of the; kHf ? SH r' ■ Tequires »d mow! skilful attention than any other style.