PEEPS AT PARIS

Evening Star, Issue 20988, 30 December 1931, Page 11

PEEPS AT PARIS

[By Melanie.]

" GOOD-BYE"

And now we are at the last week of our much-loved Exhibition, which has been an enormous success from a numerical point of view, with its millions, and policely, too. It almost passes belief, but true it is that during the whole of its eight months only one case of theft has been reported (pickpockets included) and two of excess of spirits, and this is all the more creditable inasmuch as native vendors all have their goods stacked outside as in Eastern countries, and every alleyway has its cafes and restaurants, where all sorts of drinks are served, of course. Already many natives have return d home, glad to get back to warmth, for here wo are at winter; but more pleased are hundreds of charming young girls, charming in their costumes of Martinique, Annam Cochiuchina, and Malgache, who are staying on, many _ having already found positions as maids. The colour line is almost unknown in France. “We were glad of their help in the war, and they are human as wo are. What’s the matter with them?” reasons the logical Frenchman—and that’s that. Personally, my heart weeps at the thought that no more will I tasto those more-than-excellent _ Tunis fritters. Day after day, morning to night, in a corner of a Tunis bazaar sits a plump, dark-skinned, cross-legged man, fezzed, wide-trousered, and embroidered as to the waistcoast. Solemnly he fingers his paste, and having put the final hole in the middle, he drops it into boiling oil. Behold in throe seconds it bobs up, light, blistered, and golden. Here another native forks it out, sprinkles it with fine sugar, and hands it to one of the clamouring crowd. These two must have made a fortune! And should any of you wish to make them, here is the recipe:—Mix flour, honey, and enough water to make a thin dough; take up a small piece, work it in a thin round, .poke a hole in the middle, and drop it uncrumpled in the very hot fat, which must envelope it as in a bath. Serve very hot with sugar, and be popular over after. Money is scarce. No, I am not grumbling, I’m sure it is good for us to learn how to use the cheaper cuts of meat, and to make a sixpence do its proper work, but this shortage does work in queer ways. Why, for instance, should it make the French housewife suddenly take it into her head to save her little 50 centime pieces ? True they can be easily pushed through the neck of a win© bottle, and no doubt there is a real joy in watching the glass become more and more opaque, but this form of saving is a real nuisance. This coin does the work of our coppers, and you can easily see that we are now being more and more starved of it—a bottle holds 1,600 francs, or 3,000 of these. Undergrounds, buses, markets, shops, are all getting short of change, and the worst of it, from the layman’s point of view, is that legally you are not entitled to demand change—yours the job of giving the exact amount. I have often seen shopkeepers take back their goods because the customer cannot pay the pennies and twopences. Then, too, with the exchange still against us, we are now looking round for _ cheaper amusements, and happily sitting “ up among the gods ” for lOd to enjoy first-class plays and concerts. But I think I have solved the problem, for my fun often costs me nothing, except a little sharpening up of eyesight and developing a more acute sense of humour.

Just this—read placards and notices so lavishly distributed all over Paris. It is thus I learn that a careful government, when it pulls' up a drain or otherwise messes up the street, thoughtfully hangs up a neatly written piece of paper on. the barricade, and tells you what tho workmen are doing, how long (optimism) it is expected to take, who is the drain-man, who the gas-man, who the water-man (all addresses given), who the foreman and engineer. And you feel ever so much better and safer for the knowledge. As for politics, nothing is left undone. There is over here, too, strong anti-Socialist . propaganda, and whole sections of walls are given over to cartoons. A specially interesting one showed the mishandling of Socialist governments. It was divided into nine pictures, the first Australia, a map of it, and an unemployed workman, misery in his eyes, thinks of tho ten years’ reckless spending and its present result. Austria shows a starving and begging woman; Spain, a revolution in which young men, are killed, and the cause of the republic is hindered; Germany _ lias two cartoons—one for its excessive armaments, tho other showing it bankrupt; Britain has its workmen trying to find work, and as a second one, Ramsey Macdonald forced to ask help from his political enemies. Very well they are all done, too. France then, with its Renandel and Blum, ardent Socialists, promising tho electors the moon, and finally Poincare, arm in arm with the stabilised franc —for it Was he, _ an anti-Socialist, who saved Franco in 1926. All are clever and entertaining, aud doubly so, when, as happened on the result of the English election, the same society posted up the best English cartoons on tho same subjects, and Frenchmen crowded round trying to make out this extraordinary language. Proud was the youth, who, fresh from the Lycee, haltingly translated for the benefit of all and sundry. Another placard invites all would-be orators to come to free classes, when they will learn to address meetings (British countries might well adopt this generous offer), make after-dinner speeches, and work for the glory of Franco in being eloquent Republicans.