PARIS EXPOSITION GOSSIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11520, 3 November 1900, Page 5 (Supplement)

PARIS EXPOSITION GOSSIP.

Edward Inslet contributes a gossipy article on " Paris in 1900 and the Exposition" to the current number of Harper's Magazine. When dealing with the national exhibit!) he deplores the apathy which has made Great Britain '' the disappointment of the Exposition;" he can find nothing but praise for the German exhibits. AMERICAN GIRL V. FRENCH POLICEMAN. At the opening of the United States pavilion on May 12 the Paris police made the acquaintance of the American girl, to their discomfiture. The behaviour of crowds differs in all countries, and in no way more than their respect for authority. The French sergent de ville is accustomed to being obeyed by women at least. Ten thousand persons, mostly Americans, pressed upon the police lines from all directions. It had been announced that the ceremonies in the building would be public. What right had these French police to keep them out of their own building anyway? The lines of spring gowns and dainty hats surged more and more upon forbidden ground. The police protested, gesticulated, implored, all but wept. They dared not handle this crowd roughly, and the crowd knew it. "Well, I'm going in," said one young woman resolutely. And she went. The rest followed. The American girl swept the French police out of her way with a disdain and imperiousness that left them helpless and stupefied. THE EXPOSITION TRANSFIGURED. Mr. Tnsley's description of the illumination of the Exposition is very striking: — When the Exposition is illuminated for a fete de nuit it is seen at its best. Even that artistic perversion, the Porte Monumentale, may be forgiven when its towers of purple lights are blazing at the entrance to a wonderful embowered avenue aglow with orange lights. Gorgeous colour effects are obtained by interlacing the limbs and boughs of trees with electric wires, making a more beautiful " City of Lanterns" than that of which Lucian dreamed. Encompassing and framing the picture is the azure dome of a starry sky; for background, green verdure and white walls, with hints of towers, spires, and minarets, and occasional glints of gold; cutting it in twain the dark river, washing past a serried line of grey palaces which rise from the water's edge. An electric latticework of pure carboniferous light, like wires strung with diamonds, sews criss-cross lines of gleaming white fire in and out through and through the whole glorious tableau. The glistening outlines of the Eiffel Tower, the aigrette of a mighty tiara, shoot up gracefully toward heaven, crowned with a single wondrous jewel, a searchlight whose broad gliding rays carries the eye far out into limitless space. The writer makes the following apology for the impossibility of dealing adequately with so vast a subject: — The limitation of this sketch to the space of a magazine article reminds me at this point most forcibly of what I heard a woman say to her daughter in the Beaux-Arts Palace the other day, " Mary, don't you stop to look at things, or we won't see anything [ at all."