LONDON'S "QUARTIER LATIN."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14235, 4 December 1909, Page 1 (Supplement)

LONDON'S "QUARTIER LATIN."

. . "SOME TRAITS AND STORIES. The Bohemians of Chelsea take their troubles lightly and defy the terrors of an everpresent poverty. .'■ In a certain set of studios not a hundred miles front * Cheyne i: Walk; which have sometimes been irreverently christened- "the home of ' the hard-ups," laughter and penury go hand-in-hand. Built of something less substantial than granite the walls dividing these studios lend themselves to a pleasant if involuntary exchange of. confidences between the inhabitants, and should you be lucky enough to occupy the one adjoining your landlord's abode the difficulties of his position will bo forcibly borne in upon you. : ; : ; ,:. f : Here you may splash paint upon the masterpiece that never sells and take a lesson at the same time in the most effective arguments against the payment of rent as advanced by some eloquent fellow-lodger. upon the other, side of the matchwood partition. Remember those arguments ; they may be useful when your own rent day comes round. There are other advantages to be enjoyed here. If of a sporting disposition really good bags, may often be obtained by the hunter who sets himself to outwit the roving rat. Unlike most sports this is an inexpensive recreation which can be pursued all the year round, and adds considerably to the enjoyment <& an artistic life. •' i Once an artist who r owed ten shillings a week for his studio with the utmost regularity had the good fortune to slay no fewer than four rodents between sunset and the following dawn.; He proceeded to fix wires under the chins of his victims so that they would sit up as though alive. He then took a small panel of. wood, on which he painted an inscription in white letters, and taking the corpses to his landlord's door set them up sitting in a row on the mat with the panel behind them. His legend read as follows:—"Do we pay inclusive rent for these?"' ; Which was unkind considering that he had never paid any. An interesting character who once dwelt next door to the aforementioned artist was the snake-charmer. This lady kept several formidable-looking serpents in her studio, and created some sensation by appearing from time to time with the creatures entwined around her arms and shoulders. Unfortunately she was of an easy-going and trustful disposition, which caused her sometimes to leave her front door open, wifb the result that if you happened to re i n , home rather late after dining with the.;. tch ! uncle from whom you had expectations you would be met in the passage by a full-deve-loped python.' Even a coffee-drinker might be excused for seeing snakes under such trying circumstances, and so the unfortunate lady had to leave us in the end. ."■.'. Simple but ingenious was the plan adopted by another tenant who had the misfortune to come into disagreement with the Gas Light and Coke authorities, which ended in these soulless individuals, having the audacity to cut off his supply of' the needful flame. Having no means of'cooking his dinner this gentleman hit upon* the happy plan of frying his ' steak over the gas jet ' in the passage outside the studios. 'At first he could be observed standing on a chair holding his frying-pan over the flame, 1 but like all great ideas this one soon took better shape, and one evening we saw the fryingpan standing above the gas jet in solitary dignity supported by a small;, metal tripod which fitted on to the globe bracket. ;We gladly welcomed this r novel feature in our daily round. It made the place seem more like home if only on account of the odour exhaled from that frying-pan which penetrated into every corner of the building with pleasant insistence.—" Tatler." 'i m i —« .|fSjf. ';.:"!•' Si 11' l> • ..■<■■■•• V.V.V.," in the Sphere, tells us'-he has just read a novel which he is sure,is; dangerous and poisonous. To attack.' such a book in print, he justly observes, is to give it a new vogue. The situation is very delicate—so delicate, he says as to set on© wondering if a censor of books too may not one day • arise. When lately the ' playwrights were complaining of their subjection to the censor in comparison with the freedom;of the novelists, 1 ventured 1 , to suggest that'the use made of their freedom by certain novelists might soon lead to a demand for a censorship by; novel readers and novel writers of a self-respecting kind. Not very long ago a well-known novel by a well-known novelist was suppressed by the police. A censor would be,better t»han thai. , ' ;■.'■.:■■■'■ '" > .■■."'''