OUR PARIS LETTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17223, 14 December 1923, Page 8

OUR PARIS LETTER.

EVENTS AND COMMENTS. (Special to the “Star.”) PARIS, October 18. Paris has long enjoyed a reputation for originality that not infrequently approaches the eccentric. Ofee of the most recent manifestations of this engaging quality was the introduction of a novel number into the music-hall programmes. A member of the Chamber des Deputes was billed to give a series of causeries on certain aspects of Parliamentary life sandwiched in between the typical fare of a variety theatre menu. The Pari-

sians were furious. The unhappy man had scarcely opened his mouth ere he was hissed and catcalled off the stage. Paris takes her pleasures much too seriously to permit herself the faintest interest in such bagatelles! THE RUSSIAN SPELLBINDERS. One of the most ardently patronised theatres at the moment is the Champs Elysees, where players from the Theatre de Moscow are enjoying a 6ucces fou. It is the supreme magic of these Russians that they evoke the eulogies of the bourgeoisie no less than the most “precious” school of artists. Despite the handicap of their alien, tongue they hold their mixed audience literally spellbound by the quality of their technique; the crescendo of torrential drama, aoid (the great laughter of comedy that knows no limitations of place or time, of atmosphere or social mise-en-soene. How they hurl their thunder athwart our moth-eaten melodramas and little modern comedies of manners! In the foyer one has observed that the most loquacious critics hold their peace. Real homage, uncritical and absolute, silences the facile jargon of their little world. v TRAFFIC TANGLES. Paris is so affaire these days ,that the traffic problem becomes more acute than ever. Even the great arteries like the Avenue des Champs Ely sees—those sweeping bouievards that are the glory of Paris and the envy and admiration of her visitors-—are hopelessly congested at certain hours. It is estimated that the amount of traffic has virtually doubled since the war. There are so many nouveaux riches who are not yet bored by the pastime of acquiring new automobiles. The Prefet de Police has at last thought fit to treat the question seriously. It is announced that certain important • modifications in the traffic regulations will have effect a fortnight hence. The date will doubtless coincide with . the introduction of the new taxis that Parisians are anticipating with naive joy. For, voyez-vous. they are onepassenger vehicles—and one may voyage at half-price, True, there are other Parisians—not specially interested in taxis—who foresee a new terror added to the already terrifying streetsl They visualise these nairow little autos threading a reckless pattern through the heavier and slower traffic. Patrons of the one-passenger taxi will not want to linger on the crepuscular boulevards ! One visualises large comedies of gesture—not to mention language—between the new taxi-drivers and the agents de police. SALUTING MEDIOCRITY. Queer people, these Parisians I The world of letters has just been honouring the memory of Barbey d’Aurevilly and Stephane Malia rxne-j— the first famous for his eccentricity of manners as of mind; the second, generally recognised as the father’ of the Symbolism© school of poetry—a banal and feeble flourish in the soi-disant Baudelaire manner. Amiable talkers both, and mediocre poets. But literary Paris has canonised them. “Quelle farce!” was the comment of one famous French artist. And, dismissing French contemporary poetry with a languid gesture: “'in the kingdom of the blind, the blind-in-one-eye are kings !” DR VORONOFF HONOURED. At the Surgeons’ Congress now assembled at Paris, the Yoronoff mon-key-gland treatment has just received, as it were, the first official consecration. Eminent professors of the University of Paris affirmed that the results obtained had been “highly satisfactory,” a radical improvement, both physical and mental, being effected in practically every case. Our Paris savants have gone further than this. They have uttered a cry of alarm at the too rapid disappear of the chimpanzee. Extinction threatens, apparently, at the precise moment of discovery that he might render signal service to poor humanity. THE CANADIAN TRAIN. The French bureaucracy has given us one more example of its curious methods. Two years ago they gave their official promise to the promoters of the Canadian exhibition train venture that the Jardins des Tuileries would be placed at their disposal. Now, on the eve of the arrival of the train, they have revoked this promise. With the consequence that Canada’s shop window, the train-cargo of great hopes and labours, is held up ! in sheds that have been provided by the courtesy, of a private French firm. There, apparently, it is to await the outcome of the proverbially interminable pourparlers of the bureaucratic functionaries, who have to come to accord on the choice of a loca.le when© the exhibition really may take place. It seems that the eleventh-hour decision against the Tuileries was arrived at after the tardy realisation that, on a similar exhibition occasion, damage was done to famous statues and other “properties of the State ” Hence these tears; hut whence the flagrant inefficiency that has put such a spoke in the wheel of the longheralded Franco-Canadian trade rapprochement? The scheme is scarcely launched under the happiest auspices. “ PARCOUREUR .”