PARISIAN SLUMS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 42, 17 October 1891, Page 485

PARISIAN SLUMS.

ONE peculiarity of exterior p aris, since the days of Baron Haussmann, consists in the fact that unlike other large cities, it has virtually no slums. Probably the lowest neighbourhood in Paris is La Villette. As may be supposed, this unusual openness of construction of the Paris moderne greatly favours the action of the . police in their never ending warfare against occult vice and crime. The various haunts and houses of call for criminals —criminals, like other members of society, must have their resorts for purposes of business and of pleasure—are not by any means inaccessible, and are situated as often as not in the best parts of the city ; under of course, the watchful tolerance of authority, which regards such places in the light of so many coverts, where it may be sure of drawing doubtful and dangerous game whensoever the same is • wanted.’ One of the most thorough-paced and characteristic of Parisian ‘ dives,’ is the Caveau des Halles. It lies within the precincts of the great Central Market. You are in a clean, quiet side street ; early morning is the hour, and two or three hundred yards away you can just discern the cheerful bustle of vending a.nd purchasing crowds at the foot of the Halles’ big glass and iron walls. A charming Parisian tableau of cleanly, orderly activity and industry. Step, however, through the' narrow doorway of this little corner marchand de vins. Exchange, in passing, a glance with the patron or ‘ boss,’ a'large florid-looking man, whose head at all seasons of the year displays the adornment of a coarse fur cap. Then precipitate yourself down the narrow winding staircase at the extreme end of the room, which room, though narrow, is exceedingly long, and the next moment you will find yourself in the bowels of the earth and in the famous Caveau des Halles. Here an extraordinary scene awaits you. Under the low arches of a vault—so low that you have to stoop for fear of knocking your brains out by coming in contact with the roof —gleams the uncertain light afforded by some score of guttering tallow-candles stuck in drooling tin sockets along the walls. On tables and chairs of the coarsest stand glasses too thick for anything to break (thicker even than the skulls of those how drinking out of them), and the knives and forks which some are using are fastened down by means of short iron chains. So terrific is the din kept up by the half-hundreid rogues, reprobates, and vagabonds of either sex here assembled, that at first your wits are not sufficiently collected for you to have more than a confused general perception of the appearance of those around. They, meanwhile, have been very closely and attentively examining yours. When, finally, you are enabled to take a full view of the company among whom you have been brought by the indulgence of that sentiment named by Baudelaire la curiosite de I'horrible, you are somewhat startled to perceive how hideous are nearly all these beings. Less of sheer brutality about them, it may be, than about the lowest roughs in New York and London. Less abjectly filthy they are, too, in the matter of their clothing. But a great deal more abjectly filthy as to their facial expression. Herein is where the French ruffian triumphs : in his air of odious depravity, too utter for any less depraved than he to fully conceive, much less describe or suggest in words. And the women, in this respect, seem viler still than the men. Songs of awful tenour are being, not sung, but squealed or bellowed or howled. Those glasses of leaden density are being hammered till they ring again upon the surface of the tables, scored deep with every obscene device and design. And now—immediately after a waiter who would be thought a somewhat specially evil looking creature if he were first caught sight of at some galleys, has got through serving you out your ‘ consummation ’ with one hand, while keeping the other hand extended tor the reception of simultaneous payment—a desperate fight with knives breaks out between a couple of men in blouses who have for some time past been lavishing joint but rival attentions on a female with hair hanging down over her nose like a Skye’s. Instantly three sharp-eyed men dressed to represent workmen, who had been sitting quietly at a table a little apart, dash forward and strive to separate the combatants. This new trio, needless to say, are members of the secret police. But before the pair, fighting and foaming at the mouth like savage beasts, can be checked and overpowered for purposes of arresc, one of the two has received a fearful cut extending from the nose to the lips, and falls to actively expectorating blood. The Other has been pinked somewhere in the region of the abdomen, and looks, and says he feels, rather particularly bad. The woman with the Skye-terrier hair appears to think it all a splendid joke, for she leans with complete self-abandonment against a groaning table, and laughs till she nearly cries. But one has seen quite enough of this agreeable resort near Halles, and now one may wend one’s way towards Montmartre, with a view to exploring a ‘ dive ’ of somewhat different description, well known to the initiate under the name of ‘ Father Richard’s.’ A ring — sevei al rings — at a creaking-bell at a very ordinary-looking door in an up-hill street, and a sliding panel is withdrawn to permit a pair of glittering eyes to view you carefully and long from behind a wire grating. At length a door is opened and ‘ Father Richard ’ stands before you. A man of strikingly sinister visage, with livid complexion and coal-black snaky beard and hair. Quite the classic poisoner dr gaoler of the boards. Down a long winding passage the • Father’ glumly conducts us, after one word from his lips by way of welcome ; hangings—save the mark I —are pushed aside, and the full view breaks upon one of a genteel Parisian pandemonium. Gas is flaring, and all too vividly lighting up the faces of a crew seated like Arthur’s knights at a large round table, covered with all drinkables of the cheaper sorts. Women are here in numbers ; a less haggard-looking lot than at the Caveau, but perhaps in reality (if that be possible) more abominably vile. Concerning the representatives of the other sex who are present, one might wager that, if not in each case thieves downright, they are either card ‘ sharps ’ or gentlemen attached in a professional capacity to the society of the ladies present, or minor agents of the police that are here combining their business with their pleasure. Room is promptly and obsequiously made for us at the

table ; for something in Father Richard’s manner has apprised these quick-witted knaves ot one’s being something a little out of the common run of the Fat her-Richard custom. And we sit us down alongside of a bat and a countenance—the men all keep their hats on at Father Richard’s—belonging to a gentleman, who, if not a murderer, ought to be. Resisting courteously the blandishments of a lady not far off, who shows an eager desire to enter into sentimental conversation, we cast acircular glance along the walls and note, with amusement, perhaps, but no surprise, that twin portraits of Boulanger and Ganrbetta, marvellously lifeless and stiff, appear on either side of the mantel. Richard evidently is a patriot. His wife, a short, stout being, with one of those smoothly gentle faces not uufrequently to be found accompanying the worst degree of inward sinfulness and villainy, passes hither and thither, bearing, Hebe like, refreshments, which at this thirsty hour of night are in rapid consumption and demand. But hark ! So soon, that ominous rattle ! It is—it is ‘ the box !’ Decamp we must, and quickly, else we will be involved in that little game of dice now being improvised for the benefit of the unexpected visitor. One more ‘ dive ’ remains to be explored ; one more ‘ flight ’ would be the more appropriate term, seeing this third place is perched on the very summit of the steep Montmartrean height. A climb, long and hard, through the last lingering shades of darkness before dawn, reminding one somewhat of Arnold’s lines :— ‘ The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight; But they, while their companions slept. Were toiling upwards through the night.’ And here is a little rustic-looking street, with trees, and walls, and never the hint of a pavement. ‘ Aux Assassins,’ is the highly-appropriate sign of the wine shop whither one’s steps are tending. They don’t mince matters here. They claim * assassins ’ for their customers, quite boldly. Quite truthfully too, one concludes, as one enters the establishment, where, behind shutters hermetically closed and sealed, cards, billiards, dice, drinking, cursing, singing, and more especially that species of amusement by our rude but graphic ancestors denominated ‘ drabbing.’ are still at fever height. On the broken brick floor, breakdowns are being performed to the ‘ lascivious pleasing ’ of a fiddle, manipu lated by a person—perhaps himself an assassin—who charges a couple of sous for every tune. IKc do not dance; but drink we do, because we must. Drink, pay, look on, and finally depart. Even the longest of night has an end (it is now seven o’clock in the morning), and three * dives ’ in one round are enough for the most inveterate diver.—Edward Delille.