The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1876-06-23
JOHN PAUL.
His Impressions OF France


Paris Correspondence New York Tribune
Dieppe is a qualnt-looking old town,
made up chiefly of high-gambled
houses with red tiles, fishermen in
blouses. Wrinkied market-women in
caps, dogs and heas. Famous for its
carved ivory and behring's; you smell
one or the other manufacture as you
pass through. Outside of Dieppc one
gets his first inklings of French scenery.
More picturesque than the English, it
IS not 50 comfortable looking. One
misses the symmetrical hayricks, haW-
thorn hedges, and stacks Of Brussels
sprouts, which surround the English
cottage and impart to it an air of com
fort and cleanliness which is not dis
sipated until you enter the interior.
Along the line of railroad you see
women taking care of switches. | do
not mean their own back hair, but
those ingenious contrivances for throw
ing a train off the track, and the blame
anywhere but where it belongs, which
no we'll regulated railroad is without.
Passengers who have ever been in q
smaSh-up will know what sort of
switches IN talking about. But rail
road accidents are not frequent in
France. And calling to mind how
well women worked switches when
| was a boy, | do not see why they
can't do it now quite as we'll as men.
1t is long indeed since such vivid re-
collections of youth and an old stone
School-house as this sight revived have
been called up to me.
The Frenchman is not big feeder
Il e., Tho
with little coffee and good deal of
bread and butter. Along toward noon,
if ravenously hungry, he seiZes on q
radish OF perhaps the hind legs of a
sparrow. which latter make it a de-
jeuner 4 la fourch cite. But for din
nerve gods. what q gorging is there
Two SpOOnfuls of soup, the backbone
of a smeN. morSel of meat the size of
4 saddle rock oyster. a mushroom, an
onion. 4 Glove of garlick, smell of
cheese, gallon Of red wine, and he's
ready for an opera or the theatre.
The Frenchman can cook a dinner, but
when it comes to eating one, why,
bless your soul. an Englishman can eat
all around him. Yet au fait though he
be at dressing a fish or fowl, the
Frenchman does not, to my thinking,
dress himSelf-WhO is neither-well
His sleeves are too short, his skirts
are too narrow, and he has altogether
Il skinny look. When he attempts to
be elegant he is only dandifed. and
when he sets out to be heavy swell he
only succeeds III being haShy. But the
French Woman-ah She knows by
instinct what to put on and how. Sup
posing Eve to have been French, it is
safe to assume that when the idea of
dress dawned on Eden, had there been
IN the garden Il leaf more becoming
than that of the fig, she would have
gone straight to the tree. Little given
to diiiidence, the mere discovery that
she had nothing on could never have
distressed a French Eve very much.
but the sudden awakening to guilty
knowledge that she was not we'll dress
ed would have Just about killed her.
\ new and becoming bonnet, pair of
high-heeled shoes, might have relieved
her feelings and the situation, and
saved valuable life. If you doubt
the correctness OF my generalization,
go to the opera any evening and see
what is considered fun dress. This
being the rule under the Republic.
what must it have been under the En-
pire
AS it is, compelled by the prejudices
of society TO wear some clothes. the
ParisIenne considers the lilies - or
roses-on her cheeks (if there be none
there remedies the omission delicately.
not obtrusively), and adopts the style
of dress which is most becoming to
the figure that God has given her. the
color most becoming to her complexion
which-she generally regulates for
herself. Not for Worlds-no, not for a
tribune. eyen-could You persuade the
frenchwoman overmuch given to en-
oonpolnt into a pin-back which should
prlhg the drawback of her figure too
prominently forward. As TO following
any fashion implicitly. this she will
not do. That folly is left for the fair
OF my own native land. who, so far
as | can see, enjoy monopoly of it.
For the Englishwoman follows nothing,