The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1878-10-31
Paris Peculiarities.

once to the bal Mablle' to satisfy an
uuslack curiosity rs to what the devil
ish things is like. | don't know that /
have ever seen description of the
place in print. [ will give you brief
one: The visitor (who is generally
several in bunch, If American) enters
| through doorway into garden, On
/ the right is shabby summer house,
witt a gen d'mme bull-frog holding on
/ to the shelf outside Of the pigeou-hole
| Through which one says farewell to his
money!, as if fearing that the little
/ building would rise to Heaven. The
admission is five francs, it was former
/ ~ three francs, but this being an eX-
/ position of its own, with large expo
sure, the price has been raised. Close
| to the ticket-otlice, like an infant bar
rier in popular French Revolution,
the usual elevated bench and seats
holding the three Judges of the Su-
/ preme Court is thrown across the gravel
path. The junior Judge takes the
tickets and keeps them. The thee
/ ticket takers, all abreast, | find is an
idea borrowed from the Jesuits, who
always made their pupils go about III
threes for the destruction of secrecy
and confidence. We walk up the
I gravel path, swing to the left and find
the trees fall of lights and colored Ian
terms, the borders of the path thick
with chairs and little round tables, and
behind them white jackets waiting for
their prey. Oh the left, and occupy
ing large space in the center of the
garden, is a platform, a pOlygOn, with
Il family likeness to Il circle in letters,
and from the midst of this platform,
which is of wood, rises an elevated
stage for a band, the base OF which
stage is thickly concealed in shrubs
and flowers to the extent that the heads
alone of the tiddlers are to he seen.
There is continuous procession
marching in the gravel, meeting an
other continuous one coming the other
way. At the sound of warming chord
from the orchestra, the public swarms
on to the platform, leaving a small
space open for the dancers. A quad
rifle is formed. Frequently the crowd
is split up into three, with the attrac-
ton of three different sets of quadrlll
es. The dancers are hired by the
proplietors of the garden. The men
are small, degraded-looking wretches,
with the stain of every vice upon their
faces. Their movements are fantastic
They turn their legs like cork-screws
and cut up antics that are uncommonly
monkey-like. The women are merely
brazen trollopes, with, as general rule,
no pretension to good looks, and no
recollection of any past days of inno-
cence. Their dancing is nothing but
active audacity. the regular stereotype
ell movement being to kick one leg
straight up in the air, and Craze some
Spectators hat with the toe of the boot,
or kick the cigar from the mouth Of
some foreigner in the front rank of
ra2erS. The dress is that of the ordi-
nary Walking-drcSs of the day, more or
less costly or more or less plain. There
is no pretcnsio1 to TerpschIcorean art.
none 20 grace, mono to any pantomime,
but what poetry would spit upon. 1t
is merely bounce ana canter, with as
much studied exposure OF the person
as the law will permit. There is an
attacha of the garden that stands by to
see that the dancers do not go too far,
which is but a dubious phrase after all.
The women lit their outer skirts up to
their waist, especially when waltzing.
When the quddrille or waltz is over,
the crowd breaks ranks. the dancers
disappear, and everything presents the
appearance of an ordinary promenade
in garden. When the music again
sounds. the circle, five or six deep, i'm
mediately forms around the dancers,
who go through the same stereotyped
performances. Everywhere one hears
the English language spoken in this
crowd.
There is a very curious commercial
feature about Paris. l said to
Dane by birth, and a cosmopolitan by
nature, Il see no wholesale houses
here" He replied, There are none,
which was certainly good reason for
my not having seen them. He added:
MY dear sir, the Frenchman has no
idea of rebate for a quantity. If You
are asked one frame for one bottle of
wine you will be asked ten thousand
francs for ten thousand bottles, or n
million francs for million bottles"
In the retail business they look upon
trade with this solitary retail eve.
Thirty centimes for some little lace
edging per yard. Two hundred yards
of it could not be bought centime
less per yard than was asked for
one yard. The last was a personal
/ experience, while looker-on, where
three women were being struck dumb
with this monsterous idea French
manufacturers, of course, have their
agencies here, perhaps, occupying