The daily gazette., 1878-10-11
OUR PARIS LETTER
TRAN ELS IN THE RUE DRoUor.
Irregular Correspondence

The Rue Drouot, like the Rue Lafitte
and the Rue lie Pelletier continues. in
despite of the Haussmanisation of the
second Empire and the Duvalisation of
the third Republic, to maintain its char
acter as an essentially French and more
so Partisan street. Strange tricks have
been playedwth most ofthe thoroughfares
inits neighborhood; still the Rue Drouot
has hitherto triumphantly defied all the
attempts of an iconoclastic municipality
to cut it to pieces.
After breakfast-I mean the dejeuner
Ia tourchette, not the coffee, eggs, bacon
and toast hours-say about two in the
afternoon, is the time to travel in the Rue
Drouot. 1t is not very quiet place,
being normally, perhaps, as bustling as a
commercial street, in an average Ameri-
can city, which from an artistic point of
view, it in no way resembles still it is
free from the incessant and deafening
roar of the main boulevards. One likes
to hear the "city's busy hum )" and towns
as tranquil say as Cordova or Toledo, in
Spain, or Phent or Bruges in Belgium,
are apt, after time, to induce fit of
the meagrims. When people are really
alive it is incumbent upon them now and
again to exhibit signs Of their vitality
but the boulevards which stretch from the
Madeline to the Bastile are more than
alive they seem to be hysterical, deliri-
Gus, or in a permanent crisis of some
great agony which constrains them to
make terrific disturbance. The exceed
ing fierceness of those who were wont to
come out of the tombs of old has been
accounted for by the supposition that
when they emerged from their caverns in
the morning they were likewise exceed
ing hungry, and uncertainty as to where
they were to get any breakfast may have
had much to do with their habit of
shrieking and running amuck.
From sunrise to midnight you hear on
the Boulevards the well night incessant
cracking of whips, sound extremely
distressing 10 nervous ears, bringing
your mind back AZ 1t does. to the time of
negro slavery and inducing the suspicion
that the ferocious Legree, indefinitely
Il IN OpVi otihk upOh ObSiC ioti
| at every corner of the street. Fortu-
nately the whips are only those of the
| omnibus and cab drivers. L wish thai
they would not sgitate their thongs quite
so frequently or 10 violently. do not
think that the French are designedly
cruel TO their horses, save in so far as
they drive the poor half starved screws
In an incor cei vably laundering and care.
less manner, but they seek to stimulate
Il fl.. tod hxv haft ftf,t,
which they produce by throwing out the
lashes of their. whips laterally somewhat
as a Mexican "greas. rs" throws out his
lasso. Now when whip is thus cracked
by Jehu as skilful rs the Position de
ILouiumean the horse is duly quickened
Into action, and no harm is done to any
body; but when horde of untutored and
lundisciplined charioteers come lumber
ing, clattering, plungng, or crawling six
abreast on the boulevard Poissohmere,
tiourishing their whips and t1linglug oht
the lashes in all direcuons, aud you hap.
pen to be riding in cab in the midst OF
the ruck, the chances are about equal a
to your own driver listing some pass np
passenger over the bridge of the nose, OIL
of playful cabby either to the right oi
the left Of you cutting out } our eye as ht
founders past.
Such perils you are scarcely exposed
lin the sober Rue Druout; the traffic il
never long congested, and, indeed, al
isome periods SO trifiing is the press oi
llocomotion that the pedestrian can enjoy
one of the most d. arly priced privileges
lof Frenchman, that of walking on g
Ihot afternoon in the centre of the road
way, and with his hat off. The practice
dates from the time when sidewalks were
unknown III the small streets of Paris
and peaceable people walked at large
Just Keeping clear of the great black gut
tier, to avoid disputes about the wall
There may be those who regret the rujs
lsedu There were, forty years ago. bare
legged industrials who earned livrli
hood by carrying ladies safely across tn,
lswollen kennel after a shower of rain
For a lady the fee was ten centimes, fol
child or pet poodle five; but the opeI
kennel did moi disappear without man,
conservaiive sighs.
The existing drainage OF the CITY o.
Paris is, am given to understand, col
llossal monument ofsaniiary engineering
and in a scientific sense perfect. L an
sure that NJ. NJ. Victor Hugo and Max
ime Du Champ have written eloquent,
, and exhaustivrly enough about the sew
, ers; still cannot help pfancying that th'
lnractice Of devdorisalion continues Il
leave something to be desired. Th'
smell of the back streets OF Paris In warn
weather is, even In the tnosC lasniohaD
districts, the reverse OF agrt cable. \,
charge, however, of this nature need bt
adduced against the Rue Druout, wbici
lis, comparatively speaking, a very an
cient thoroughfare, and in which, ~heI
| you are travelling In 1t, you hnd so aah'
interesting sights to engage your atteh
ton that you are Indifferent to the odor
OF the place.
| have been told that the Kitai-goro'
at Mascow Is not very sweet smelling
locality; that pa of Constantinople ar
redolent of decidedly villanous perfume
that the Gale de los Sierras, at Sevill"
has a rather cloud" aroma; and that tn
back streets of Venice would be all tn
better for a little diluted carholic acid
II I have never Noticed these trities. M
Louis Venillott found nothing but swee
! perfumes in the reeking lanes of Papa
Rome; and how should we stand stand as ,a, al
Hcurio" collectors, if we were all 10 ele
vate tbe nose at foreign smells