Fayetteville observer. [volume] (Fayetteville, Tenn.) 1850-1966, 1878-10-10
Communication.
Paris Letter.


prised in the festivities of th
Bal Ma6ille do not perhaps a
mount to much, but such a
they are, it may not be out OF
place to enumerate them here
for the benefit of the post-nati
For this is an age of change
Time, the great auctioneer, il
Iindefatigably busy in his ros'
trnm, and, well nigh without
surcease, bis ivory hammer, sym
metrically turned from a dead
mans bone, comes in SHARP
contact with the ledge of his
pulpit as he cries 'Egoing, going,
gone!" | have seen spectacu-
larly the dissipation of my time,
and its most typical emblems
seems to me mainly to have dis
appeared. Paris, assuredly, is
regenerated; but / fail to see
that the New Birth, is clinical
ly considered, in any way pref
erable to the old one. All the
booths in Vanity Fair-sadly
knocked about by vicissitudes
of siege and civil war-have
been re-painted and re-plas-
tered, gilt, swept and garnished; /;
but it would be rash hastily to
assume that the spirits that in
habit the restored edifice are in
any way cleanller than those
which abode in it of old. /
heard that the Jardin Mabille
was doing a tremendous busi-
ness, and that the cancan was
nocturnally extant in its widest
exuberance in the Armida's
Garden of the Champs Elysees.
So we made up a party to visit
Mabille. l put on a pair of
square-toed shoes and the most
moral looking hat / could find,
so as to warn off any Roscam-
boles or Cascadettes who might
seek to tempt me to join in the
mazy dance. Did not the Heath
en- Man of old stop his ears a.
gainst the Wantons of the Sea?
And the lady of oEr party
donned no less than three wells,
one over the other, the last a
thick awning of blue silk, the
effect of which was certainly to
prevent any one at the Mabille
from seeing her face, while on
the other hand the three wells so
efectually excluded the out
ward atmosphere as to impel
her eventually to raise the triple
barrier, gasping in the throes
of semi-sufocation, and impetu-
ously to demand iced lemonade.
They charge you one franc
twenty-five centimes for a glass
of lemonade at Mabille. The
beverage i'll the u. S. would ccr-
tainly be thought dear at 10I
cents.
Happy for you if you make
one of a party at Mabille. I'm
der these circumstances you
can laugh and talk and wonder
that people can be found night |
after night to pay dollar for
the privilege of inspecting this
barren sham; but should you be |
alone your life will be made bur-
densome to you by the incessant |
opportunities of the thousand
daughters of the horseleech-alI
so far as their plastered faces go,
SO many whitened sepulchres.
Poor creatures. They donoteven
go so far as to paint themselves.
Rouge is apparently too dear;
but they lay on the pearl pow
der, the white lead, the arsenic,
the pulverized chalk and what
ever the stuff may be;-then,
with voices hoarse as those of |
night cabmen with exposure to
the night air and continuous
'consummations," they poster
you to treat them. / shrink
from surmising that they drink |
a tithe of the beverages to which |
they are sometimes treated.
Did they do so they would sure
ly be tipsy before shutting up
time. l suppose they receive a
commission from the admins
tration, or from the walters on
the refreshments which they
are the cause of ordering.
The dancing is mere hollow
imposture. Ninetecn-twenti-
cths of the poor women who
aop,a IN MahilIe wouId as soon