New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-14
PARIS IN MIDSUMMER.

SUPPLY MADE A POLITICAL Observation-Disclosures
OF A GENERAL CoNFLAGRATION--A NIGHT AT
THE THEATRE FRANCAIs-"A TEDIOUS SET OF
PEOPLE "-GLIMPsEs AND MEMORIES OF OLD
STAGE FAvORITEs.
yROM AN OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE TRIBUNE
PARIS. July 81" Out of the frying-pan into the
Ere" is q proverb for which found pretty literal
application Sunday week If it was warm when
left New-York, what shall call the tropical heat
into which plunged at Havrc 1t may have been
the comet, the patriotic fervor of the people, Just
then raised to boiling point by the Fetes Nationdles
of the Fourteenth of July but certain it is that all
France was sweating and grooming under tempcra-
ture almost unparalleled in the meteorological
record of the country. The director of the ST. Maur
Observatory announces during the last few weeks a
maximum of $3.50 Centigrade, or just 1919 Fahren-
heit and declares it the highest yet recorded at that
observatory. Yet ut the instrument makers along
the quays find large thermometers with elaborate
scales showing the exceptional dates-ln the matter
of heatof the last hundred years 30, cast in the
metal backing of the instruments; and in one or
two cases the mercury seems to have touched 800,
or 1929 of the Fahrenheit scale. Very few years.
however have reached even the $50 of last week.
and the Parisians have been loud in wonder and
disgust at such meteorological extravaganza Luck
lily for the general comfort, smart shower day
two ago, followed by drizzng rain, has brought
things back to the normal point To-day the mer-
we are all enjoying the luxury of going briskly
about our business in stout Undertaking, and
demi-sdison garments
In this matter of keeping cool, by the way the
nntravelled American is unpleasantly struck in
Paris with the lack of little facility which
makes "quenchng" one's-self in large American
cities the simplest of things The Br adway
lounger, the dog-days, finds at almost every
hotel or restaurant where Ice water may be
hal. ~, o,,I
shop will furnish him soda or vchy at five cents a
glass. Here the operation of cooling ones coppers
becomes elaborate and expensive matter. The lit
tie wine shops and cafes will supply plain water or
settler for three or four cents glass to be but
no ice The nauseous, tepid calcareous draught has
to be mixed with syrup, wine some other ducify
ing element, and is very slightly refreshing at that
For my own part. don't like to think of the
pocket-money which melted from me during the
last heated term in iced carafes, half-ices and
siphons at the various cafes along the bouevards
at from fifteen to twenty cents drink The enter
prising Yankee who will set up here mineral
water establishment on the New-York plan, and
with New-YOrk prices ought to do q handsome bust
ness-when the thermometer is in the nineties
But the long drouth and hot weather have
brought out another point of interest to New
Workers who dread the failure of the Croton, and
swear at the intermittent faucet on the
third-foor 1t may be some sad consoa-
ton to know that the ParisiaDs are in
almost as bad plight. at least for the
moment. Only few days ago the parched and
painting citizens were startled by arts, or placard
from the Water Board which ma 10 them feel DRYER
and hotter than ever. You know that while an
American official body communicates any necessary
information through the columns of tho daily Jour
nails the French board civil, military or other
straghtway erupts in immense posters, which bios
column and dead w all and feuca in tho
whole town. Thus Colin or Babette is concisely in
doctrnated by the brieest method. instead of hav-
ing to seek the information in the daily papers
which he, and still more decidedly She would be
pretty sure not to do. In of these great broad
streets. then, the Director of the Water Works
Alphand-warned tie public that spite of the
100000 or of cubic metres daily furnished to the
citizens, the immense expenditure aud waste of
water during the hot weather had dangerously re-
duced the supply on hand. much so that the city
watering and washing of streets had been largely
suspended and forty EIGHT hours of this reck-
less expenditure would bring on disastrous water
famine His remOnstrances on the folly of leaving
faucets to all night in courts stables and kitch-
ELS. the drawing of many gallons to get a cool glass
tu etc, all had familiar smack of home in Them
and sounded like literal translation from the vail
tDgs of New-York authorities in like emergencies
Luckily the cool weather, supervening has put an
end, presumably, to much of the most wastcful
abuse of the water, while it has done something for
the supply That the pressure is better know by
the hydraulic elevator of my hotel which works
briskly enough now whereas 1t used to crawl I'D at
snaiPs pace to land me in my sky paror and often
threatened to stop altogether
The whole business has brought down shower
of quips and epigraiss on the heads of the Republ
can authorities from the opposition press only too
delighted to get such pull on their political op-
ponentS. The Figaro in especial has been filed for
some days past, with seriO-comic circumstances on
the wasteful use of the city gas recommendations
to the Paris public to smoke less and save their
cigar stumps, and the like pleasant badinaoe. all
very drou and clever, but not in the least to the
point. To some of the more violent appeals of the
journals recommending the people to in
sist on their rights and freely as they choose
the water they have paid for etc. Francisoue de
sarcy replies very pertnently in the Steele with the
apologize of the boy who cried for the moon and
points out the sefevdent fact that it would be en-
treiy proper to insist on getting all the water they
have paid for and use their supply us freely as they
there were more to be had When, how
ever, III is sure that few days more of waste will
SIMPLY leave the city without any at all he thinks
the question of rights might appropriately stand
over I'LL the theoretical view be made available
IN further measures tor charging the necessary IA
cities
III TACT, tire Partisan authorities using for this
purpose from year to year a certain portion of the
surplus municipal budget, have done at least fairly
wen under the circumstances Great care ingenuity
una expense have been spent within the last fifteen
!e"fs III bringing in the water of the Vanne some |
hundred miles from Paris and the Dhus, about sew |
sh'y-hve miles off The underground reservoir of
'ne latter at Menilmontant in the outskirts of the
Guy, is said to be marvel of enterprise and engi-
neenng SKILL Ipronise myself an inspection of it. |
WITHIN few days, for my own cdifcation and pos |
ll.l uaIoc II,