Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-06-29
1NO BOOMS In PARIS.
Eli Perkins Finds the French Real
Estate Men Very Humble.
THE SURRENDER TO MUNICH BEER.
A Look at Ancient Monuments Proves
Bronze the Most Durable.
EXPERIMENTING UPON A HUMORIST
rcoRREspoNpRNcE or THE n,spI


optlons on suburban property. There are
out two real estate men in Paris, and they
are as quiet as pail bearers. One of them
told me to-day that he had rented good
manvv flats at from $40 to 5000 month, but
ne had never sold house. There are not 6
dozen signs of "For Sale' to be seen or
houses in all Paris, and have seen but si1
houses being built. Paris is finished and j:
now going to decay. The city is not a;
beautiful as it was ~ years ago, and every
year takes from its splendor.
Bill Nye writes me that he is living just
opposite me in Tacoma and Seattle, and that
real estate there is brisk. He says that, hav-
ing exhausted Oregon for suburbs, they are
going to bore through 5000 miles and locate
choice corner lots in France. While they
are building houses in Tacoma, enterprising
| citizens are tearing them down here. That
is the difference between a new and an old
| country.
| TEMPERANCE IN FRANCE.
have seen but one drunken man in Paris
IN two weeks, and two gendarmes marched
him straight to the police station and locked
him up. 1t was so unusual sight that q
| great crowd followed the poor man through
! the streets. One cause for this temperance
is the fact shat the average French laboring
man can't afford to get drunk. 1t takes
| about bottle and half of ordinary wine
to get man drunk, and that costs 30 cents
| A man cannot get drunk on French wine
When Frenchman wants a great spree,
| he puts absinthe in his wine or brandy.
which gives him sweet visions and then
puts him to sleep.
But wine drinking is diminishing. In
fact more Munich beer is drank in Paris
than wine. Twenty years ago the people
sat In rows four deep on the boulevards
evenings, all drinking wine, smoking
cigarettes and slipping coffee. Now the beer
mug is everywhere. Twenty train loads of
beer arrive from Munich every day. When
Paris surrendered to the Germans, it also
surrendered to German beer. Munich beer
is thin. 1t is impossible to get drunk on
it. 1t is really prohibition drink. Alter
a man has drunk several gallons he goes
home stupidity sober. He don't get drunk;
he gets full and sends for cab to take it
home. He don't fight and discuss the tariff
question. He simply loses his identity and
oblivion sets in.
NOTHING BUT BRONZE ENDUREs.
Twenty years have made sad havoc with
Versailles. The beautiful trees planted by
Louis XIV. have grown scraggy. The splen-
did Louis XIV. palace and the gorgeous
fountains which bankrupted the Treasury
Of Fance to build, are crumbling awsy.
The Madeleine and the Arc de Triomphe
will stand 500 years; but the only monu-
ments that will stand forever are the bronze
columns of Vendome and July. The sphinx
has lost its nose, the Coliseum has been
patched up, the Palace of the Caesars has
gone to decay, and our obelisk in Central
Park and the Obelisk of Luxor in Paris are
crumbling, but there stands in Rome the
bronze column of Trajan. There is the pic
ture of Remus and Romulus, Alexander
and the Caesars, and the history of Rome,
written on that bronze column, will outiiye
the Pyramids.
The Paris Column of Vondona was
modelled after the bronze Trajan Column in
Rome. In erecting a monument to Grant
it is foolish to use stone. The Parthenun of
Athens and the Forum of Rome are in
ruins. The Trajan Column still stands.
Grants monument should be of bronze-a
bronze column with the history of the Re-
public from Columbus to Grant engraved
upon it. On it should also be medallions in
bas relief OF all the Presidents, and Grant
and his Corps Commanders. In solid bronze
should he engraved the Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and Lincoln's Proclamation of
Freedom to 5000, 900 slaves. Let it be
succinct history of the Republic up to 1900.
and, if in bronze, it will live a million
years. If In stone, 500 years will see it
crumbling to dust. Nothing would be
surely known about early Rome were it not
for her bronze monuments and her coins.
SAMPLES OF FRENCH HUMoR.
To-day, I met NJ Bricalse, the humorist
of Figaro tried hard to get to the bot
tom OF French humor. We exchanged our
r bou Il
idea of humor than we Americans have.
All French stories are true. They never
exaggerate, and the paradox is not iunny to
the Frenchman. 1t exasperates him.
/ asked NJ. Bricaise to tell me the fun
niest thing he could think of.
"You Americans" he said, "are always
funny to us. You do such unnatural things
Why, an American recently came here with
a steam fire engine. He was wild to have
Paris adopt it. We said why, we never
have any fires. Our buildings are fire.
proof"
"'No fires, he said. No fires in Paris?'
"'No, never
"'Pshaw,' he said, you are behind the
times. It's because you have no steam
fire engines. Get the engines and the fires
will come He made me laugh, ha ha!
HIS BEST SAMPLE.
HE was ike FreDchman, continued |
the humorist. "who claimed to be a great |
inventor. When the Academy asked him |
what he had invented, he said:
"'I have discovered how to take the salt |
out of Goldfish Ha, habitat is our best |
joke"
Then 1 told him lot of our old stories,
but he never smiled. He would only shake
his head and say: "C'est impossible"
Then told him my story on Ben Butler
in the hospital during the war "The Cen
eral," said, ''passed by the cots where lay
many sick and wounded men. Coming to a
young soldier who seemed in great pain, ne
said:
"Iou seem very sick, my brave boy.
What is the matter with you?'"
81 have gangrene," moaned the soldier.
"'Gangrene, said the General-that is
a terrible disease. 1 never knew man to
have gangrene that it didn't kill him or
leave him an idiot. I've had it myself."'
"Cest impossibleP exclaimed M. Brlcaise.
The paradox was too much for him.
ELI PERKINS.