The Iola register., 1891-08-07

**x
But the two things for which Pari
is especially celebrated I have utterl.
failed to find. And they are style ant
beauty. There is nothing like tn
style here that there is in London, TO
example, either as regards men, WON
ell or equipages. In London silk hat
and gloves were so universal that
felt as if everybody were looking at m!
old slouch and my bare hands. Herr
there are any number of hats worse
than mine and have hardly seen
pair of gloves. In London the womer
were fine, wholesome looking, athletic
looking, dressed i'm clothes that were
not only tasteful, but well made. Here
it is the rarest thing to meet woman
on the street-except she be American
or English-whose dress is eithel
tasteful or well-made, or who is at
tractive in either face or figure. Al
the Opera, to be sure, one sees some
very handsome dresses. But 1 stood
up the other night, in the impertinent
French way, and searched the rows
and rows of faces long and carefully,
and failed to find one that 1 cared to
look at twice. And as for the equip
ages, / have not seen in all Paris car
riage with liveried coachmen and foot
men, such as literally crowd the streets
of London. The carriages are not as
nice, the horses are not as fine, end the
drivers are slouchy and ill-elothed TO
the last degree. 1 have noted these
contrasts with considerable surprise,
for 1 have been i'm the habit of believ-
ing Paris to be the .tdcile iori,ceps in
everything included in the word style.
~.
The manner of life of the Parisians is
about as different from that to which
we are accustomed as can well be
imagined. In the first place they have
no word in their language which cor
responds to our word "home," and
perhaps as consequence-they have
not the thing which the word desig-
mates. At any rate they know moth
ing of the comforts and conveniences
that are found in the home of the av-
erage well-to-do American. A Uni
versity classmate of mine who is liv-
ing here stated the case about right
when he said, "If Frenchman has
two or three mirrors, a chandelier and
a clock, he thinks his house is furnish
ed" And indeed it would seem as if
most of these people only used their
houses to sleep in and as shelter when
it rains. They breakfast, dine and
sup at the cafes, and at all hours of the
day the women may be seen sitting in
the public parks with their sewing or
And there is the same diff
erence in the matter of hotels, that
there is in the matter of homes. l am
stopping at hotel that ranks in Paris
about as the Copeland does at Topeka.
But, as already indicated, I have to
pay extra for coffee or tea at dinner,
[ have to pay extra for soap in
my room, and for lamp, (tallow can
dies being the alternative, although
there are electric lights down stairs),
and 1 had to fee the porter, the wait
er, the elevator boy and the chamber
maid. What riot there would be if
some of our Kansas hotels should at
tempt to adopt that way of doing bug
mess!
-
OF course it was no surprise to me,
~ it was to a certain Hibernian trav-
,ler, to learn that "even the children |
peak French" in Paris, and have
to scrape together enough |
recollections of the lam
yuage to get along fairly well. But
'ome other people of my acquaintance
lave had some rather amusing ex-
,eriences. Among my chance travel
ng companions is a young man from
Nebraska who knows a great deal
more about roping cattle than he does
bout French, and his attempts to get
to eat have been almost pa
hetic. One day he got lettuce and
ce cream when he wanted roast beef
nd potatoes. Another day he got
hree different kinds of soup by point
ng to three different places on the bill
f fare. And still another day he Or
cred melon and got fish, because
e pronounced it melon instead of me-
Dn. These experiences and various
tners have gradually taught him a
ew phrases, and up on the Eiffel tow
r the other day he was struggling
18th them in painful endeavor to
NY souvenir. He was about giving I
p in despair, when the man behind
he counter said, "Do you speak Eng
sh?" The joyful way in which the ;
Ian from Nebraska yelled "You bet
our life dor attracted the attention i
the people on the street thousand
'et below. q
-
One of the institutions of Paris is {
he guide-his name is Legion-who q
lows tourists about the city and tells
lem a great many things that are not !
}, in very bad English. The one to t
hose tender care I committed myself c
lie other day had weakness for a
lnting LID nlaces where some king or q