The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-24

has so many dogs, cats, parrots, mon keys and canaries, collectively A Par | is bourgeois household is not a house. hold without It's quota of pets. All told the dogs number 74,104, and the cats must be fully as many; the other pets are not counted. The dogs and cats are always in the street, but 1t is curious fact that nobody ever saw French dog attack cat. They move either in ab- solute harmony or in indifference; often strange dogs play with strange cats, and strange cats with one another. Perhaps the fact that most of the cats are Angoras may have something to do With 1t. They are nice, doWny, ladylike cats, and do not give concerts at night There are no fences in Paris back yards. The French are kind to their pet ami mals and cruel to their horses.
 Paris is probably the only city in the world which has trees that bloom twice year habitually. These are the horse chestnuts. There are seventeen thou sand of them planted in the squares and along the boulevards, and twenty-six thousand buttonwoods. The trees in Paris are numbered, just like the peo- pie, the cabs, the animals, the lamp posts and the matches. These horse chestnuts have only been doing this trick for about five years, and only some of them have made a practice of 1t. These die, or apparently die, in the latter part of July, and all the leaves fall off. A month or so afterwards they all come out into flower again and little green leaves shoot forth continually un- til they are nipped by the first frost. There is a reason for this, and the sci entsts worked over the matter for a long time to be able to explain it. Brief ly and unscientitically, the trees lose their leaves because they are attacked by a little fungus which is blown upon them by the wind; then, being still full of sap, they start to put forth leaves all over again.
 The Seine is the most versatile of riv- CTS, Most people seem to think that it is only to cross over because of the ire quent bridges; or, if they read the pa- pers, that it is mostly used by persons of theatrical turn to commit suicide in. But it has many other uses. It is sewer; it is highway for floating | omnibuses or fly boats, which carry more people between different parts of | the city than any ten tramways; 1t is a navigable stream for deep-Water craft from England principally-and affords 1 dozen ports in the city of Paris alone; | it is canal, upon which there float more canalboats than upon any regular 1 canal in France; it is a bathtub, not | only for people Gin the many floating 1 baths which line it's banks) but also for | horses, cows and dogs, which have each | a designated bathing place; it is a | swimming pond for many ducks and | geese; it is a reservoir, from which wa | ter is pumped for the cleansing of the l city streets; it is a laundry tub, in 1 which more than nine-tenths of the | clothes of the citizens of Paris are 1 washed-washing never being done at | home, even by the poorest people. Last, and most important, it is the | angling ground for the worlds most ] patient fishermen. Perhaps fish have | been caught in the Seine, because often
 men have protested that they have
 caught them, but no one-if the same 1 men be eXcepted-eVer saw one caught. 1 This fact, notwithstanding the passion | for fishing, and fishingyin the Seine particularly, a French statesman has
 called the evil coeGual with the drink l ing of absnthe that is undermining the | nation. Spring, summer, autumn, win l ter, morning, noon and evening, rain or
 shine the Parisian world stands on the
 quays with hook in the water waiting
 for a bite. Men, women and children l are in the crowds. and some look poor i and some look rich. But nobody ever looks other than expectant. The wait | CTS of the small cafes and restaurants
 in the Champs Elysees take advantage | of the dull hours, and, bareheaded, | aproned and with napkins covering l their immaculate shirt bosoms, seek a 1 place in the ranks; cabmen too and er-
 rand boys and tramps-everyhody. If q
 census were taken some fine day it l would indubtably show that at least
 one-twentieth of the population of Par
 is was alwayse fishing.
 Cotton is a very necessary article in
 Paris, but apparently it is used chiefly
 to put in the ears Rather, in one ear,
 because the French are not extrava-
 gant; they merely want to stop the
 draught. They do not want to stop it
 so much for fear of earache, but to
 avoid toothache, because French den-
 lists are not skilful, and French teeth
 are usually out of repair. However, the
 
 cold generally. A Parisian will go out
 into the street on the coldest winter day
 without his overcoat and without his
 hat, but never without his wad of pre-
 servative cotton. As a matter of fact
 they wear it always, even in midsum-
 mer; they assume the protection in
 childhood and never relinquish it. It is ] usually white, or white at the start, but , the shopgirls and fanciful young men affect pink. It is a curious sight to see , the people on the top of an omnibus
 when it turns corner, thus bringing , the wind from another quarter Simul-
 taneously they stop talking, shift the
 wad to the windward ear, then begin again where they left off The Seine has many bends, and boatload of Pa.
 risians travelling any distance is kept
 busy.
 Cabs are not so cheap in Paris as they : are in some German cities (Where tht rate is as low as fifteen cents a. mile)
 but in German cities as in most othel places they are hired for the convey
 ance of people; in Paris they are let fol anything. This is partly because tn, rates for the transportation of package:
 and the cost of household moving art
 very high, and partly because a cab ii
 convenient and always to be foun(
 when wanted. Many Paris washerwo