St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1900-07-11

FDITOR CALIFORNIAN:
On the walls of Paris over every
entrance should hang the words
"Paris full" These words should
float over the Eiffel tower one
thousand feet above the city, to
warn from afar the approaching pill
Grim that the tickets for this Exposi-
tion feast on the banks of the Seine
were all taken, the banquet-hall full,
not an empty seat remaining. We
had seasonably engaged rooms at
our old otel-home, "The Continen-
tal," but English friends less thought
full, could find no resting place and
they went on to London which is
always full, but never full. The
Continental has nearly 700 guests
and would still be packed if it could
provide for 400. The bath rooms
are nightly turned into dormitories
and the servants yield their attic
rooms to this outside pressure, while
they sleep on billiard tables, or stand
up in corners like punches of aspara-
gus. The cost of living is doubled
rooms that were twelve francs are
now twenty-four francs, good cigars
two francs, button-hole pink one
franc, three cups of chocolate ten
francs. Ihavejust paid three and one
half francs orcutting my hair, which
wasn't long, and by the job should
have been done at halfrates. Cab fares
are nominally unchanged, but
"cabby" generally manages in some
wayto extract something extra from
patrons for the honor of his services
in this year Of grace, 1900. One
thing is cheap. For 60 confines you
can buy the ticket which entities you
to spend the day within the EXPOSE
ton grounds and enjoy the grandest
show of its kind the world has ever
seen. Let no one, who can arrange
it, fail to see this closing information.
al exposition of our century, but if
YOU come to Paris do not attempt
any thing else, no shopping, no
general sight seeing, for one can pro-
ftably spend a month studying the
contributions the whole world has
made to this marvellous museum.
Inside the gates at every turn you
feel a sense of satisfaction with the
feast spread for your enjoyment.
Every sense is gratitied. Outside
the gates, however, you feel that
your purse is the envy of every
Frenchman and that you are being
robbed at every turn, so | say let
Paris Except the exposition) re-
ligiously alone this year. Leave the
city the moment you have had your
fill and beat a retreat 10 the sea-
side or the mountains to digest
what you have seen as the whole
world has passed in brilliant review
before you in the gay capital of the
French republic. Were it not for
our memories Of these weeks at the
Exposition l should leave Paris in
disgust, for the city itself has had
little of the charm which other visits
recall, Such confusion at railroad
stations, such a rush of carriages,
automobiles, bicycles and passengers
on foot in the streets, such crowds
in the stores and restaurants, such a
sardine packing in the hotels, such a
babel of tongues in the drawing
rooms and corridors, this is Paris
now and should be taken in as small
doses as possible. The Paris will
come back again when the curtain
drops on this present festival. These
plausible Frenchmen give as an ex-
cuse for present extravaganza de-
mands on your purse, the taxes
levied to inaugurate the Exposition
and the enhanced cost of every thing,
especially coal. but while this latter
excuse could justify some advance in
everything cooked, what has the
cost of artificial heat to do with the
tariff on ice-cream, frozen pudding
and champagne frappe. The real
fact is that France has been greatly
injured by the English boycott and
the past eight months the hotels in
Paris and along the Riviera, at Nice,
Cannes, Monte Carlo, etc, have
beenlosing money. At Marseilles we
were told that English visitors had
been conspicuous by their absence
and the Hotel de Louvre, the resting
place for travellers bound for the
Riviera and Italy and Algeria and
Iunis and Cairo, had been well nigh