Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-05-05
Queer Drinks Are in Evidence at All
the Sideshows.
new FEATURES OF TEE EXPOSITION
Not the Least Interesting Are the
Reproductions of the Past.
r E NJ A RK ABLE ILLUSIONS

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
| PARIS, April "a, 1900.
| The Midway Plaisance is dead-long live
! the Midway Plaisance. When the original
| street of Cairo was in Its heyday the Paris
| life of amusement still depended IN the
| night. The Moulin Rouge and the Cafe
American were the height of chic, and the
| gayety Of the fair was of the old-style
Frenchiness. The bicycle, the automobile
ard the new life of sport changed all
! that, and the Midway Plaisance of the ex-
hibtion is strikingly different from the old
street where the weird cadences of the
danse du ventre first burst upon the world.
In the old Jardin de Paris the Fin de steele
| Dance" with Rayon dor, La Melenite. La
Nome Frontage and La Goulue. waved its
| lace-edged petticoats as the last gesture of
the dying century. Helas! The fin de steele
dance itself is dead, and its dvinites have
grown stout and heavy. The Midway Ilai-
| sance is as amusing as ever, only 1t has
| changed. 1t has grown extraordinarily.
We. who have just returned from the
| Swiss village, beat witness that for
| innocent deviltry and the kind OF gayety
| that is agreed to be Partisan neither the
waving skirts of La Nome FrotnaSe nor
| yet the gauze waistband of La Belle Fa-
| TINA are essential Beyond question, the
mark OF the present exhibition is the pretty
| waiter girl in hitherto undreaned-of profu-
sion. The pretty waiter girl in the Swiss
village runs to blue eyes, blonde braids
and a smart black corset put on outside
1t Is the Swiss peasant costume, and it
| gees well with yodling. We saw ,lree
young Americans drinking pink Swiss
champagne under the arbor on the summit
| of Mount Pilatus to the sound of their own
| yodling, while the yellow braids We're bob
bling in the winds.
How do you like the Midway" we asked.
| This is our mountain" was all that they
| yelled down to us. "Yah-hoodle-oy, YAH
hoodle-oy.' The Swiss village is the pig
gest sideshow, and Mount tilatus is its
biggest feature, yet its ascension is no more
laborious than dragging up six flights to
your Paris manSard at night, and its scat
| tered arbors and bosky nooas, with their
eXpectant nymphs, have all the coziness of
home life. From many a siX-storied wooden
mountain, covered with scene-paintcd cam
vas the gay youth of the various Eaiions
| yodle to each other across verd1ut valleys
enlivened with lowing kline and reI-lipped
n:ilkmaids while from crag 20 crag the fleet
chamois (read goaD skips after the biscuits
of the charitable. Down in yonder village
you are 1mportuned by yellow braids with
cuckoo clocks for sale Up in the highlands
they tempt you with pink champagne.
Drinks Everywhere.
Now. speaking of champagne, this is an
other feature Of the present exhibition-the
riotous omnipresence of the wine list. Not
to mention the opera comique scenic
effects of the wines of France exhibit in the
old Sale des Machines, the Son of Temper
ance finds himself running up against fizz
at every turn. After climbing laboriously
in diagonal spiral. around the girdle of
the universe on the immense celestial globe.
one meets-beyond the furthest star-an
American bar.
This, by the way, strikes another keynote
of the present exhibition and Its Midway
PlaiSance-the instructive and practically
useful character of its gayeties. 1t is a
globe within globe. the inner one and
much the smaller being our earth MANY
have asked why the heavens are repre-
scented by globe. If you were inside It
you would perceive, not a convex globe,
but concave heavenly vault lit up on
every side, above, below, with stars. The
central sphere Git will hold twenty people,
is the earth, and 1t turns ever as the earth
does on its axis. Round goes the moon,
with double motion; the planets circle
around the sun, and the sun seems to be
moved round, although 1t is the sun that
moves; stars, nebula, the milky way and
fiery comets keep up their apparent mo-
ton. When one, climbing around the
sphere that is the earth. begins descending
to the southern hemisphere TO look down
on the Southern Cross, the effect is start
ling. For the first time in my life got an
idea OF what eternal space Is with no UP
nor down except in relation to our own lit
tie sphere. The star-spangled. blue-black
immensely extends all around, underneath
as well as above. Then the great Saint
Saens organ booms the music of the
spheres. 1t was well to have put that bar
there.
Foreigners in Trouble.
The "zig-zag' and the "rollo" books are
not in it with this exhibition for mingled
instruction and amusement. After the trip
around the universe there is the trip around
the world. and this in various forms. The
Tour du Monde itself is a theater on which
pass scenes from every country, acted by
natives. No one has seen it yet, because
haf the native actors have been painting
Paris a bright vermillion ever since their
arrival The Chinese got into trouble for
maltreating a girl of the Quarter d 'Europe
Some of the American Indians are at the
depot, the result of too much firewater
The troubles of the Annamites have become
classical. 1t seems they imagined them
selves cheated by the French manager. so
one Sunday morning they tied this man
hand and loot to a post. Then each Anna
mite stepped gravely past him, spit at him
and calmly told him what he thought of
himi -
OF this Tour du Monde series of piano.
ramas and dforamas the greatest is ner-
haps, the mareorama. of which l have al
ready written-a steamer trip around the
Mediterranean, where the boat rolls and
pitches; where it comes up night at sea,
and where the sweet shores of the Riviera
glide past the view from Marseilles all the
way to Alexandria. The Panorama Trans
atlantique, a show of the same kind, takes
one from Havre to the harbor of New
York.
Effect of Real Life.
By far the most novel of these panorama
effects, however, is the device of the cine
orama-an application of the cinemato-
graphe, or biograph, to the panorama.
Here. in big building by itself, are four
simultaneous biographs instead of one and
a whole panoramic circle Of moving pic
lures instead of a. fiat picture on a sheet.
The result Is an extraordinary ghost-like
effect Of real life. Imagine the panorama
of the Crucifixion or the battle of Gettys-
burg with all the figures in motion!
Biograph effects abound. The Cham
payne Panorama Of the MERCER Company
more drink; Great Scott where will this
end?-whch shows the champagne vine
yards. the vintage, the grape-pressing and
all the processes that go on under the
ground in the immense caves of Epernay.
Though they shown in color and as
large as life, they have biograph show
added to them for exactness. Again, at the
Combat Naval, biograph illusion of the
combat of Manila bay-where did they get
it?-supplements the splashing wonders of
this aquatic show of which all Americans
already have tired. The Naval Combat is,
nevertheless. a great card at the EXPOSE
ton. What will be newer to Americans is
the Pavilion fSreISnt iropnaDSa