The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-31
BOOK STALLS OF PARIS.
Street Shops Which Attract Many
 American Customers.

Street Shops Which Attract Many American Customers Any one who strolls along the quays l of the Seine will find at almost every book stall evidences of American cus- toners. for every stall has American books, magazines, pamphlets and music some of the books old, a century at
 least some with undimmed leaves and
 binding still brilliant.
 Beginning with the chamber of depu-
 ties, the stalls extend mile or two
 along the Seine on either side says a
 writer in the Chicago Record. The riv-
 CT parapet affords a. wide, convenient
 resting place for the wooden cases
 holding the books. Should indictment
 weather come, heavy wooden shutters
 or lids are drawn down over the cases. It is about waist high to the top of the
 parapet. Each dealer has ten metres square of space, for which he pays the city f.30 a year.
 Not only are thousands of books in
 every tongue, ancient, mediaeval and
 modern, upon nearly every conceivable
 subject, stored along these quays, but
 there are very many other articles for sale-curious ancient coins, postage stamps, bronze and brass bric-a -brac, music in all languages shells and what
 not, One dealer had fine old Ameri- can or Canadian snowshoe tackled up alongside of his stall He did not know what it was, but fancied it must have been some kind of charm used by savage tribes to frighten away evil spir- it's.
 Some of the best known litesary men of Paris" said an old dealer at his stall in front of the Institute of France, "are among my best patrons. They saunter among the quays after they have been attending some session of the institute, and they are keen to pick up the best things. They are experts, and seek only the rarest works Sometimes I buy a collection of books in a lot from some one who is in need of money or else one who is going to leave the city and does not want to pay heavy freight rates on his books. Now and then I run onto a peculiarly valuable volume which I may perhaps buy for a relatively small sum; for such works I have special customers with both money and taste.
 "Who are my best customers? Among the foreigners Englishmen, Germans and Americans, if you mean by that those that buy the most books, but I call my very best customers the Bra zilians. They never ask the rice of book. If it is rare and interesting they do not say How much is it? but I'll take it. Other South Americans are good customers, also, but those from Brazil are the best of all.''
 One of the curious features in this outdoor bookseling is the traffic in sec- ond-hand schoolbooks. Wandering along the quays one early autumn day notic- ed many parents with their children ex- amining books in the locality where this class of books most abounds, There were hundreds of volumes from which to make selection for the studying of the winter. Oddly enough, there was case after case of American, German and English text books, though it was rather difficult to understand how French lad could interest himself in an arithmetic or Q reader from the United States.
 The men who sell the books of the Seine must be of no inconsiderable learn ing. They must, be familiar with the best in literature, ancient and modern and of every tongue; at least, well enough acquainted with it to prevent imposition upon themselves and to deal with connoisseTs. Some times they buy their supplies by corre- spondence, and many are the Latin Quarter students who have sent around their cards to one of these dealers when sore pressed for funds, that bargain might be struck over some choice books. And perhaps the same books had been bought from the library of some other one similarly in need of money.