New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-27


the eight thousand Journeymen bakers in Paris,
only three thousand stopped work. The garri-
son of Paris was. however. kept in the barracks
ready for an emergency. The soldiers were thus
deprived of the usual Christmas holiday. The
police squads posted near all the bakeries sue
ceeded in protecting the journeymen willing to
work from the attacks of the strikers. There
was some rioting in the Rue Reaumur and the
Faubourg Montmartre; several shops were loot
ed windows broken, and couple of pork butch
ers in the Rue Greneta were stripped and car
ried about boards like prize pigs Several
bands of strikers were arrested in the Champs
Elysees, but all quieted down, and Paris had
more bread, cake black sausages and pigs feet
than the city could consume, while the midnight
services in the churches were never more
crowded.
The Paris free thinkers celebrated a Noel of
their own. called the humanitarian Christmas,
which off in the banqueting hall Of the
Grand Orient Of France. Passages from Sophie
cles, Voltaire. Lamartne and Michelet were read
and hymn to the sun sung by two hun
dred school children. for the French free think
ers hold that the first Christmas was really the
sun festival Of pagan or Egyptian worship, and
this is now their grand idea and motive.
Another new development of the Christmas
Paris medical students. Those of the Saint
Louis Hospital, for instance, impersonated vari-
Gus medicinal metals. such as zinc, mercury,
lead and radium The Andral Hospital called
its show the yellow syndicate-jaundice, bilious
ness and liver complaints being allegorized in
the most realistic fashion. Saint Anthony Hos
pital made a startling manifestation with its
history of poisons presenting Cleopatra with her
asp, Mithridates with his adders Lucretia Bor-
gia with arsenic, and finally bourgeois families
unconsciousy poisoning themselves with toad
stools and alcohol Then came procession Of
morphomaniacs and hasheesh and opium eaters.
The Paris theatres are taking In maximum
receipts. for seldom have been better plays given
than just at the present. and the favorites OF
the public Sarah Bernhard, Guitry, Brandes,
Rejane, Jeanne Granier, Emma Calve and Mary
Garden. all acting in successful plays or
operas. The opera Comique produced its sue
cess OF the season Wednesday night with a
opera La Refine Fiammette" by Catulle
Mendes, the music by Xavier Leroux. It is the
story of a fair. frail. frisky queen OF Bologna
in the picturesque days Of the Italian Renais-
sance. Queen Fiammette. having become a
proselyte to Lutheranisn is by order of the fero-
cious Cardinal Cesar Sforza, executed together
with her lover. the pair being chained together
in their last embrace and both their heads being
chopped off by the executioner with one blow Of
his Leroux's music contains some charm
ing love duets and graceful but somewhat color
less orchestration. There are Joyful. catching
refrains wherein the flutes predominant. The
Paris critics pronounce the new opera decided
success. They unanimously accord the highest
praise to Miss Mary Garden, the American
prano who sang RENE Fiammette. Miss Gar
den has already won laurels at the opera
Comique and in London-last spring. as Louise
Melissandre in La Traviat4"-but her reputa-
ton is now definitely established by the master
full art and fexibility with which she sang and
acted the character Of CatulIe Mendes's capt-
waiting heroine.
The excitement in the Department OF Mayenne
in Northwestern France. about the discovery OF
gold deposits there is far from subsiding al
though the enthusiasts who hoped for French
Klondike have been disappointed by the state
ment that the surface examinations showed that
the proportion of gold was not large enough to
make the working of the mines remunerative.
NJ. Herrenschmidt the metallurgst, and former
engineer Of the antimony mine Laval, has
drawn UP a report which will be submitted to
the Academy of Science, in which he states that
at the depth of fifteen metres he came upon
beds of containing from twenty-five to forty
grams of gold to the ton. and that IN certain
pyrite beds the gold was in the proportion Of
1913 grams to the ton.
The Paris Northern Railway announced to-day
that next spring through tickets from Paris to
VladiYostok, Port Arthur and Picking by way
OF the Trans-Siberiau line, will be issued instead
Of tickets only to Moscow. as at present. The
schedule time for the trip from Paris to Picking
when the through tickets are issued will be six
teen days. c. I. B.