The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1904-03-06
Street Show Was a Dismal Affair,
Owing to Storm of Sleet,
Snow and Rain.
JAPANESE MASKS WORN
And Most of the Paper Costumes
Came from the Land of
the Mikado.
SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE
As Evidenced in Press Cartoons
Emily Crawford's View of
Japan's Empress.

Special Correspondence OF the Journal.
PARIS, Feb 2S.-We have had a dismal
carnival. Bad weather the cause. Sleet,
snow. storm, rain did their best to kill Tom
Fool mirth and put lead in the wings of
those tiny paper disks known Partisan
confetti and made to be thrown in msskers'
faces. They soon became in the hand carts
of the confetti dealers masses of pulp only
for the paper mill. The few symbolical
chariots that came out had the melancholic
appearance of drenched fowl.
Yet the streets through which the car
nivGl professions passed were as crowded
as if the sun shone in bright blue sky.
Those who looked on from the windows saw
only umbrellas. Such was the throng that
the police had difficulty in keeping a way
open for the corteges. Only a Partisan
crowd could have kept cheerful under cir
cumstances so unfavorable to spirit of
general mirth. One wonders how the sight
seers dried themselves when they went
home.
In every decent English home there is
big kitchen range and an open fireplace in
the middle before which a large clothes
horse can be placed The Belgian kitchens
are similarly provided. The Germans have
ve-heated rooms in which wet clothes
soon give out all the water to the sur
rounding atmosphere. But in the abodes
of the undermiddle class people in Paris
the kitchen is not larger than the table
of London dining room, and the heating
apparatus is a charcoal stove that sends
up. but not out. it's heat. The small orifices
serving on it as fireplaces are greater at the
bottom and open at the top and intended
merely to heat saucepans. The pies and
pastry or the meat joints are sent TO be
| baked in the bakers round the corner.
Sitting and bedrooms are frequently heat
ed by setting a lighted petroleum lamp on
| the hearthstone of parlor or bedroom serv-
| ing as such and letting it burn until the oil
| is exhausted. Is it any wonder that revolu-
tionsts seldom come into the streets in bad
| weather and that the two Napoleons COM
| mitted their coup d'etats in drizzling De-
| cember weather. when little opposition from
| the working classes was-because of the
| drizzle-to be apprehended?
a Frenchman when his blood is up does
| not mind being killed in a street fight, but
! he very much minds returning to his small
| place of abode with dripping garments and
having to so to bed and breathe the damp
| they give out while being DRIED with the
insufficient means he has at his disposal.
MASKS ARE JAPANESE.
Most of the masks are Japanese. Though
l.
| amazed at the promptness with which those
who cater to public amusement bring their
wares and devices up to date. The Japan
csc made their rush at Port Arthur on the
| Sth, and on the 18th thousands of japanese
| masks and costumes OF the old-fashioned
sort were on sale in the shops that supply
such things. 1t is true that most of the
| latter were in paper, which would have
| done for some hours in fine weather just as
| well tougher and more costly tissues,
were il not for the danger of brutal per-
| sons throwing on them lighted ciGarettes-a
| danger, now that many working class
| folks have nerves liberated with alcohol
| that should not be overlooked.
| OF course, these 1imsy garments melted
| away in no time. and their remains fell into
| the mud. There could be no street dances
| and the popular balls" took place in a
| steamng atmosphere. Salad bowls filled
with wine and brandy blazed on the coun-
| tiers. and little tables in the places where
| the balls off afforded drinks tina
| cheated the sense of dampneSs and chill
| and rendered mirth more uproarious.
| The carnival is a decided evil in great
| towns, and the farther one goes north the
| worse il appears. The festivals of the
| Church of Rome are only suitable to the
| sunlit shores of the Mediterranean, whert
| they originally sprang up, and TO the small
| cities into which old Rome segregated They
| must have been divinely lovely in Tusca my
! CONTINUED on PAGE 2, PART 2.)