Los Angeles herald., 1907-07-28
CHAPERONES NOT
POPULAR IN PARIS
FRANCE NO LONGER GOES IN
FOR DUENNAS
Gay Paree Becoming More Like
Yankee City Every Year and
This Is One of the
Symptoms

Special Cable to The Herald.
/ PARIS. July 27.-The Paris season is oil
its last legs, but it is dying gamely. Th
sun is taking very little part in the fete
but that has not prevented the seasoi
from being a success.
1t is the Americans who make the sea
sons nowadays, and, being determined
race, they never allow the weather to in
terfere The constant and increasing in
flux of citizens of the great republic intC
Paris is having unexpected results.
The Parisians are becoming American
lied, after declaring any time this las
twenty years or so that French customs
were quite good enough for them. an
not speaking of the Amercanization o
hotels and restaurants; that was bouno
to come and is a mere affair of com
merce, of supply and demand.
American Dollars Do 1t
Because a Bostonian can eat beans and
bacon or a Chicagoan nibble sweet corr
al a Paris tab.e is no proof that transat-
lantic customs are becoming implanted in
the country; it simply proves that Amer
lcan dollars are finding their way into
French pockets. But it is different when
ono considers the influence that American
social customs are having upon French
family life.
1t was time the windows were opened
and that a little fresh air came in. The
air has Travelled from across the Atlantic,
with side breezes from the channel
The principal development concerns the
''jeuene file"
The old days are passing-slowly, but
still passing-when the young person of
good family was never seen abroad save
in company of her mother or of the bon
ne" 1t is still not the custom for unmar-
ried girls to go alone in the streets. The
Paris policeman would be considerably
astonished If the unprotected female COM
planned of annoyance in such circum-
stances; at the same time chaperonage is
less in evidence than aforetime.
Girls Go Out Alone
Girls of an age will often accompany
each other in the streets, especially if
they are students of the same class, or
the official cicerone will be some one
a little more instructed and
than the village "bonne."
OF course the day is not yet when the
young girl can travel alone on the rail-
way, though a great number of French
boys of tender age are sent by their
parents on quite long journeys, which is
a new sign of the times.
Neither would the young girl go to
the length of inviting friends to the
house who were unknown to her parents.
The idea of having a separate visiting
list from her mother would never enter
the head of French 'Jeune file"
Still, there is great emancipation
from the old convent bred notions.
French girls will. nowadays, invite to
''soirees dansantes" agreeable and we'll
young men whom they have
met at other houses. These young men,
Or their families will, however, be well
known to the girls parents.
This is a modification of the American
system which may be said to have it's
advantages. Arising from the custom is
the increasing tendency of the young girl
to choose her own partner in life; the
parents, unless they are very bigoted in
the old paths, are more and more in
clined to consult the wishes of the person
most interested.