Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-12-15

Americans, whose senses are not tuned
to old countries, cannot understand this
setting up of little wooden sheds in the
streets just when and where they are
most crowded. Their open side Is natur-
ally on the pave where the people are
passing. Their front Is one display of
novelties to make the passersby stand
and cape and gather inconveniently for
those who are always in a hurry to get
further. You cannot see the Paris
bouevards by day or night without being
caught up in the crowd before them. for
their lamps flare out into the night as
long as people are going in and out of the
illuminated cafes just across the walk.
1t is the bushes OF n country whose
people have all the time there is and
for whom time waits.
These booths are survivalS of the old
times when a great deal of trading was
done at seasonable fairs. These latter
also survive. and each quarter and SUBJ
urb of Paris and all the neighbOrhOOdS
of France still have their appointed days
and weeks for such fairs. OF the people
who live by these fairs there are some
tens Of thousands in France. But the peo-
pie of the Christmas booths do not be-
did. Yet their Christmas trade goes back
to Paris fairs, where Johnny tarr.ed SO
long buying the bunch of blue ribbons to
tie up the bonny brown hair of Joan
waiting at home and singing, Dear dear,
what can the matter be? Johnnys so long
at the fair
These Christmas trading places are
supposed to be for the artisans of Paris,
in which they can display and sell for
themselves little articles of their craft
made at home when their days work
for their employer is over In the old
times when the employer was oftenest
an artisan established for himself, this
selling by the side was encouraged. 1t
eased the relations between the rudimen-
tary capital and labor of those days. In
the wonderful Waulbourg st. Antoine,
which so few visitors to Paris see, there
is still once week the "trOle," street
sale work done by skilled artisans of
the great furniture houses on their own
account.
1t is smaller articles that make their
appearance in these little Christmas
booths. such articles as can be made at
night or in odd hours in the scant apart
ments where the Paris artisan is housed
The whole family has helped in the MAX
ing else. They are called articles de
Paris" They are often perfect marvels
of workmanship and do the greatest
credit to the skill and intelligence and
patience of their makers.
They are proofs of the difference be-
tween the French and the American
workman. Some years ago Sir Hiram
Maxim explained that it was necessary
to go to France for scientific instruments
of precision, because only French work.
men took interest enough and were pa
tent enough 20 work on and on until the
exact preciseness had been attained. FOR
the same reason the house of Alvan
Clarke had the lenses of it's great tele-
scopes polished in France by workmen
willing to understand the need of absolute
perfection and to go on polishing the
same glass with anxious attention for
year or two together
OF course, there is nothing like this on
sale at the Christmas booths, but il is
the same class of artisans who are artists
by the interest they take in their work
and their efforts at invention and per-