Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1914-09-06
PARIS SUBURBS
 SEEN NO MORE #
Handsome Villas and Mod est Cots Alike Razed in
 Expectancy of Siege.
(By George Bufresne.)

(Dy dcOIS6
 Paris, Sept. 5.-Like lovely wom an shorn of her tresses, Paris today stands alone, city without suburbs. Gone are the little villages where lived some of the city's laboring peo- pie. Gone are the houses and barns of the market gardners. Gone, too are some of the handsome villas, the country homes of well-to-do Paris ians.
 The military wreckers today had finished their work of raging all the environs of Paris and the capital has dintinctly "bobtailed" look. The suburbs were demolished against the dreaded but deprecated contingency that the Germans might invest Paris.
 It was deemed necessary by the war office, now in supreme control, that the country for many miles around Paris be cleared of houses, in order that the forts defending the capital might have interrupted range and also that tine enemy might have no shelter to aid their advance. In order to rage homes, surrender ing without compensation the fruits of their years of toll was perhaps the first thing that brought to Frenchmen of the younger generations realiza- ten of all that war and martial law means. The survivors of 1870 know all about confibcation and siege and destruction of property but younger
 Parislans perhaps did not fully com prehend the situation until they heard the explosions that tore down hn4ntIflI rkc
 of Paris and saw homesteads go by the board.
 But there was little complaint and fermentation heard as the result of the destruction of the suburbs. Save for
 the tears of some. old women, weeping for the loss of the homes and their fares and penates" there was no pro- test. Throughout her history France has been military nation and French men have for generations been taught to accept the fortunes of war. 1t Is the youth of the country who are learning new things now. At first the war was more or less of a frollc, intermiXed with bitter denun- citations of Germany The gathering of troops, their departure amid the
 waving of flags and ringing of chers seemed like holiday occas- ion. Then came the shortage of money. That carried to the conscious ness of the people that they were up against serious situation.
 And then came martial law. It's rigid provisions convicted even the most buoyant and volatile that war
 was real, that in it's dire effects it touched the whole people, women and children as we'll as fighting men.
 The uneasiness oi the Parisians has been increased ilate by the per formances of German aviators who have flown over the city and dropped bombs. True, the missiles have done little damage, only few persons being wounded and scattering build ing damaged. Most of the bombs have failed to explode. But the fact that ueadth and destruction threatens them out of the very air, naturally makes the people nervous and anx- iOus.
 The Notifications of Paris and their ability to resist siege are receiving careful attention these days while the clty's detailed defenses are sur
 rounded with secrecy by the military
 authorities yet their general characted and formidable strength are we'll known. These notifications consist of three distinct circles,
 sweeping around the city; first the solid wall of masonry, IS feet high,
 extending for tyenty-two miles
 around the old section of Paris: sec ond the system of seventeen detach- ed forts, arranged at intervals, two
 miles beyond the wall and making a | circuit of the city thirty-four miles | long and third, an outer girdle of forts, seventy-five miles long on the
 heights commanding the valley of fensethe Seine
 ach of these circles of masonry
 and steel is complete defense i'll itself, the forts being linked together with redoubts, bastion and glacis, which permit cross-fire against approach from any direction. The
 magnitude of the system is shown by it's era, which exceeds 400 square
 miles.
 The wall around Paris and the sev-
 eral detached forts two miles out 1 side were built by Louis Philippe.
 They withstood the siege of 1S70-'71 l and the outer forts have since been greatly strengthened and equipped with modern guns by Gen. Joseph Joffre. the French Generalissimo in the present war; The third line of forts on the hills are of modern con- .,f.