The copper era and Morenci leader., 1915-10-08
By GEORGE DUFREsNE.
tInternational News service.l

International News Service.) Parls.-Parisians have become so used to the war that they are now taking great interest in it es magnif- cent spectacle. Daily crowds of French people and tourists from Eng land and America make pilgrimages to points of vantage behind the lines, and gay weekend parties are held.
 The following letter comes from hotel near Boulogne-Sur-Mer:
 eff you would focus the war, or that large part of it which is collected at the base, come to the hotel.
 Tn all wars, of course-from Scu- tari to Capetown-there is just one hotel which is, so to say, universal tryst, a sort of Charing Cross, where everyone meets eventually and in the end. It is vanity fair, perhaps also slough of despond and delectable mountain, where pilgrims of all types and two sexes jostle and nudge, where in flood of khaki and brassards and woman's uniforms some few civilians go astray, where the incoming and out going hero relaxes for moment his heroism, where comedy prods tragedy in the ribs, where sentiment turns up holy eyes at quiet courage, and where all the medley of actors, interrupted in their parts by the hoots of steamers, the burr of hydroplanes and the tramp of route marches are apt to miss their cues in the fog of general rumor and incorrigible chatter.
 Could anyone tell what sort of piece, in what country, he was asked to watch? Was he assisting at his majasty's, the comedie franchise, the empire, or-merely Armageddon?
 ''Listen for a moment at random to some chattering groups.
 "'Who would have thought of meet ing you here?'
 "All the meetings begin like that; the one-armed colonel who hadn't met his friend since Dongola in 'S4. or the infant cavalry subaltern who ran into his Eton friends second sister now tracing missing men at base office, or the old, old, ex-major of something ending in Chester who exchanged questions with a famous statesman on the conva1escence of their respective sons
 And Thus They Chatter.
 "The greeting was followed in this particular instance by flood of ques- tions and answers. Who have you come to see? Is it the brother or the husband who is wounded? What! Not both! Impossible! Hurt the same week! The two of them on diff ferent floors of No. hospital? Both shrapnel, and in the shoulder? Dear me. Dear me. But if you are going to be wounded, give me the shoulder. All shoulders do well. And what heroes they will be! Why am here? Oh, I'm running feed-the-brute stall. You know. Coffee and cigarettes and bread and butter at peace-and-plenty prices. Started with $25 capital in Q waiting room, Now built bath houses and stalls regardless and feed 'em by the hundred. Oh, soldiers, all soldiers -of sorts. The difference is that all the fighters say, Thank you. miss, and the base fellows are apt to grouse. The army had thoughts of killing us oil. We started year ago in Sep tember. They thought about it till | 2PAA bA0 aA O AOV. eOAA6 bAAO PoSS. However, they won't kill me in a hurry. Might as well try to kill the r. M. c. A., who do a roaring trade in the same business. We save Q trag- edy a day from bad temper and starva. tion and a score from drunkenness. But if any of your friends went to send us something, plump for boxing gloves and punch balls. Now wait half a moment while I watch my chauffeur she cuts the bread and butter, you know-and we'll have lunch.
 Idiom of Initials.
 "The room was full of people with amazing brassards on their arms, red white, tricolor, and even green, and someone was retelling the standard story of the newcomer who asked an habitue at the base how to go some where or other. The answer began glibly in the prevalent idiom of mi tials:
 "'Oh, I should go to a T. c. O. who will introduce you to the D. A D. R. T., who will refer the matter to G. H. O.. and then But this was too much for the questioner.
 Excuse me- he said, I'm of to have a B. and s.
 "If he had gone on this mission al the moment he would have found two airmen, with their feet on the brass rail of the American bar, drinking an orange squash and discussing earnest ly whether it was worse to be shelled in the air or the trenches. They de | cided in favor of the air
 "Tm fairly terrified at shells on the ! ground said one. But in the air the1 1 don't Reeun to matter