The Cordova daily times., 1916-07-21
BECOMING FRENCH SAYS
 AMERICAN

of the Associated Press.) - Paris now has become quite French" de ciared a lately arrived American. q never heard so much French spoken in Paris before.' ;.
 In fact, as a result of the continu- ance of war, Paris to the foreigner seems, if it Is not so in reality, for the first time since 1870, to be truly and obviously Gallic. to have put off it's harlequinade costume of cosmopoli- tanism, it's glittering tinsel and garish nightlight: and to have put on the more simple and sober dress of an earlier and less luxury loving age.
 Paris has become, in a word. pro yincial. chiefly owing to two causes the absence of the tourist and the de- cline in traffic. The city is far less crowded and bustling than usual. The diapson of all the notes in the hum of great city's population busy about it's daily occupations is lowered to what is almost murmur; the hoot of the busy taxi horn is heard less ire auently, and, the "barkers" at the shows along the boulevards have ceased to bark Want a guide, sir?" is now never, or hardly ever. heard. The newsboy's yell is sternly re- pressed by the police.
 The tourist element in Paris is all but entirely wanting. Before the war, especially at this season. tourists were to be met with In all quarters of the city, very considerable portion of them Germans; now the comparative ly small number of strangers here are chiefly those on business in connec- ton with war contracts, and. of course, mostly men.
 The almost total disappearance of the private automobile is another thing that cannot fail to strike the visitor of today. Dublin was described by Lady Mary Montague as the "car driviest city in the world" Paris, for some few years before the war, could with propriety be described as the automobile-drivies city in Europe. Besides the vast variety of cars owned by Paris residents there was always a stream of more or less high-powered and luxurious tourist automobiles pass ing through on their way to Brittany with its well known seaside summer resorts, to Normany and to Touraine with their historic castles, or still fur ther afield. right through the middle of France, down to Biarritz and the Riviera. This traffic has completely ceased. In it's stead one sees hardly anything but slate colored motor wagons, Red Cross automobiles, or the ordinary taxicab. Taxicabs are now hardly numerous enough to meet the inhabitants ordinary wants. This dearth of taxicabs is intensified byI the stoppage, ever since the war be- gan, of the convenient and rapid sys tenn of motor busses plying to and from all parts of Paris.
 They were requisitioned immediate iy war began, and are reported to have done yeoman's service in transferring men and stores at and just behind the front.
 One means of transport, however, seems to be as popular as ever - the (boats as big as a fly), which ply along the Seine from Charenton by the Louvre, the Place de la Concorde, Passy and Auteuil, as far as Bellevue, St. Cloud and Sures- nes. With the summer weather they are more crowded than in time of peace, nor is it surprising to find 1t | so, as the voyage of some seven or eight miles, much of it through pretty 1 scenery, costs little more than five cents.