New Britain herald., 1916-08-18
PARIS RETURNS ID
 OLD MOTHER TONGUE
And Private Automobiles Give
 Way to Motor BuSSeS
of the Asso. Press

Correspondence of the Asso. Press)
 Paris, July 27.-Paris has be- come quite French" declared a lately-arrived American. T never heard so much French spoken in Paris before''
 In fact, as a result of the continu- ance Of the war, Paris to the foreign CT 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 harequinade costume of cosmopol i!anism, it's glittering tinsel and garish night light; and to have put on tho more simple dress of an earlier and less luxuryloving age.
 Paris has become, in a word, pro- vincial 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 diapason of all the notes in the hum sof a great city's population busy about it's daily occupations is lowered to what is almost a murmur; the hoot Of the taXi-horn is heard less fre- QTently and, the "barkers at the shows along the boulevards have ceased to bark; Want guide, sir ~ is now never, or hardly ever heard. The neWSbOy'S yell IS SteInIy re- pressed by the police.
 The tourist element of Paris is all but entirely wanting. Before the war, especially at this season, tour ists were to be met with in all quar- ters of the city, very considerable portion of them Germans; now the comparatively small number of stran- gers here are chiefly those on business i'll connection 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 today Dublin was described by Lady Mary Montague as the "car- Grivingest city in the wOrld.' Paris, for some few years before the war, could with propriety be described as the automob -drivingest city in Flu rope. Besides the vast variety of cars owned by Paris residents there was always a stream of more or less high 1 powered and luxurious tourist auto l mobiles passing through on their way | 10 Brittany with it's well known sea- side summer resorts, to Normandy | and to Touraine with their historic castles, or still further aield, right through the middle of France down to Biarritz and the Riveria. This traf- ic has completely ceased. In it's stead one sees hardly anything but slate colored motor wagons, red-crOss au- or the ordinary taXicab. Taxicabs are now hardly mum crOus enough to meet the inhabitants Ordi- nary wants. This dearth of taXicabs | is intensified by the stOppage, ever l since the war began, of the convent i cnt and rapid system of motor buses | plying to and from all parts of Paris |
 They were reQuisitiOned imm eCliate- , ly war began and are reported to | have done yeoman's service in trans 1 ferring men and stores at and just be- ] hind the front.
 One means of transport, however, seems to be as popular as ever-the l "bateau-n nouches' (boats-a -big-as-a- -fIy) which ply along the Seine from | Charenton, by the Louvre, the Place c;e la Concorde, Passy and Auteil, as far as Bellevue, St. Cloud and, Surcs- nes With the summer weather they arc more crowded than in time of peace nor is it surprising to find it SO f,s the voyage of some seven or eight miles much of it through pretty scenery, costs little more than five