The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1922-12-10

are tables piled high with bargains
and customers pushing and scramb-
ling to buy. The store windows are
museum of fine stuffs, novelties
and new creations, and some tiny
shops have window displays worth a
fortune. l stopped this afternoon on
a fashionable street before a store
not much bigger than a piano box,
whose little window contained a
show Of wrist watches such as,
venture to say, you cannot find in
New York or Chicago. Behind the
plate glass against a background of
black velvet were scores of wrist
watches, each as small as a postage
stamp, and many but little thicker.
One. the size of my thumb nail, had
a face of platinum encircled with dia-
monds, and the bracelet to which it
was fastened was OF pearls exquisite
ly set Had I a sweetheart / would
have walked to Berlin to buy it.
Other watches were fastened to rib
bons of silk. Some We're set in pearls
and some hung on bracelets decor
ated with diamonds. In a store win
dow farther on | saw collection of
nothing but cigarette cases, gold and
silver and diamond strewn, and in
another, that of famous dressmaker,
was doll dressed as model 1t
represented new costume, and the
face was SO artistically cut that the
doll might hold an honored place in
almost any museum.
The store windows here are better
dressed than those of America. In
the larger establishments they can
hardly compete with New York, but
In the little shops they are far more
artistic than ours. This is SO of even
the meanest shops in out OF the way
quarters of Paris. Take a fruit store.
Each rosy-cheeked peach lies in a
ped OF white cotton, strawberries as
Dig as hens egg are each wrapped
IN green leaf, and half dozen blue
piums, or three or four lunches of
grapes are laid out On the table as
though for banquet. 1t is the same
IN the grocery stores where sQuashes
ana turnlps, green beans and peas
are pied up as at one of our county
fairs; and the chickens and game are
dressed with their heads tucked nm
der their~wings. The chickens lie on
their breasts. with a little printed
price mark pinned to the center of
each rosy back. They are clean
enough to kiss and | 10 not wonder
they sell.
These displays all stop with the
- N'Ah6- hG oNOicos WHICH open al
about a. M, close at Z p. M, when
every window is covered with shut
ter that slides down from the top,
making wall OF sheet iron over the
fren mt. At the same time the clerks
leave. crawling out through a little
door IN the iron about a yard high,
a long procession OF women and men
going forth single file like SO many
dogs. They straighten I'd immedi-
ately. however, and walk off SC
Jauntily that one would never i'm
agine they had been working all dav.
In the Department Stores
Paris has 100 small shops and fac
tories where Chicago or Philadelphia
each has one. The French nation il
one of individualists, and every little
store has its specially. But there are
also department stores. some of
which cover acres and Compare ia
vorably with those of the states. Here
the business done is enormous. The
buildings themselves are thronged
and the sidewalks are given up to
counters. where one may see men.
women and children pulling over the
goods and fighting for bargains.
in the small shops there are often no
price marks. but in the department
stores the goods have tags with plain
flgures, and the tourist need not be
on his guard against paying more
than he should.
The clerks everywhere are uni
formly courteous and almost always
well dressed. The women clerks wear
only black. and the floor walkers
have long coats like those of the old
fashioned preacher. Many Of the
clerks have luxuriant whiskers, for
in France the hair grows on mans
face. l may say also on the head.
for we Yankees have seven bald
heads where the French have one.
There are quite as many young
boards as old ones. and have mid
die aged clerks waiting on me who
look as though they had never been
shaved. like to study the whiskers.
They are beautifully combed and
now and then parted in the middle.
THOUSANDS Of men wear moustaches.
and some such fierce looking ones