The Washington times., 1935-09-28
NOW
Some Odd Bits
Of Paris Life
CAFE SIGHTS
PARIS
BY HELEN ESSARY

EAfb4O
BY HELEN ESSARY
The sidewalk cafes are a fas-
cinating part of Paris life. One
may buy a drink and sit an
hour or two watching the crowd
go by.
Grand danes. beggars with
cru tches, Americans looking
hopeful, English in tweeds,
black-eyed South Americans,
French provincials in practical
clothes, students in the Latin
Quarter, the boys in pantaloons,
often with long hair under their
beretS, American Negroes, self
confident as they never are in
the States.
A flower girl, an aged crea-
ture with a black apron around
her fat waist, will try to sell
you violets.
English viOlets! See, Mad
anne! They have real perfume"
When you buy bouquet, the
flowers die. The scent remains.
It is artificial.
You may even buy a Bible
while you are having abSinthe.
or kirsch or brandy out of big
round glass. In the busiest
part of the afternoon, two
women march up and down the
Rue de la Paix, carrying a sort
of stand, banked with Bibles
and crying their wares very
loudly.
! Between the hundred or so
of bridges along the Seine
the Seine is the heart Of Paris
are always fishermen.
Patiently they sit, hour after
hour. waiting for a bite. Pari-
slams tell me that the record
catch of fish in one week was
seven fish. One fish a day for
seven days!
If you want to buy a coat
hanger-and you will-say:
please, mademOiselle, sell me
. pOrtemanteau."
The older French woman of
the lower class has no sugges-
ton of chic or beauty. She is
q crone out of a story book.
Sometimes she sits in the
park, wrapped in shapeless
clothes, her hair in a tight
knot, a big hat held on with a
clumsy pin, and knitS and knits
and knitS.
The Paris streets are much
cleaner than the streets of New
York. You never see any scraps
Of paper or pieces Of food about.
The calves in France seldom
grow up into cows. They go
into veal outlets at an early
age.
I wish the percherons, big
footed draft horses, wouldn't go
by my hotel windows in jingling
harness during the middle Of
the night.
They are probably m arket
horses, bringing in the early
morning food supply to millions
of hungry Parisians and the
tourists.
| The orchestra conductor at
the Paris Opera House looks
lika Santa Clans.
Paris newspapers are very
small, but they've always room
to criticize the U. S.
Pedicures are advertised in
large letters, in many shop
windows.
American lady, Phi. D. Of his
tory at University Of Wisconsin,
on loose in the Bois de Bou-
1ogne, remarks:
! American girls are chicken
than French girls"
You may wash your clothes
in the Seine if you want to.
Some people do. There's no
law against it.
It's cheaper than patronlNng
D "blanchisSeuSe."
There is definite diScrimina-
tion against foreign labor in
Paris. It is almost impossible
for an American to get a job
here.
| Some Paris movie houses at
tempt a synchronization of
French words with the Ameri-
can film.
When sprightly French
phrases come trippingly from
the tongue of a fierce guy in an
Arizona roundup, it's good.
I also liked the Alabama Ne
gro saying in French:
"YOu are more than kind,
MademOiselle, and 1 wish you
great good fortune"
At the American Express
those pleasant fellows there
know more and are kinder than
anybody else in the world-a
tall young American lad was
sending to Collect" Lansing,
Mich, this cable:
Rush a hundred. Sailing
Saturday. BILL"
Coast Guard Saves