PARISIANA.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 231, 29 September 1928, Page 13 (Supplement)

PARISIANA.

A YOUNG ICONOCLAST.

«OLD MASTERS" SHOULD BE

BUBJTED !

WARNING TO DENTISTS,

(By GEORGE CECIL.)

PARIS, August 14. A very young French painter, whose hair, like Absolein's, floats in the breeze, and whose absurdly conceived and ridiculously executed pictures even jnake impressionists and cubists laugh, has been honoured far beyond hio wildest dreams. For the editor of a serious review invited the lad (he is but a mere stripling of two-and-twenty) to contribute his views on the Old Masters.

"You rejoice in 'youth's sweet frankincense,' wrote the "directeur," who is both waggish and poetical. "But, if your experience is not as long as your hair, you doubtless will express yourself with energy and originality " Young Apollo (such is his fanciful and pretentious Christian name) literally jumpedlj at the invitation, for he is very athletic/ gave a studio party to celebrate the honour, and, having recovered from the effect of no fewer than nine glasses of mixed tipple, "got busy." From three o'clock in the morning till sunrise he laid pen to paper. "They Should be Burned" was the startling title of his article, which, incidentally, gave an unexpected impetus to the paper's circulation. ' Artistic Paris clamoured for copies. The screed, a most saucy lucubration, commences as follows:—"Fashion changes in Art (note the capital 'A') or in hats, lteubens and all the rest of them suited their period. To approve of these efforts in this age of enlightenment is perfectly absurd. One might as well prefer a post-chaise to a motor cajr—or snuff to a cigarette. They simply destroy the taste for modertf pictures, which, as everyome knows, are far superior. Their influence is corruptive and utterly pernicious. 1 would gladly see each canvas burned, and at the hands of the public executioner."

An elderly exhibitor at the Salon administered to the holder of this impudent opinion two violent boxes on the ear, the castigation having taken place in public. Cards were immediately exchanged—a duel may follow. Rarely ddes a Parisian sue a dentist for incompetency. The law, as elsewhere, is a very expensive luxury. An infuriated Scotchman, however, being a bird of passage, brought an action for damages against a dentist who is so old that the judge has ordered him to cease practicing. The venerable dental surgeon, with his totally bald cranium, shaggy eyebrows, deeplv-wrinkled face, and long white beard, which, patients declare, tickles them, cuts an imposing figure, while his circumspection and benevolence have gained for him the respect of those upon whom he does not operate. But, having mistaken a sound eye tooth for an aching molar, extracting it with doubtful skill, the unhappy man has been struck off the roll of practising dentists.

The advocate employed by the defendant set up an uncommon plea. ''My revered client," said he, with many an oratorical flourish, '"is as blameless as the new-born babe. The Scotchman who had taken more whisky than he could stand, reeled into the surgery, and shouted out something in the language of his mountainous native land. A linguiftie hnglish pat ent in the adjoining waiting-room, coming to the rescue. intT mated that the bibulous one desjred to have a tooth drawn. Aly esteemed client, through tbe interpreter, asked the sufferer to indicate where t e trouble was m ati'd. An unsteady finger pointed to a tooth, anil out it came. No dentist could be expected to have acted otherwise.''

The judgo proved un-vmpathetic, for he merely remarked that a dental surgeon is bound to know a good from a bad tooth. Damages for the plaintiff—and a substantial amount, too.