"TRISTE" PARIS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3137, 16 July 1917, Page 4

"TRISTE" PARIS

DESCRIBED BY A VISITOR, A visitor to Wellington, who has visited Paris during the present year described tho scene as very ead. "You people here," ho 6aid, "are complaining because you aro without a few hours' gas daily. How would it be with you were you to suffer as the people of Paris suffer P Do you know that they have been without gas for over a vear, and that it is many months since the Parisiennes havo had electric light? Most of the people use candles or oil lamps for lights, and every evening tho windowe are double-blinded so that no ray of light may penetrate the gloom outside. That is because they must give no guide to enemy's aircraft of any kind. Bight through last, winter there was no coal for the pepplo of Paris, no coal for gasworks or electric powerhouses, no coal for the railways other than those engaged in military service. AH tho coal that could be got was needed for military purposes—the people simply had to manage as best they could. It was a hard, long, cold winter, too. Having no coal—the French coalfields are in the hands of the Bosche—the French people resorted to the charcoal stove and bra?.ier to supply some degree of warmth. Such stoves are all right if they have a chimney to draw off the fumes, but now and again one heard of people who sucounibsd to tho fumes as they drowsed over charcoal fires in rooms, that were ill-ventilated.

"Few entertainments ore now given in Pai'is—perhaps a few vaudeville shows to help entertain the soldiere home on leave from tho trenches—no opera, and very few comedies. All families have been nffected—6ome killed outright. Oh, the fnmilies that have died out through thia terrible war! Everything is so, so—tnete! But they will fight on to tho end. They have the measnre of the Hun, and are far from being, the poor, decadent raco that would be easily overrun by the highly-trained hordes of Germany. France has proved that she can meet them and , teat them on level terms. It is the spirit of France that is beating the Hun. every time he conies, and so it will bo till the glorious finish!"