A DIFFERENT PARIS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 102, 23 January 1918, Page 6

A DIFFERENT PARIS

, "AN ACHE IN THE HEART." By I. G. Falla (Paris Correspondent of "The Daily Mail.") "Do not give all your small change to '.he waiter." So runs one of a series of worldlywise "Don'ts" which a group of Paris business men have h.id printed m English for the guidance of British and American soldiers passing through Paris. To find such a notice exhibited in a fashionable restaurant from which formerly one was lucky to escape with one's watch and chain is something of a shock to old Parisiins of whatever nationality. Oric is reminded by it of the eternal question put by people at home: "Paris is still the same old plane, I presume?" The answer is that Paris is not "the same old place," and probably it never will be again. True, it has lost the wan, empty look it had in the first months of the war. Between five and seven o'clock boulevards and cafes are again crowded; from seven to nine tho restaurants are full to overflowing; from nine till eleven in theatre, music-hall, and kinenia "standing room only" is the rule. But Paris is distinctly not "tho same old place." It is not the same crowd. It is a quicker-moving crowd, a soldierly crowd in which three men out of five under the age of forty are in uniform. Paris has forgotten the meaning of the word "flaneur," to lounge. British khaki jostles French "horizon" blue; the saturnine Portuguese, the burly Belgian, the .warthy Serb, the brisk and ranid Russian, and, of late, the square-jawed, rather stern-visagod AmericanVthese are your boulevardiers of to-day.

And the cowboy hat, from across the Atlantic is beginning to dominate allot lea.'.t so far as the rank and file are concerned. For the young "collwo boy" from "over there" still affects, despite regulations, the banned "gorhlirnev" cap beloved of the British subaltern in the eurlv days of the war." For this reason, albeit ho tends to wear' a. white shirt with his khaki coat, the Parisian finds it hard, to di?* ; guish the American from his English brother officer. In time, however, Paris will learn the great racial distinction —the American soldier docs not carry a cane! Observant Englishmen were always able in time of peace to "spot"' an American for this reason ; and General Pershing has decreed that his army in France shall preserve the characteristic,

It is chiefly for the soldiers of stickless nation that the "Don'ts" referred to at the beginning of this article were drafted. For them, too, those Paris restaurateurs who had clung, to the bad old practice of having no prices on their menus have abandoned that ruinous habit.

Travellers from London tell us that within sound of the Zeppelin bombs one can still dine in quite a good restaurant for six' or seven shillings. You cannot do that in Paris, where living is now perhaps twice as dear as in London. The soldier on leave or passing through can got a hed and oathroom in a good hot-el for fifteen shillings, but a furnished flat or apartment will cost double what it did when Paris was "tho same old place." For the homeless but moneyed refugee from the invaded countries has descended on her in thousands and competes for bed .and board with the "rasta" from South America''and tho "metemie" from Europe's neutral countries. "Rasta"—short for rastaquoere—is the name the Parisian mves to the swart, he-diamonded men from near the, Equator, while a "nietcque" is a member of any other race he does not like. No; Paris in war time is a place where cafes and restaurants closo sternly at half-past nine; where tho street scavenging is done or left undone by a Kabyle in red fez and skimpy puttees; where bread is always drv and dark; where in a Government office you will still-find the porter sitting puffing his pipe under the notice; "No smoking allowed," which, as the wise traveller trulv said, is one reason "why we love France" ; where you may buv an evening paper no biancr than a' baby's pocket-handkerchief; where it is now "bad form" for a woman to be expensively froeked; and where only funeral mutes still wear top hats and evening dress. Yes. and Paris, more than any other city in the world, is a place where tears are silentlv shed in back rooms in back -streets hv women who bravely smite in public though in their hearts a smile will never bloom again. is, and always will be, a woman, but the real Paris was never "gay PnTP''" —not at, anv rr> in the sense of tho, drnegle-tail in Phil May's picture. Tn some wnvs she is still the "same old Pavip:" for she i= still ind will remain the Oi'v of Lisrht. But she has an ache at her heart.